I think you first have to ask yourself: Is grunge really a genre? Or was it a marketing gimmick dreamed up by someone looking to make some bucks.

When I think of grunge I don't think of Soundgarden, Mudhoney, TAD, Treepeople or Nirvana. I think of the bands that moved to Seattle or tried to jump on the "grunge explosion" bandwagon to make a buck.

Very interesting. I think grunge became a category, yes. Then it became a catch-all?

We could say 'Proto' is Pre-Grunge Explosion.

Smashing Pumpkins though? What the hell? Whoever put that in there, needs to do the Buzzo dot-to-dot like 60 times on the blackboard.

I hate to do this, but I'm looking 'Grunge' up in the Encarta dictionary. Fuck.

grunge:

- a variety of rock music that emerged in the 1980s in the United States and owes much to punk and heavy metal (often used before a noun).

- a style of dress, popularized by fans of grunge music, typified by second-hand clothes worn in layers, heavy footwear, unkempt hair, and an overall scruffy appearance.

See? Fuck.

It's all music. End of discussion.

Speaking of Vaseline...behold.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOR4qekHWlA

"proto-grunge" = an adjective for a musical style that makes about as much sense as "post-punk".

@5,

Holy shit. Something's wrong there.

Jason, you are right. But I know you have to classify your bands at some point.

Tool is not music. Tool is calculus.

If "proto" is so valid you could call '50s American blues proto-English '60s blues (or punk for that matter as the line of "proto/influence" can be stretched however THIN as the writer decides), United Mutation is proto Crust (ahem...PEACE PUNK), or James Brown is "proto" rap. It's fucking stupid.

I hate the term "proto," it tends to be used as a revisionist term...mainly by writers/nerds that didn't LIVE through or have little understanding of any given period they chose to cite, and as they have NO IDEA the proper context of the "proto" band's music they can overlay "proto" as a catch word to explain how so and so band listened to such and such and as a result it then became an influence of an entire "movement!" Like the grunge movement...not sure what moved at the time tho' except the scene into the toilet...um, and I was there. Of course, nothing happens in a vacuum...and Nirvana wasn't the only band tagged grunge. So...Kurt liked the Vaselines...fine, but no one in the U.S. HEARD them really until after sub pop issued that record...annd even then it was a tough sell! And ah...Neil Young and hair metal had very little, if anything to do with the grunge!

All the pop writers at the time, 1992, found they had no reference for this load of "post" (HA!) hardcore, slowed down heavy sorta punk ROCK...but they weren't part of the scene. It's only gotten more confusing since.

Treepeople are not only one of the best proto-grunge bands, they're one of the best proto-emo bands. Yep, it's true.

Holy crap, someone remembers United Mutation! The Vaselines only got attached to grunge because Cobain talked about them and covered them. Somehow "influence" has been twisted into "proto," probably by a sneaky journalist.

nipper is proto-dan10things

The Vaselines were 100 times better than Nirvana or anything Seattle was offering at the time. Everything on 53rd & 3rd was brilliant, ace, sparkling, wonderful. Shoppies, Talulah Gosh, BMX Bandits, Jesse Garon and the Desperadoes -- Beat Happening even had a record on there. They were kind of like the Scottish K, only with better records. One of the pillars of indiepop.

I wouldn't call the Vaselines proto-grunge (the Melvins is the answer to that question, full stop) or twee, either, except in places. Twee elements, but not really that twee. They had the raunchy sex element, which points in the direction of My Bloody Valentine, too.

Proto-Emo, you never hear that. That "such and such a band is proto-emo."

Behold, Proto-Emo: Husker Du.

And Morrissey.

Man!

Nipper never misses a chance to dis Neil Young...

Ooohhh, and uh-what alternate reality do you live in Fnarf?????????

I believe that for something to be called a "...pillar(s) of indiepop," it has to have at least entered mass consciousness at some point in time. Even if only on extremely micro level.

53rd & 3rd does not meet that very subjective depiction of "pillars of indiepop."

Better luck next time!

it's kind of obvious what they meant was "Kurt Cobain liked them" and nothing more.

I'm feeling a little proto-diarrhea coming on from this discussion.

Fnarf still has a raging hard-on for all that fey, twee British pop from his glorious youth that he read about in NME and Melody Maker. So of course Vaselines >>> Nirvana. Let him maintain his fantasy that that was the greatest music ever created. It's harmless enough, as fantasies go. He's one of those anglophiles who'd take Tallulah Gosh over, oh I don't know, Thirteenth Floor Elevators or James Brown, and be damned proud of it till the day he dies.

Who liked the Vaselines first, Cobain or Fnarf?

Not that it matters. No wait, this all totally matters.
Who was proto-into the Vaselines?

Long live Fnarf.
Long live Nipper.

Is there a dot-to-dot of Nipper?

ug...the Smiths had NOTHING to do with Emo...they were not invited to the Revolution Summer! It was all DC hardcore kids, that there was some Smiths influence is revisionist. It wasn't until the early '90s as the white belts of Oly and San Diego interested then high school kids who were weened on the Smiths did the Smiths factor into Emo, but by then Emo was finished to be reborn as a term for whatever the fuck contemporary writers insist on using it as now!

Regarding Husker Du, in '85 when everyone, not in DC, was just hearing Rites Of Spring all that was said was, "Wow, that sounds like Husker Du." And that was as far as it got, because on second listening to the RoS LP we all knew it was something else...then we all heard the Gray Matter EP. I'd say the Beatles had more sway in the world of proto-emo than the Smiths...so I guess the Beatles are proto-emo, right?

@10 I LOVE the Treepeople. Only saw 'em once in NC, prior to my move to WA...hands down the best thing Dug ever did (what was that band he was in, they're proto-Modest Mouse? HAHA!). I had the luck of working with Pat before he died.

@12 Brian, I love you!

@15! hahahahaha! I only dis the idea that Neil Young is somehow responsible for grunge! I actually love the man and the mighty Buffalo Springfield...oh GIMME GIMME GIMME some Springfield (a very "PROTO" kinda band!!

Pete Maravich's socks (nice reference), I was digging James Brown before you were born. But yeah, Talulah Gosh probably ranks a little higher than the Elevators. At least, I'd a lot sooner pull out a Talulah Gosh record and listen to it right now than anything Roky Erickson has ever been involved in, fascinating as he is.

Nipper's right about the DC hardcore kids too. They also had a big influence on my corner of the world, all that twee shit that Socks thinks only comes from England. Lois was a DC thing before she was an Oly thing. You can connect Tsunami to Fugazi via Nation of Ulysses, I think.

I don't have a problem with "proto" (I'm rather fond of "proto-punk"). I do have a problem with "grunge." It's the ultimate outsider's term, and I refuse to use it (not because I'm an "insider," but as a show of respect). It's like "mumblecore." The directors who get described as such can't stand that term. I always sensed that the so-called grunge musicians felt the same way. I'd be lying if I said I didn't use the term at the time, but I retired it several years ago.

What about Orc-Rock? Can I use that?

You're right, Kathy. I use "grunge" as a term of disrespect.

I'm with Fnarf. The C86 bands like Tallulah Gosh were so much better than grunge. Grunge was a bunch of pouting, self-pitying white middle class twats.

I wish Cobain would not have killed himself, because otherwise he would be just another bloated Eric Clapton type. Suicide does wonderful things for a music career. The public regards you as a legend for no reason at all.

Most of the people involved in music journalism I think begin with a love for music, but it quickly takes a backseat to their drive to really try and recontextualize music in a way that makes them feel they are, or were, a part of it, which is almost never the case. Greg Shaw's and Legs McNeil's aside.

I really enjoyed Everette's tenure in some ways, but Grunge is a despicable term. Proto-grunge? Not only bad, their example doesn't even make sense.

#27 - I won't defend MOST of the artist that fall under the misnomer, but in the case of Nirvana, The Melvins, and a few other of the big ones, "middle class" isn't exactly where they were coming from, and is kinda a strange argument as an antithesis to Tallulah Gosh.

He's being facetious, Dougsf.

What's funny is when white middle-class kids pretend that they're not white middle-class kids. This applies to all the grunge people in Seattle who were spitting on me as I walked down Broadway, and the record store clerks who laughed in my face when I asked to see the seven-inch singles. I didn't get that attitude in Boston or New York; only in insecure, pompous Seattle, which was full to overflowing with hipsters pretending that they were hip before it was hip to be hip, that THEY weren't part of the hype machine, oh no, not us, you mean those fools who read the New York Times article.

Seattle's postpunk interpretation of rock has always been desperate for approval (while also desperate to be seen as not wanting approval), and reeking of macho bullshit. The grunge aesthetic was an attempt to play tough, to be mean, be "authentic" and working class (gas station jackets, anyone?) and inadvertently to reenact every meathead thug parody ever devised. Seattle rock has always been almost pure, undistilled macho bullshit. Seattle has always had the worst bands and the worst record stores and the most tiresome crowds.

I'll take a bunch of tiny girls with plastic barrettes in their hair anyday, then or now.

Vote Fnarf.

WoW!

Tell us how you really feel.

I believe "Electronica" & "Dub-Step" tie for the title of the "Ultimate Outsider's Term."

Fnarf! After I moved here I met the same attitude! Not so much from the younger folks (natch, DugSF formerly Dug15thAveE!!), but by many of the older established scene folks (no names in public!). It was weird since I came from a close knit uh..."community" and it was odd the bullshit I found, so completely pointless and embarrassing. Tho' no one spit on me! Eep.