Customer Reviews

Grunge

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

What I read about the book from the description on Amazon led me to believe that the book was composed mostly of Thurston Moore talking about grunge music. There is only about two pages of Thurston giving a basic history of grunge music, nothing that I hadn't read before though. At the end of the book he writes short biographies of the bands, but they don't include much more than where the bands were from and who was in the bands. The majority of the book is composed of pictures of grunge bands taken by Michael Lavine. The pictures are all in black and white, but they are very high quality and are presented one picture to a page. I had not seen most of the photographs in the book. It starts with pictures of some random punk-rockers who were hanging out on the streets of Seattle circa 1983 but then goes into the pictures of the bands. There were pictures of U-Men, Love Battery, an interesting one of L7 and Cat Butt, Blood Circus,Skin Yard, as well as many other lesser known bands. It also included ones of Kurt Cobain/Nirvana, Courtney Love/Hole, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, and the other big names. Although the book wasn't at all what I expected, I was excited because I had never pictures of some of these bands, and the pictures are of a very beautiful quality. For information, look elsewhere, but if you want to see some awesome pictures of grunge bands check this book out.

If there's one thing I learned from this book, it's that Michael Lavine sure gets around. The first half of the photos in this book actually document his encounters with random gutter punks in the streets of 1983 Seattle. The next half jumps straight ahead to 1987-1993 where he's moved to New York and is snapping promo photos and album art for many familiar bands. It's a somewhat awkward transition that caught me off guard, but still proves to be a very interesting contrast.

Thurston Moore's contribution isn't much, but it introduces the setup well enough.

If you have any interest whatsoever in 80's punk/alternative/grunge, I'd say this is definitely worth a look.

Took me right back - to the clubs - to the fuzzy, earringing after hours - to Belltown - to the 80s - to my wilder youth. Love, LOVE this book!

I was given this book as a gift. Although the photos are fantastic... half of them are of common punk rockers from 1983. I wanted to see photos of grunge bands from that era and into the 90's. There were some... but not all of the "grandfathers of grunge" where even mentioned let along photographed. No Green River, No Mother Love Bone? Malfunkshin? I feel like Levine had some leftover pictures and thought... hey lets make a book about grunge. It's not a complete glimpse of grunge music in Seattle. And I love Thurston Moore but again... his little "intro" fell short. HELLO! YOU are GRUNGE! Give some feeling Moore... tell us what it was like. Tell us about the entire grunge movement's reaction to Wood's drug overdose, the dirty clubs, the art of it. I don't need a band bio... I can search wikipedia for that.

It was shipped on time and it arrived in good condition for Christmas. My husband really likes the book. The only down side was that it did not include any information or pictures of Alice in Chains and that is his favorite band. Besides that, he loved it.

To be quite honest, I was really dissapointed when I got this book. Everywhere you read about on the net was calling this book a great retrospective with almost astonishing material you would'nt find anywhere else (if they meant the few bands shots, that's kind of correct)

The book, mostly, comes with pictures from random people at places that gave birth to "the scene" of early 80's to mid 90's and only a few pictures are from the bands that were important for the Seattle scene, but being a few doesn't mean it sucks, actually the band pictures add a lot of consistency to the book's goal. However the lack of mmore band pictures is a pity, cause Michael lavine has a huge collection of pics from Seattle bands, or at least from the so-called "alternative era"

Anyways, for those who like staring at beatiful B & W pictures the books makes it. I like B & W pics, but again Mr. Lavine's music works will never be as interesting as Charles Peterson's, He's the guy you should be into if you are infatuated with Grunge.

The hardcover, and the whole desing of the book is quite good, pictures are also very good, but considering the little amount of "Grunge Bands" on it, the book title would've been better known as "Seattle 80's & 90's underground" but i get that "Grunge" nowadays is a business word for those with enough age to have a regular job if you know what I mean.

The photography of Michael Lavine is poignant and intriguing. He takes us back in history and clarifies our mind's fading pictures.

Good photos, but it's really not a book about Nirvana, if that's what readers are looking for. And Thurston Moore's contribution is opportunistic, as usual, and minimal. My girlfriend's picture is in it.