Chris Estey's Esoteric List of Top 5 Christian Grunge Era Releases

''The artists I was following in various venues & shows were exceptional ones you could tell were inspired by the zeitgeist at the time, but none can fall easily into the Pearl Jam-spawned milieus''

[Article written by Chris Estey]

Most of the releases below will be challenged by many as “grunge” for at least two reasons:

1.) They were made by bands with Christians in the line-up, and often oriented toward the Christian Alternative scene of the early 90s;

2.) My definition of “grunge” comes out of being a punk from just before the 80s and evolving my own tastes as our music was variously tagged post-punk, American Underground, College Rock, alternative, and indie. Eventually the lyrics and emotional vulnerability (or distinct lack of same in lieu of poetic fragmentation) mixed with raw, often atonal guitar and somewhat ironic but loving classic rock ambiance and rhythms received the “grunge” handle.

There is a Pacific Northwest and Southern California bias in this fast and greasy sweep of a genre once occasionally synonymous with noise rock, death rock,  skronk, and pigfuck. (The explosion of Nirvana and their Beatles-and-Pixies love really sweetened things up for a general POV of the tag.)

The artists I was following in various venues and shows were exceptional ones you could tell were inspired by the zeitgeist at the time, but none can fall easily into the Pearl Jam-spawned milieus.  If you’re looking for any assessment of musicians who fucked with Christianity in what the mainstream would perceive as more “grunge-sounding,” I recommend searching for bands like Wish For Eden (one of the first Tooth & Nail releases), their lead man Rob Walker’s solo work, Grammatrain, Applehead, and other purveyors of the yarl.

These are what I listened to with TAD, Seaweed, Treepeople, Screaming Trees, and some could really keep up (especially live). These are records I personally recommend, no matter how polarizing their categorization as grunge might be.

Like a good circle in a mosh pit, the order of qualitative action is implied, doing what thou wilt with an internal ethical sense, and random abuse avoided.

---

Sometime Sunday, Pain:

This was a band that could easily play the gnarliest clubs on Saturday night in Portland, OR; scare youth pastors at church shows the next afternoon; and fit right into the scene and the other scene. Deep-fried in Alice in Chains’ abject audio vicissitudes, the music for this 1993 debut EP (on purple cassette!) sounds like a ruby Doc Marten on the nose of the era. The guitars were elegantly bold, the drums were AC/DC tight, the bass sturdy and strung low, and front man Mikee seemed to channel Lizard King energy with fierce intuitional intelligence. They ended up putting out two albums on T&N, but this is the glass-shard groovin’ existentialism that lured me down to the City of Roses to live in Mikee’s attic that next summer to witness. Mikee went on with other bands like Tragedy Ann and running the best Christian Alternative festival; we met because he did the Portland underground zine and I did the SEA one, both pretty much because no one else would. As honest as he is charming, he is a renaissance man of edge-kissed Evangelical music and art and performing energy, with the heart of an actual missionary. His band was perfect in the bridge between grunge and anti-asshole Christianity.

---

The Clergy, RUAMI:

Fronted by the street-hassling couple of Goth-sparked Christie Simonetti with her stalwart drummer husband Randy, this genre-bending Portland punk grunge band reminded me of The Gits when they played live, with the same implicit mysticism and fervent fanbase, only less blues and more thrash. Also known for roiling the Portland clubs sparring style binaries with Sometime Sunday, there wasn’t a bit of inauthenticity in the band, as their own slam dancing fans attested with brutal body praise. Starting in the live music trenches of different scenes without any corny Gospel flair, their group house was a carnival of dark exiles from Babylon, ex-witches, deep Oregon punks feeding the buzz and bleed of their underground comix sound. Virtually non-existent on the Internet, which doesn’t surprise me, as their cultural suspicion and scorched faith kept poseurs at bay. Key track: “Won’t You Agree” which the inestimable Billy Power (Blenderhead) first placed on his early Pac NW compilation, Songs from the Rain Factory. It’s the band in a lighter moment, but still pleading and soulful and prostate before the ever-loving and awful Tetragram.

---

Mike Knott, Screaming Brittle Siren:

SoCal’s Knott was the daddy of Christian Alternative, and like his descendent Mikee felt an achingly personal need to keep the scene alive with his various expressions of great power pop punk, new wave, Goth, post-punk, and experimental bubblegum rawk. Misunderstood, raised Catholic but getting Born Again in the culture war cauldron of Jesus Freak year zero Calvary Chapel, Knott started in the Lifesavors and fed the 80s a handful of gripping Christian rock crossover albums unafraid to be crepuscular and confessional. He started the Blonde Vinyl label, and when I was in my early days of recovery and wandering through a Bible bookstore (long story), I happened upon his own L.S.U.’s This is The Healing and his friends’ bands Breakfast with Amy’s Dad and Black & White World’s debut (among others), music made by some Christians that went deep on war, greed, hypocrisy, and the Velvet Underground. Screaming Brittle Siren was in Knott’s next round of releases for his indie label, and it is still arguably the best album by a Christian in the grunge era, incarnating the spirits of Blue Oyster Cult, Neil Diamond, Tim Rose, Marianne Faithful, Leonard Cohen, and above all else, G.K. Chesterton (whether Knott had read him or not). I interviewed Michael several times, for HM Magazine and elsewhere, but my final chat was a horrific conversation the weekend his father passed away, and he seemed to regret trying to fuck with the church at all. I have the feeling Joan of Arc might have said the same thing to a witness, shortly before shifting out of this world. And I think he will be remembered with as much burn-branding as she has in our heretic yet committed hearts.

---

Poor Old Lu, Sin:

This list would not be complete without a Seattle band from the original crossover era on it, and while Poor Old Lu was only occasionally described by grunge fans as grunge music, they fit into the scene. Think if someone described the band Ride as “shoegaze.” Not on the nose, but close enough in geography and contemporary inspirations. They started in the late alternative era and had a delightful sound harkening back to Echo & the Bunnymen and their true loves, The Cure, throttled along by post-punk bass playing from Nick Barber and eventual Demon Hunter drummer Jesse Sprinkle (Demon Hunter are a later period T&N metal band many grunge fans probably enjoy for their sound dynamics).  But Scott Hunter’s voice certainly changed along with the times, harshening into his ache and weariness on this second album, as guitarist Aaron Sprinkle added a poppier and funkier zest many fellow bands in the scenes did not have. Adored for both their strength and sensitivities, sophomore release Sin is an essential from back in the day.

---

Plague of Ethyls:

Another Blonde Vinyl release, this was the work of Breakfast with Amy’s Christopher Colbert’s master production skills at their Green Room featuring his wife Caryn’s incredibly mesmerizing vocals. (With Steve Hindalong, the creative drummer and percussionist from aces band The Choir.) Like their track “Your Name” on the crucial Dad LP it enmeshed Middle Eastern vibes with Patchouli-infused Jesus Freak meditations, but kicked out the jams on a choker-wearing woman-empowered jeremiad of joys and fears and trauma-torquing Pavlovian-punching praise. Extremely cool, sensuous, “you don’t know what it’s like in the corner” is a key line. “There ain’t much living at all.” The only rock album that feels like a feminist Either/Or (earlier Portland Christian Alternative band, and “leap of faith” Kierkegaard classic).

---

Just like music, reading daily exercises the brain, improves sleep and reduces stress, so why not read some more?! Check this out:

L. Õunapuu: ''Latvian and Pärnu-type bagpipes are very similar, one might even think that Livonians and Latvians got the bagpipes from Estonia'' Pt.II