Soundgarden's Screaming Life Gets Reissue Treatment

No shoes, no shirt, no service

Has it been a quarter-century?
Another favorite from the college days gets the reissue treatment, even when I'm still trying to struggle for excitement on any Soundgarden-related news since the sins of Chris Cornell are still fresh in my mind.

I suppose I should let go, and admittedly, the repackaging of Screaming Life and the Fopp e.p. help somewhat.

Press:

From the depths of the Sub Pop archives comes a reissue of Soundgarden’s thunderous opening salvo, Screaming Life, plus bonus tracks from the Fopp EP and Sub Pop 200 compilation, to be released on CD / 2xLP / DL on November 26th. The album is now available for preorder at subpop.com. Please find a full tracklisting below.

Screaming Life / Fopp reissue marks the first time these tracks will be available digitally, and their first appearance on vinyl since the original, late-80s pressings (notwithstanding a long-gone, late-‘90s repress of Screaming Life). All tracks have been remastered by Seattle studio wizard and producer of the original Screaming Life and Sub Pop 200 sessions, Jack Endino, who had this to say about it:

“Ah, Screaming Life, Soundgarden's debut, and one of the first real records I made for anyone outside my own band. I already knew Soundgarden pretty well, since they and Skin Yard had shared the stage many times in Seattle's tiny club scene circa 1985-1986.

Soon after opening Reciprocal Recording in July 1986, there I was with Soundgarden, trying to make the most of our eight tracks. Somehow, we found room for all of Matt Cameron’s “bonus tubs,” Hiro’s primordial Fender bass, and a whopping four tracks to share between Kim Thayil's mad guitar psychedelia and Chris Cornell's still-expanding voice. “Nothing To Say” was the song that made us all look at each other and go, ‘uh, holy crap, how did we do this?’

Stuff started happening. A&M came calling. SST agreed to put out their next record. But Soundgarden was not finished with Sub Pop. They contributed “Sub Pop Rock City,” about Seattle’s then-rising “grunge” scene, to the Sub Pop 200 comp; and they threw everyone a curveball with Steve Fisk-produced Ohio Players and Green River covers on the Fopp EP. The glorious vistas of a major label future awaited them.

To quote Kim from an old interview, ‘It was karma, it was dogma, it was dog breath (read more at Sub Pop).”

Screaming Life / Fopp EP Tracklisting:

1. Hunted Down
2. Entering
3. Tears to Forget
4. Nothing to Say
5. Little Joe
6. Hand of God
7. Sub Pop Rock City
8. Fopp
9. Fopp (Fucked Up Heavy Dub Mix)
10. Kingdom of Come
11. Swallow My Pride

Christ Cornell

Believe it or not, there are still a bunch of people who give a shit about Chris Cornell.
If you haven’t heard, Chris Cornell released a really shitty album last month. If you’ve got a picture of a shitty Chris Cornell album in your head right now, multiply it by a hundred.
That’s how bad the new Chris Cornell album is.
Through years of success with Soundgarden, a few popular soundtrack songs, and continued success with Audioslave, it’s not surprising that Cornell still has some fans. What’s amazing is their ability to tolerate not only the worst album in Cornell’s career, but to embrace one that seriously undermines all of that man’s prior highpoints.
For those of you who don’t know about this, Cornell enlisted Timbaland to help with his latest solo album. It’s really bad. End of story, really.
But there is a contingent of uber-fans, ones who disagree with my “hate” fueled assessment, even though there’s obviously something wrong with it and, potentially, Chris Cornell.
Evidently there is a family dispute between Cornell and his ex-wife Susan Silver, a heated one in which the former-Soundgarden manager held 15 prized guitars from Cornell. He was very mad and apparently there’s a conspiracy between Silver and record reviewers to systemically chip away at the Chirs Cornell juggernaut in the form of heated reviews about Scream.
Never mind that the thing is a turd with very unpleasant matrix of programmed beats surrounding it.
Here’s some irony: former members of Soundgarden (including Kim Thayil!) teamed up with Tom Morello and Tad Fucking Doyle for a brief set by Tadgarden. Thayil looks older but awesome. And Tad Doyle looks like an older Tad.