THE DRIFT: SOUNDGARDEN - LIVE AT THE WHISKEY, LA, 1990

Monday, 26 November 2012

SOUNDGARDEN - LIVE AT THE WHISKEY, LA, 1990

Originally released as a VHS entitled 'Louder Than Live', this live show captures Soundgarden at their best and is a reminder of how explosive Grunge felt in the early 90's. Note too the shooting style. Clearly influenced by Gus Van Sant and the New Queer cinema, it's hand held, Super 8 aesthetic is visibly designed to reject the late 80's pomp of MTV and break down barriers between performer and audience.

WELCOME TO 'THE DRIFT'

“Today history is hard to keep in mind as we struggle to keep up with the barrage of information that assails us. We are now exposed to more images in a day than anyone in the 14th century would have known in a lifetime. We’re surrounded by the fuzz and rumble of endless imagery, the white noise of everyday life, signals of information and desire that blur into each other punctuated only by the bright highlights and sudden shouts of images that cut through the chaos. Most of it is garbage, most of it needs exorcising, even if we are fearful that we might be missing something. We’re probably not. We have to discard. We have to throw things away, cleanse the doors of our perception and work out what is worth looking at, what is worth remembering, what are the images that actually matter. What will we retain?” - Robert Hughes, The New Shock Of the New (2004)