I was driving through the freezing slop between Milwaukee and Green Bay yesterday when I heard the news of Mark Lanegan’s passing. Like so many music fans spread across the world, I paused a moment when this karmic uppercut hit. Lanegan seemed to be constantly reinventing something in himself. His origins in Screaming Trees were bound to float to the top of all the obits and tributes, as were tales of his complex reputation as “Dark Mark” who famously battled addiction and his original bandmates among others. Lanegan also gave the world a granular explanation of what ailed him, drawing not only on his amazing voice but the depths backing that sound. The latter stages of his career as a writer and most recently as a human suffering through a rough bout of COVID-19 added layers of complexity that I appreciated with newfound respect. I’m in a weird, fortunate position as someone who occasionally served up big helpings of nostalgia to music fans visiting Seattle because many people would offer back to me personal stories of why they still give a rip about the grunge era’s music and the people who made it. Obviously, the more time that passes since the period of Seattle’s peak grunginess, the more often artists like Lanegan will leave us behind. In my experience, anyone who cares about music and musicians has a supply of stories in the karmic hopper ready to serve up. I find constantly refreshed examples amidst the daily postings of the eight-plus-thousand no-bullshit fans on a simply brilliant Facebook group (Pacific Northwest Music Archives). Those folks again rose to the challenge of having something smart and funny to offer in the wake of yesterday’s news. Many somethings, actually. For anyone who ends up here randomly, you should bounce over yonder to the PNWA group on Facebook, too. Of the few things I currently check on the socials, that group of lovely randomness essentially gets my eyeballs most often.
I will offer one quick story as a tribute to Lanegan, since that’s the point of returning to this blog after such a long time away from regular-ish posting. On the third grunge tour I ever gave way almost five years ago, I was showing around the Danish Ambassador to America and a six-pack of cool-as-ice Nordic chefs visiting Seattle for a culinary conference. One of the coolest (although it wasn’t a competition) was an Icelandic chef named Gunnar who mentioned in passing how Lanegan was his favorite musician from these here parts. I think Lanegan had visited his restaurant in Reyjavik at some point. Oh to have the life of a rock star or Michelin-star worthy chef, with all the travel benefits that sometimes includes. Anyhoo, I didn’t have much of a mental script at that time other than a sincere appreciation for the Screaming Trees who never broke through broadly amidst all their break-ups and the other forgettable drama that characterized Lanegan during the early to mid 1990s.
That day Gunnar and I connected the dots between the roots of the Trees in Ellensburg, Seattle, leading to Reyjavik and plenty of other places. Add various parts of Wisconsin to that list as I think this all through while visiting family and doing some interviews for my other book project. The point being that music more often than not connects us with a past but hopefully also updated version of ourselves. Or maybe nostalgia is a trap door that springs open on occasion, through which we tumble whether by choice or because tragedy throws us a curveball. Or maybe we go down the nostalgia path because we like the ride. Or maybe I’m just inspired by the sheer madness of Lanegan having done enough for a few lifetimes in just 57 years on this planet that I just had to offer my condolences today to all those who knew him as a friend. We all should be so lucky as to have the world pause and reflect on our passing. Then shuffle through some of our work to flex the memory circuits and maybe shake free some fresh nuggets of wisdom. A small part of me wishes my rental car had a cassette deck to do so. Well, not really. I’m not planning to track down 30-year-old cassettes on this trip. And I’ll be driving in the snow as I head up to the Northwoods tomorrow. There was a time when a 1980s-era Buick would seem like a safe sled to be steering through whatever Wisconsin’s planning to throw at me. Those days have passed. As has Mark Lanegan. May he find the peace he so richly sought while among us.
###—-