N°114 MARK LANEGAN BAND - BLEEDING MUDDY WATERS

Mark Lanegan, now touring under his solo career also works a lot with many other artists or performed in various bands such as The Screaming Trees, Queens Of The Stone Age and The Gutter Twins. I can already tell you neither of these bands will be next into the link but I’ll remember them for the near future maybe. I’ll stick to his solo work and liaisons just for now.

While being the frontman for The Screaming Trees Mark Lanegan started up a first project for a solo ep called The Winding Sheet. He did this together with no less than Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic. At first it was supposed to be a bluesy album but it evolved into a more Tom Waits sounding art piece. This first liaison led to more co-working with other grunge bands. We’re talking way back, 1990. On this record there’s appeared a version of ‘Where Did You Sleep Last Night’, later covered by Nirvana as well.

Whiskey For The Holy Ghost followed four years after in 1994 with the known ‘Beggar’s Blues’ and ‘Riding The Nightingale’. It took mister Lanegan almost three years to create this album since the recording didn’t always satisfy him. This project was succeeded the year after by a guest appearance on a Mad Seasons album. He collaborated on two of the songs. Again we’d have to wait for another solo album: Scraps at Midnight. It was recorded during wintertime and mostly written in the dark of the winter nights, hence the title. This time Mark Lanegan produced an album I’ll Take Care Of You only the year after. Most of the songs on this album were used as B-sides for singles of the previous album. It sounded a little bit more like folk and punk than the fans were used to on the previous recordings.

A little jump into the link. If anyone would say that the Pukkelpop 2012 festival could be the link I can't blame them since both Diablo Blvd. and Mark Lanegan Band were scheduled. (I didn't get to see Mark Lanegan though) but I need this link a few songs from now to make another switch (yes I work a little bit up front for this blog) later on. So once more I found the link in the title: Black Heart BLEED followed by BLEEDing Muddy Waters ties in perfectly). Now back to the performer.

Mark sought help from Soundgarden’s bassist Ben Shepherd and recorded a fifth album in 2001; Field Songs and this would be the first of many collaborations with other artists such as PJ Harvey, Josh Homme from Queens Of The Stone age and Greg Dulli from The Afghan Whigs. Also former Guns ‘n Roses members would contribute on his latest and most commercial album called Bubblegum. Probably he also profited from the guest appearance from all these artists and their respective fans. In between both albums Mark Lanegan became a full time member of Queens Of The Stone Age and he appeared on many of the band’s songs in this period. I must say I’ve seen him perform with the Queens back in 2004 and wasn’t really fond of his sound at the time. Did I know much this was Mark Lanegan to be honest? I started to appreciate him better only since a year or so. Sorry.  He left the band in 2005 when it comes to touring but would still perform with them from time to time.

In 2004 he’d help out the UK band Belle & Sebastian with additional vocals on the This Is Just The Same album. He’d also write a few songs for them later on and he’d join them on stage during a couple of concerts. He’d also help out on their Sunday at Devil Dirt album and in 2010 they released the album Hawk together. In that same period he’d also start up a project called The Gutter Twins with ex-The Afghan Whigs vocalist Greg Dulli. Nowadays when they come on stage as The Gutter Twins they usually perform as the setup of Dulli’s new band Twilight Sister but with Mark Lanegan added. Without Mark they perform as simply Twilight Sister.

This year Lanegan managed to produce yet another solo album after eight years of solo silence. It was named Blues Funeral and to me this is his best solo album so far. One of the songs was used for the movie The Hangover part II. Great movie by the way. As you can read he’s been around for ages and you can probably hear him in some kind of way on many, many albums or songs so, as did I in 2004, you probably have heard him already on the radio or so. Now it’s just a matter of appreciating his music so here’s one of his songs: