This is just dumb. It's not that crucial and it's not the "history of grunge. Tell me which bands you think I "forgot!"" episode. There's no logical reason to do another vid. Oh, so he can name all the bands everyone thinks he "missed" or "forgot"? Yea, no. You know you can always make your own supplementary vid to this one if you think there are bands that need to be included for some reason. 🤷 Just sayin... Obviously Josh talked about the bands he wanted to talk about. If you think there are others that belong in his grunge pedal video, you can always talk about them yourself since you think there's thinhs that still need to be said as it relates to guitar pedals. RU-vid has enough room for all of us lol
I needed a good laugh this morning, I didn't realize how bad. The Sonic Youth jam had me rolling on the floor. You guys get it. Thanks for doing this and so much else. 😀 "Who's Tina?" "You wouldn't get it."...lost my mind.
Wow... Belle moved on from being a regular JHS heckler to the new vocalist for JHS band... Now she's gonna nag the audience on many possible issues aside no one knowing Tina.
She nailed the "exactly!" retort that every woman seems to have. As in "you're wrong? You don't know why you're wrong?! Just proves you wrong!" Source : many arguments with a woman.
No Alice In Chains mention? Idk how you don't mention Jerry in a video like this. His tone is legendary in both rock and metal. They were part of the big 4...
@@corkystclair7475 more metal that ""hard rock"", same can be said with Soundgarden, and their more grunge than Smashing Pumpkins, maybe grunge is a terrible word that holds no weight as none of the "big 5" sound any alike
Really glad you mentioned Mudhoney. I know that Superfuzz Bigmuff is hard to find, but you can probably find a copy of Boiled Beef and Rotting Teeth which is also terrific. Would have loved to see some Screaming Trees in there too. And tell Belle that she does a PERFECT Kim Gordon.
Is Superfuzzbigmuff actually hard to find? I stumbled upon a copy at a local shop for 15 bucks, bought it even though I'm not a massive fan because it's iconic
my theory is that Josh frequents record stores and maybe amazon/ebay/reverb and simply didn't know of discogs so basically he pulls from semi regional pool of record stores where maybe that record is somewhat uncommon.
@@VuotoPneumaNN Ah, another elitist post-hipster gatekeeping guardian of SY.. Someone who has endlessly researched SY on the internet and knows all.. just another sad fanboy
I feel like it's the first proper JHS Show episode I've seen in the longest time, even if it's technically not. Is it something about the formula? I don't know. Love all.
I got a DS-2 last week. The best feeling ever is running it through a British amp and having it on Cobain’s settings. My neighbors really have come to love the sound.
After watching this and having lived trough the Grunge era, I have no idea what grunge is anymore. Seems that according to Josh, it seems you have to be from Seattle or in The Smashing Pumpkins. How is Possum Kingdom not Grunge?
This isn't the first time I've heard Smashing Pumpkins described as a grunge band, but honestly, I don't get it. They're not from the Pacific Northwest, they don't sound like other bands in the grunge genre, nor did they look like other bands in the grunge genre. To me, Smashing Pumpkins are closer to shoegaze bands like MBV than grunge bands like Nirvana and Soundgarden.
There’s a lot of heterogeneity in the grunge sound, especially if you take into account the sound of all the “official” grunge bands from the late 80s to the late 90s. For example, the power pop punk songs on Nevermind have very little in common with AIC songs on Dirt.
Standing ovation to the JHS band! 🎉 Sonic Youth, Pearl Jam and Smashing Pumpkins sound was spot on. I could close my eyes and see those bands playing live.
Grunge didn't come around in 1990 it came around in about 1984 (which was when Soundgarden first formed). It really comes from the sound the Melvins created.
A lot of not grunge gets lumped into the grunge label, a lot of actual grunge gets ignored. Lonesome Crowd West by Modest Mouse goes a lot of places sonically speaking and one of those places is grunge, though this gets totally ignored because it comes out past the time period where we're supposed to say grunge stopped being a thing. The pop history timeline of music is annoyingly reductive in many ways.
There were lots of little nods across Nirvana records to the late 80's (not grunge) Dinosaur Jr. records like 'You're Livin' All Over Me' ('87) and 'Bug' ('88). In the guitar, the super loud country rock influences, the drums and the slacker aesthetic. As well as the sound of tracks like 'Sludgefest', and 'Tarpit', 'In a Jar' even the song titles put some names to it. And maybe influenced Alice in Chains too. I grew up during grunge other side of the Atlantic. But, I wonder if the superheaviness+experimentalnoise+breathysugarpop vocals of (not grunge) My Bloody Valentine Isn't Anything ('88) and Loveless ('1991) influenced Smashing Pumpkins, especially on Siamese Dream. Switch the vocalist and Cherub Rock could be MBV. Same for MBV 'Sometimes', put Corgan's voice on it and it would sound like peak Smashing Pumpkins.
I like it when you use a few JHS pedals on the show. Particularly in this context where you've highlighted a genre and demonstrated easy ways to get the tones. Please do more, maybe have some genre specific guest guitarists, make a series out of it. 🤘🏻
I came to playing music through grunge too when I was young and jeezus those selections in the so-called “Grunge Bible” are horrid. I’m right there with you, Josh. It’s like the Hal Leonard people just took snapshots of Billboards charts from around the mid-90s and chose the rock songs. And also this episode was a lot of fun, thank you JHS. P.S. I know I’m being a stickler but shouldn’t the Nirvana jam have been called Almost On a Plain?
People seem to get Grunge mixed with Alternative music great Grunge tone is shaggy and hardcore bands like Hole Garbage and Varuca Salt but what about Candle Box and Blur awesome guitar tone with cheap stomp boxes rocks 💀
I’ve been practicing blues a lot lately and I’m super into industrial music, but after watching this I realized that I’ve unconsciously been practicing grunge 😂
I have to say that I have watched your channel for a few years now, and I am constantly impressed that you folks come up with really good jams! That sounds like a place that I would like to work!!
So basically these grunge guitarists were using the Marshalls their fav 80s hair metal bands were using but abandoned all the newly digital rackmount studio effects and went straight in from guitar. A good combo that never dies. Side note, I believe Dean Deleo was using the rackmount effects on the first STP album. Its got a big sound
Not...analog pedals rule. Guitar into Marshall is great overdrive, BUT fuzz (such as Josh said in the intro) is huge in the wall of big guitar distortion sounds found in many grunge bands!
They were using whatever guitars and pedals they could afford going into the biggest amps they could afford. 'Vintage' and retro being _valuable_ wasn't much of a thing in music culture until about the mid-'90s, and even then - much like expensive cars - high-roller market second-hand $ales were 3-10x less than what they're commanding now. A fuzz pedal in the '90s going for over $500 would be unheard of apart from a superstar's relic along the lines of _"this exact piece is verified as being used by Hendrix or Page while recording song X"_
What's cool about this video is that Pearl Jam is maybe my least-favorite grunge band, but the Pearl Jam tone in this video was my favorite of the bunch. Thanks for giving us a really good video, obviously made with a lot of love for these bands.
Categorizing bands into grunge is indeed tricky considering most of these bands disliked the term. My record time record would be Mad Season - Above. Mike McCready's bluesy Hendrix influenced guitar with Layne Staley's voice is magical.
You get a like, thumbs up, and a subscribe (was already subscribed but you get the point) and a share....... just because you did an episode on GRUNGE - Thank you - Sincerely the 90's generation!
MCIS, to my recollection, was more like their live sound: driven by a Marshall with a Mesa Boogie. It definitely doesn’t have that huge Muff sound you hear in “Siamese Dream”. That said, I got a Sovtek Big Muff at Manny’s in NYC in the late 90s, because I heard Corgan used a Big Muff. I didn’t realize how different it was, couldn’t dial it in, and it went back in the box for over 15 years. I kinda stopped playing guitar about 10 years ago. Then EHX reissued the Op Amp. The Corgan demo sold me; that got me playing again, and into pedals again. Not long after, I fell down the “Gilmour tone building” rabbit hole, and I’ve been down there ever since.
after you played on a plain, the jam sounded like a mix of endless nameless and drain you interlude. endless nameless is a song that kinda just happened just like ur jam. And the fact u had a small clone on hand but decided to use another completely different chorus that sounds absolutely different is something that is gonna make a few people mad but personally I dig the grunge spirit that takes to do that lol.
Melvins too…who directed influenced both Nirvana and Soundgarden. Took the drop D tuning Buzz uses. Also took Kurdt Cobain to his first punk show, Black Flag
Alice In Chains was the best Grunge band. Fight me. Edit: Kurt Cobain HATED Pearl Jam. He said Eddie Vedder was an "elitist jock poser" and time has proven he wasn't wrong. 2nd Edit: Lane Staley once offered James Hetfield of Metallica some heroin, and when James refused Staley said he was "a pussy that didn't know how to party"
I lost a chunk of my left hand in 2016, was born in 1980, and I had shitty parents. I play grunge. Even if it is dance music, I’m grunge. FadingDestination
Ok. Presidents is not grunge. But it IS, 90's absolutely essential. And I maintain that their vid killed the rad star is more fun. I would say better...but its a perfect song. Wait, where am I? MOM! GET OUT OF MY ROOM!!!
Fun Show. I was in one of the thousands of faceless bands playing the Seattle club-scene from 92-96 … Seattle was our Paris then & We had a blast. Great segment.
Grunge Bible: sounds like when 20-year olds have a 90s party and you look at the clothes and wonder where they sourced their info. As such, I suggest that this bible comes from someone who chose rock music over Brittney in the late nineties, in that phase where grunge inspired whatever came before Linkin Park and (fml) Limp Bizkit. If you were 7 when Nevermind came out, you won't feel the same vibe as someone whose life had been stained by Rat/Poison. Basically, a brief, glorious window between 91 and 95, with the addition/exception of Yield. This bible seems to refer to music that came at the tail end of the grunge window, with bands who got played between "late" grunge tunes. Good music, just not what I'd call grunge. Then, Limp Bizkit.
@ghost mall I am making fun of it really. But imagine The Stooges and Neil Young being from Seattle and playing in the 90's they would be deffinitely part of the scene :)
I guess Josh couldn't go back as far as proto-Punk (I'm a huge Stooges/Iggy fan), but I think their lineage is represented by bands like Sonic Youth. Josh should do a "Roots of Grunge" episode and include proto-punk, punk, and the other genres he mentioned.
Hi, Josh. Once I am a dinosaur and an effect chaser and once you are a History OCD geek (it is a compliment) let me pose a questions, Mr. Tone Bender: What was the secret behind the Vincent Bell's Watery Sound on the 70's song Airport Love Theme ( ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-TWmCgY9kVLc.html ) and who made it. I told you, I am a dinosaur. It took me 40 years only to discover what is the name of music and its Author. Once the name was discovered, looking at the web it seems this effect is a very well kept secret by Vinny Bell. So, give us a light, master bender... Sincerely Yours, Another OCD Eletronic Eng. and geek...
"We need to start with one of the bands that started grunge, one of the bands that influenced Nirvana and others" My head: "The Melvins, Flipper..." "And that is Sonic Youth" FUUUCK
Who the fuck wrote that book? Mudhoney, The Melvins, Green River, Mother Love Bone, that's fucking grunge. Then you've got Pixies and Husker Du, the progenitors, yet none of them are mentioned at all? Come on lol
I totally agree, the Toadies were not a grunge band. However, they are one of the best bands from that time, and Possum Kingdom is a cruelly underappreciated album.
Possum Kingdom is a song. The album is Rubbernecker. Fun fact: I played with Todd in a cover band called Gunga Din for a minute. This is the closest I ever got to success in music. Pathetic.
This is how I do my grunge sound: Using neck humbucker -> Arion Stereo Phaser -> DOD Thrash Master (I have the box!) -> MXR 10 band EQ (crank treble, kill mids, moderate bass). The Arion Stereo Chorus gets that "Come As You Are" sound when going clean. It's also good along w/ the Thrash Master for soloing, but I delete the Phaser in that mode. If you want to get really obnoxious, the Boss Flanger w/ the Arion Chorus during solos can achieve the insane sound Kurt would go to while playing "Endless, Nameless" live. ...and I agree, that book is a f*cking joke.
As an old rocker who was always into outsider stuff I feel I should mention Lou Reed's influence on the whole thing, from Velvet Underground to Metal Machine Music.
One of the cool things about the Grunge scene was that you no longer *had* to have expensive, high tech guitars and a bunch of rack mounted crap to be considered a viable rock musician. The guitars used by the grungers weren't the "cool" ones that the hair metal players used in the late 80s. Kurt Cobain played Mosrites, old Strats, and a Univox Mosrite copy during the early days. His "pedalboard" also consisted of a Distortion DS-1 and a chorus for much of the Nevermind period. He only went to rack mounted power amps out of necessity, because of touring. Grunge really opened things up. All of a sudden more influences and types of guitars and basses were acceptable. It was a remarkable time for rock music.
You forgot to introduce the Smashing Pumpkins guitar. Was it a Reverend? Great episode and wonderful playing. I saw Mudhoney in ATL in like maybe 91? I barely remember the show though.
I would've really liked to hear your take on AIC over Smashing Pumpkins. Jerry's tone and lead writing style on Dirt was the center of grunge in my life as a guitarist in the early 90's. Soundgarden and Pearl Jam influence was definitely there too, but what really stuck with me to this day was AIC. I would've liked to see what you came up with to emulate Jerry's sound. Maybe in another video?
I wonder if this guy is one of those guys who argue that Silverchair were post-Grunge despite the band forming in 1992 and breaking out into the mainstream in early 94 (at least on Australian radio)...
Spot on, but........ you totally missed the trademark lead guitar slow whole step bend on the Pumpkins song. That grunge Bible was definitely not inspired by God.
Josh, I'm pretty sure the people who wrote the" The Grunge Bible" never had the grunge uniform of flannel, shorts, t-shirt and hiking boots as you and I did. Didn't we dude?
The irony of the biggest pedal collector and maker out on RU-vid not owning what is probably the only album in history to be named after 2 famous pedals is not lost on me 🌵
Many artists fit into multiple genres. Just because Smashing pumpkins has an alt rock discography doesn’t mean they don’t have some songs that are definitely grunge. Chill out everyone.
If you want to retroactively place them in the category for your own purposes, that's cool. But at the time they were not considered grunge at all. Grunge was the sound of the Seattle scene and like 20 bands from that area. Nothing they (the pumpkins) ever put out sounded like grunge or was considered grunge. Seems like nowadays any rock band from the 90's with distortion gets lumped into a genre that was actually pretty tiny and short-lived by folks who weren't there. Imma go back to shaking my fist at clouds now.
If you're requesting that people chill about a definition of a genre that defined a generation, you will never understand GRUNGE. I WILL DIE ON THIS HILL.
It's your right to be wrong! This is the era I grew up in and the music I loved. As a music nerd it's my job to keep the correct definitions of things historically accurate. Now where'd I put the ibuprofen??
@@werewolfmedialv Interesting that you would assume I didn't grow up in this era also! I agree with your definitely but thanks for trying to browbeat me.
Maybe it should be called Seattle grunge, because many bands had the “grunge sound / formula” in the mid nineties, and some of them weren’t even from the US.
I could listen to Josh talk about music for hours. A lot of these other guitar-oriented RU-vidrs only talk about Led Zeppelin or RHCP (they’re all amazing bands don’t get me wrong), but I love it especially with Josh’s record recommendations where he talks about more underground artists, or about other influential artists who are popular but don’t get mentioned enough (ie Sonic Youth)
These ‘bibles’ kill me. It’s something moms get, thinking it’s a great gift for people like me who lived and breathed through the early 90s music scene, it’s really not.
4:35 The exact point that hundreds of gear nerds found their new internet crush. 🎸🔊🥰 The impact of “Nevermind” can’t be overstated. It was truly a game changer for the entire music industry, and one of the key elements of that album was the amazing production of Butch Vig, and the mix engineer Andy Wallace, who were also the team behind the Pumpkins “Siamese Dream” album.
i would like to not only request a grunge part 2 but a video where you guys recreate the sounds of iconic shoegaze bands, shoegaze is making a big comeback and i think a lot of people would really appreciate seeing how to get the tones of bands like my bloody valentine, slowdive and ride. awesome vid, awesome channel and awesome pedals. keep it up!! :)
