I saw them when they were just signed in Dallas. I was fortunate enough to be the first to play them outside of Seattle. Layne actually asked if I thought they had “it”. Definitely yes!!
The entire Live at the Moore concert from December 22, 1990 was turned into a live vinyl album and VHS called Live Facelift. It cost about 75.00USD last I checked. The VHS has live concert footage from December 22, 1990 of: MAN IN THE BOX, REAL THING, LOVE HATE LOVE, SEA OF SORROW, BLEED THE FREAK, bonus footage of IT AIN'T LIKE THAT live and official videos for WE DIE YOUNG, MAN IN THE BOX and SEA OF SORROW. Jerry Cantrell is the guitar player. He's a certified Riff Lord. He respects any musician who KNOWS their instrument. This song's origins start with a lunch the band had with some A&R woman who was a vegan (no animal byproducts of ANY kind), who proceeded to tell them how animals were penned up in small crates and killed for steak, etc. So, Layne wrote MAN IN THE BOX from the perspective of a penned up calf. It was loosely based around Layne's idea of media censorship. Sean Kinney (the drummer) said it was about veal. LOL. Layne met Jerry Cantrell ONE TIME, found out he had no family in the area, he had little money left and Layne (drunkenly) offered Jerry a place to live, money, food, clothes, guitars and gear he needed, Layne set Jerry up with a life that could NOT fail unless Jerry let it happen. He set him up with a band when he gave Jerry the number to Sean Kinney's girlfriend and found out that the girlfriend was Mike Starr's sister. He encouraged Jerry to sing more because after all they were Jerry's lyrics, Jerry should sing them. I'm sure Jerry would have made it on his own without Layne, but it would have been the long scenic route to get there. Jerry wrote ROOSTER about his father's experiences in Vietnam and when Jerry saw his dad in the audience at one of their shows, Jerry asked Layne (and the guys) to play Rooster and they did. It was the first time Jerry's dad heard Jerry's music and knew that his son understood him through that song. It brought Jerry and his dad closer together. And Layne had a vital part in that reunion. (Meanwhile Layne's own biological father was an opportunist who showed back up in Layne's life AFTER Layne got famous and had money and did drugs with Layne.) Phil Staley was NOT the father Layne expected when he came back into his life. Layne had tried rehab 13 times, but he could never completely give it up. He tried quitting cold turkey on two of the last attempts at rehab, but that didn't work either. Mad Season is made up of Mike McCready of Pearl Jam, Barrett Martin of Screaming Trees and John Baker Saunders and they all went through rehab. They all got together and dragged Layne out of his condo, got him excited about doing ABOVE album, thinking if he was creative he wouldn't want the drugs, and for the length of time it took to do that, Layne was excited about the project, but it didn't curb his drug habit. Layne wrote the lyrics to the songs he sang on the ABOVE album and he drew the cover art for the album. Layne was an amazing singer. Very few singers sound better live than they do in a studio version. Layne was one of the few. From what I’ve read and researched, heroin is the worst drug to be addicted to. You don’t want to do anything other than be there and nodding out. The fact that he agreed to do the KISS shows and performed them like he did shows the strength he had. From what I read, when you have the level of addiction Layne had, it is incredibly difficult to function at the intensity of performing a stage show in front of an audience as well as he did. He could have stayed home and stayed high, but Jerry wanted to do the shows. Somewhere, somehow Layne found the strength to do those shows despite what his addiction wanted him to do even though he survived an overdose after the last KISS show in Kansas City, Missouri, became a recluse, and the addiction got him in the end. Mike Starr was the last one to see him on April 4, 2002, for all anyone knows and what I took from that was that while Layne was telling Mike that he (Layne) was sick, he still tried to get Mike to give up his own prescription drug habit. After that, no one noticed he had died because he never answered the phone nor opened the door. It took inactivity over the span of two weeks for his ACCOUNTANT to notice something was wrong and called Susan Silver who called Layne's mother to alert her to the situation who then called 911. He died on April 5, 2002, but his body wasn't discovered until April 19, 2002. And to pour salt in the wound, MTV (and the music industry) has more or less blackballed Layne (and yet, they laud over Kurt Cobain every April 5th, because Kurt was the "face of grunge", meanwhile Layne gets a "by the way"). The Grammys went so far as to invite Jerry, Mike and Sean to the Grammy show in 2003 and then refused to put Layne's picture up in the memorial of the musicians who died in 2002. (Or they "forgot" to) which pissed Jerry, Mike and Sean off and they walked out on the show. At the age of 34 (when he died), he looked more like an 80-year-old man. He knew he screwed up, between the drugs and his own depression and then his former fiancee dying, Layne just couldn't find a way to dig himself out of his own mess and at the end with his teeth problems and organs failing on him, he gave up trying. He lost sight of who his true friends were and who was using him. He was never going to give up the drugs. Instead, he tried to attain the same high he felt the first time he did drugs and could never achieve it. Layne's story is more tragic and haunting because you can actually watch and hear him deteriorate over the 12 year span: from the mild use of drugs in 1990 all the way through 1996 when he was deep into a heroin addiction to dropping to 90 pounds by 1998 to 86 pounds when he died in 2002. Layne wrote songs that gave a normal person insight into the mind and journey of an addict. The pain and depression he endured to write the most brutally honest lyrics a musician could write concerning his feelings on his own addiction and the emotional and physical strength he had to perform those songs live when all he wanted to do was curl away and lose himself in the drug haze I can’t imagine what it was like for him. He was hounded by the press about his addiction. He was ridiculed for his addiction. The music industry blackballed him for his addiction. The Grammys forgot about him when he died. As far as MTV and Rolling Stone were concerned he’s just another addicted singer. They don’t want to acknowledge his contributions to music. Layne Staley deserved better than what he received from the people around him who he thought mattered. He wrote about things with maturity and knowledge well beyond his years. He didn’t deserve to be turned into tabloid cannon fodder by the press. Layne was so much more than his drug addiction. He was able to come up with lyrics and harmonies off the top of his head. He stacked his own vocals. He knew enough to know that Jerry Cantrell was playing with the wrong people and gave him contact info for Sean Kinney and Mike Starr. He wrote the lyrics for the songs he sang on Mad Season's Above album and drew the cover art for that album. Layne was a genius in his own right. He still was able to figure things out in a snap off the top of his head. Layne just had his demons. Layne's whole situation from his drug addiction, to how he died, to how he was found only weighing 86 pounds and the drug paraphernalia, etc is tragic and haunts me when I think about it (and I didn't even know the guy personally). "Whatever dramas are going on in my life, I always find that place inside my head where I see myself as the cleanest, tallest, strongest, wisest person that I can be." -- Layne Staley "My bad habits aren't my title. My strengths and my talent are my title." -- Layne Staley "When I tried drugs they were fucking great, and they worked for me for years, and now they're turning against me- and now I'm walking through hell and this sucks. I wrote about drugs, and I didn't think I was being unsafe or careless by writing about them. I didn't want my fans to think heroin was cool. But then I've had fans come up to me and give me the thumbs up, telling me they're high. That's exactly what I didn't want to happen." -- Layne Staley
Wow thanks for taking the time to educate! I didn't know he tried rehab 13 times. That really puts his addiction in perspective. RIP to the great Layne!
I’m just so happy when people react to AIC. Especially the live stuff. Overjoyed that people still live their music. So sad we weren’t able to hear more.
Oh I fucking love to see peoples reaction to Laynes last chorus 😂. Im starting the video now, can’t wait to watch this! 🙏🏻👍🏻 (Live Dallas at Marquee 1990 is similar to this version, no video but there’s audio on RUclips if your interested. But Live at the Moore is my absolute favorite.😎) Great job guys , enjoyed it.
My son plays in a heavy metal band from Seattle called “Death Cave”. He co- owns the old El Corizon and the fun house where these guys plus Nirvana, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam and of course AIC,s the goat!! They all played there while on there way up!
i was at the show when these guys got signed. also seen them in shoe box holes before that. honestly they sucked. we played thrash death metal. but i love everything from world disco funk ...everything. But mainly a thrash death metal black metal type at the time ( still am, ...idk why say at the time. ..lol, it;s 99.98% of what i give a sht about and i'm in my 50's) Just wasn't feeling it at the time. They were trying to be sleaze and i already grew out of the glam Motley crue shit, since none of thos efkers were Motorhead by a aeons. . . However the chicks dug it, absolutely. This is when they were still actually kinda glam. About a decade later i saw Cantrell just standing on the sidewalk outside the offramp ( 80's90's ) huzzah.) Now called El Corazon, and i tried to express my amazement on how unfathomably good they got from the early days. 10000% sure i said it douchey ..or at least passive aggressive. (though true, they fking sucked) but that it was mind blowing how they transformed from total sht into basically legends. ( an that's real. They were dime a dozen garbage i swear to god i seen a hundred bands before that sicne thge 80's that sht on them incalkcualably. But they did that sht, and i am a fan. mostly by the time Dirt hit. Understands when MAn in the Box hit, there was Megadeth Holy Wars and Suicidal on MTV. It was like ..this shit is lame., sorry i don't do heroin and your self lathign sht is corny. Pull a Cobain rn and ge5t the fk off my tv >D But ultimately as it stands. exceptional band. A few sick as fk albums that i can i never deny.
Let us know what we should react to next!
Thanks for watching! If you want more, check out Patreon!!
Patreon.com/BandHouseStudios
Layne and the band are pure genius. Live at the Moore is a priceless live rendition of grunge music at its finest. Nothing better
Absolutely!
I enjoy so much listen to people talk about Layne's skills... ❤❤
He sure had em!
33 years later still get chills RiP
Layne🤘
I saw them when they were just signed in Dallas. I was fortunate enough to be the first to play them outside of Seattle. Layne actually asked if I thought they had “it”. Definitely yes!!
Holy shit! Amazing. They sure did!
Layne is the goat
The entire Live at the Moore concert from December 22, 1990 was turned into a live vinyl album and VHS called Live Facelift. It cost about 75.00USD last I checked.
The VHS has live concert footage from December 22, 1990 of: MAN IN THE BOX, REAL THING, LOVE HATE LOVE, SEA OF SORROW, BLEED THE FREAK, bonus footage of IT AIN'T LIKE THAT live and official videos for WE DIE YOUNG, MAN IN THE BOX and SEA OF SORROW.
Jerry Cantrell is the guitar player. He's a certified Riff Lord. He respects any musician who KNOWS their instrument.
This song's origins start with a lunch the band had with some A&R woman who was a vegan (no animal byproducts of ANY kind), who proceeded to tell them how animals were penned up in small crates and killed for steak, etc. So, Layne wrote MAN IN THE BOX from the perspective of a penned up calf. It was loosely based around Layne's idea of media censorship. Sean Kinney (the drummer) said it was about veal. LOL.
Layne met Jerry Cantrell ONE TIME, found out he had no family in the area, he had little money left and Layne (drunkenly) offered Jerry a place to live, money, food, clothes, guitars and gear he needed, Layne set Jerry up with a life that could NOT fail unless Jerry let it happen. He set him up with a band when he gave Jerry the number to Sean Kinney's girlfriend and found out that the girlfriend was Mike Starr's sister. He encouraged Jerry to sing more because after all they were Jerry's lyrics, Jerry should sing them. I'm sure Jerry would have made it on his own without Layne, but it would have been the long scenic route to get there.
Jerry wrote ROOSTER about his father's experiences in Vietnam and when Jerry saw his dad in the audience at one of their shows, Jerry asked Layne (and the guys) to play Rooster and they did. It was the first time Jerry's dad heard Jerry's music and knew that his son understood him through that song. It brought Jerry and his dad closer together. And Layne had a vital part in that reunion. (Meanwhile Layne's own biological father was an opportunist who showed back up in Layne's life AFTER Layne got famous and had money and did drugs with Layne.) Phil Staley was NOT the father Layne expected when he came back into his life.
Layne had tried rehab 13 times, but he could never completely give it up. He tried quitting cold turkey on two of the last attempts at rehab, but that didn't work either. Mad Season is made up of Mike McCready of Pearl Jam, Barrett Martin of Screaming Trees and John Baker Saunders and they all went through rehab. They all got together and dragged Layne out of his condo, got him excited about doing ABOVE album, thinking if he was creative he wouldn't want the drugs, and for the length of time it took to do that, Layne was excited about the project, but it didn't curb his drug habit. Layne wrote the lyrics to the songs he sang on the ABOVE album and he drew the cover art for the album.
Layne was an amazing singer. Very few singers sound better live than they do in a studio version. Layne was one of the few. From what I’ve read and researched, heroin is the worst drug to be addicted to. You don’t want to do anything other than be there and nodding out. The fact that he agreed to do the KISS shows and performed them like he did shows the strength he had. From what I read, when you have the level of addiction Layne had, it is incredibly difficult to function at the intensity of performing a stage show in front of an audience as well as he did. He could have stayed home and stayed high, but Jerry wanted to do the shows. Somewhere, somehow Layne found the strength to do those shows despite what his addiction wanted him to do even though he survived an overdose after the last KISS show in Kansas City, Missouri, became a recluse, and the addiction got him in the end.
Mike Starr was the last one to see him on April 4, 2002, for all anyone knows and what I took from that was that while Layne was telling Mike that he (Layne) was sick, he still tried to get Mike to give up his own prescription drug habit.
After that, no one noticed he had died because he never answered the phone nor opened the door. It took inactivity over the span of two weeks for his ACCOUNTANT to notice something was wrong and called Susan Silver who called Layne's mother to alert her to the situation who then called 911. He died on April 5, 2002, but his body wasn't discovered until April 19, 2002.
And to pour salt in the wound, MTV (and the music industry) has more or less blackballed Layne (and yet, they laud over Kurt Cobain every April 5th, because Kurt was the "face of grunge", meanwhile Layne gets a "by the way"). The Grammys went so far as to invite Jerry, Mike and Sean to the Grammy show in 2003 and then refused to put Layne's picture up in the memorial of the musicians who died in 2002. (Or they "forgot" to) which pissed Jerry, Mike and Sean off and they walked out on the show.
At the age of 34 (when he died), he looked more like an 80-year-old man. He knew he screwed up, between the drugs and his own depression and then his former fiancee dying, Layne just couldn't find a way to dig himself out of his own mess and at the end with his teeth problems and organs failing on him, he gave up trying. He lost sight of who his true friends were and who was using him. He was never going to give up the drugs. Instead, he tried to attain the same high he felt the first time he did drugs and could never achieve it.
Layne's story is more tragic and haunting because you can actually watch and hear him deteriorate over the 12 year span: from the mild use of drugs in 1990 all the way through 1996 when he was deep into a heroin addiction to dropping to 90 pounds by 1998 to 86 pounds when he died in 2002.
Layne wrote songs that gave a normal person insight into the mind and journey of an addict. The pain and depression he endured to write the most brutally honest lyrics a musician could write concerning his feelings on his own addiction and the emotional and physical strength he had to perform those songs live when all he wanted to do was curl away and lose himself in the drug haze I can’t imagine what it was like for him. He was hounded by the press about his addiction. He was ridiculed for his addiction. The music industry blackballed him for his addiction. The Grammys forgot about him when he died. As far as MTV and Rolling Stone were concerned he’s just another addicted singer. They don’t want to acknowledge his contributions to music.
Layne Staley deserved better than what he received from the people around him who he thought mattered. He wrote about things with maturity and knowledge well beyond his years. He didn’t deserve to be turned into tabloid cannon fodder by the press.
Layne was so much more than his drug addiction. He was able to come up with lyrics and harmonies off the top of his head. He stacked his own vocals. He knew enough to know that Jerry Cantrell was playing with the wrong people and gave him contact info for Sean Kinney and Mike Starr. He wrote the lyrics for the songs he sang on Mad Season's Above album and drew the cover art for that album. Layne was a genius in his own right. He still was able to figure things out in a snap off the top of his head. Layne just had his demons.
Layne's whole situation from his drug addiction, to how he died, to how he was found only weighing 86 pounds and the drug paraphernalia, etc is tragic and haunts me when I think about it (and I didn't even know the guy personally).
"Whatever dramas are going on in my life, I always find that place inside my head where I see myself as the cleanest, tallest, strongest, wisest person that I can be." -- Layne Staley
"My bad habits aren't my title. My strengths and my talent are my title." -- Layne Staley
"When I tried drugs they were fucking great, and they worked for me for years, and now they're turning against me- and now I'm walking through hell and this sucks. I wrote about drugs, and I didn't think I was being unsafe or careless by writing about them. I didn't want my fans to think heroin was cool. But then I've had fans come up to me and give me the thumbs up, telling me they're high. That's exactly what I didn't want to happen." -- Layne Staley
Wow thanks for taking the time to educate! I didn't know he tried rehab 13 times. That really puts his addiction in perspective.
RIP to the great Layne!
Wowwwww
Rock in power brother Layne
I’m just so happy when people react to AIC. Especially the live stuff. Overjoyed that people still live their music. So sad we weren’t able to hear more.
Love that you guys are in Seattle!
Oh I fucking love to see peoples reaction to Laynes last chorus 😂.
Im starting the video now, can’t wait to watch this! 🙏🏻👍🏻
(Live Dallas at Marquee 1990 is similar to this version, no video but there’s audio on RUclips if your interested. But Live at the Moore is my absolute favorite.😎)
Great job guys , enjoyed it.
Thanks!
I love your AiC analyses. You're so energetic and explain everything so well. Do more!!!
classic band… rip Layne and Mike
RIP
Layne Staley's voice was gifted and blessed by the Almighty himself. There's no other explanation. Nobody sounds like him. He was a genius.
Awesome. Simply….awesome.
Aic is the best!
They really are. They spawned so many imitators, but none of them ever captured that authentic AIC sound.
My son plays in a heavy metal band from Seattle called “Death Cave”. He co- owns the old El Corizon and the fun house where these guys plus Nirvana, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam and of course AIC,s the goat!! They all played there while on there way up!
Cool!
Love Hate Love from the same show is the goated
Nope Man in the Box was their close song which is nuts if you think about it such a hard song to sing and they left it to last 😂😂
what’s yalls opinion on Star vs Inez obv in stars peak years not Rio era?
Great performance 👍 you should react to Soundgarden slaves and bulldozers live
Oh fuck yeah
Kanye West Black Skinhead Live SNL
Noel Gallagher 😅
it's interesting commentary you do but pause the song and don't completely talk over the band guys
Ok!
You can not hit his notes. Please stop trying.
The most annoying reaction. Can’t even watch which is too bad.
I think it’s more of a breakdown analysis
i was at the show when these guys got signed. also seen them in shoe box holes before that. honestly they sucked. we played thrash death metal. but i love everything from world disco funk ...everything. But mainly a thrash death metal black metal type at the time ( still am, ...idk why say at the time. ..lol, it;s 99.98% of what i give a sht about and i'm in my 50's) Just wasn't feeling it at the time. They were trying to be sleaze and i already grew out of the glam Motley crue shit, since none of thos efkers were Motorhead by a aeons. . . However the chicks dug it, absolutely. This is when they were still actually kinda glam. About a decade later i saw Cantrell just standing on the sidewalk outside the offramp ( 80's90's ) huzzah.) Now called El Corazon, and i tried to express my amazement on how unfathomably good they got from the early days. 10000% sure i said it douchey ..or at least passive aggressive. (though true, they fking sucked) but that it was mind blowing how they transformed from total sht into basically legends. ( an that's real. They were dime a dozen garbage i swear to god i seen a hundred bands before that sicne thge 80's that sht on them incalkcualably. But they did that sht, and i am a fan. mostly by the time Dirt hit. Understands when MAn in the Box hit, there was Megadeth Holy Wars and Suicidal on MTV. It was like ..this shit is lame., sorry i don't do heroin and your self lathign sht is corny. Pull a Cobain rn and ge5t the fk off my tv >D But ultimately as it stands. exceptional band. A few sick as fk albums that i can i never deny.