Sleepy Crest
patreon
I FOUND THE FIRST SCRIPT I EVER WROTE (CRINGE WARNING)
🕑 Added 2023-05-11 09:28:01 +0000 UTCI'm uploading this, warts and all, for posterities sake. It has spelling mistakes, run off sentences, and oh my god have I come a long way writing wise. Podcast episode soon with much added context (I am editing it after I upload this) Good luck reading to those of you who do. This is a video on a topic most of you don't care about I imagine(I was supposed to be a very different channel back in 2019 lmao), but I still think it's cool to see the growth from then to now.
Stone temple pilots vid precore-core era
Intro:
Stp is a band that needs little introduction. Hated by critics and loved by fans in the early 90s, they have a history imbued with Jazz inspired hard rock, humble beginnings, and, most famously, rampant drug use. Before i begin to dive deep into the history of stp i must first say that all music and video footage used in this video belongs to their respective owners, and that the point of this video isn't to go into each of the members personal lives as a whole, unless it’s something significant that affected the band and their music as a whole (for example weiland's heavy drug use later on in his career). But is intended as a detailed history the band itself and my thoughts on their music, with all that said, I believe it’s time for some rockstory.
First part: history
Starting with the point of view with we have the most public insight on due to his autobio not dead and not for sale, we gotta start with Scott. At an early age he was enamored with alcohol and drugs, frequently raiding his step father's liquor cabinet. But as he put it in his book “No one turns you into an attic or drunk. the blame game is pointless and harmful”. This early affliction, as well as growing up with artist like David Bowie and John lennon, inspired him to become a rocker, starting his first band at age 16 with his friend Cory on guitar and drummer David in a band known as Soi Disants. “... most bands are born at a time of youthful optimism…” however they had no clue what their band name meant, they said it was something like “self-style”, Which to be fair is the literal meaning of it. Weiland's music career all started with a simple question from Cory with him asing Scott “you think you can sing in a rock band?” living in cali at the time, the soi boys were able to play a regular gig at Newport beach. At this time they were playing to get high, constantly bringing the party back to a frat house at the university of california. During this period the Drummer left the band, i can only assume he had a great idea for a song the rest of his bandmates shut down like a brewery in the twenties. And so they went in search of new members, but still kept the gigs going at Newport. It was at one of these gigs where scott had a chance meeting with bassist Robert DeLeo, when he joined them onstage to play Louie Louie. Which according to scott's facebook page they could play a damn good version of. However Robert says the story was that they met at a black flag concert and found out they were dating the same girl, while both are very coincivenent i personally find scotts a little easier to believe, especially because musicians without a band traveled around a ton back then. He wouldn’t of had the time from how long he was apparently in newport. Scott even talks about it later in his book. Additional confusion comes from a 1993 interview where scott was cited as stating “Robert, Dean and i met at this bisexual orgy”. Wild right?. Going back to the Scott version though When relating to roberts playing he wrote “Robert was a madman who could play as well as Flea”. It wasn't this chance meeting with Scott and Robert where Stp started however, as Robert left to go pursue other endeavors. Like stated earlier Musicians skipping around was fairly common place though. Scotts commitment to music won out over school, So they got a new keyboardist named Britt and reimagined there band under the name Swing. With this new name they moved up to hollywood hoping to make new contacts and maybe even run into that killer bassist Robert again coincidentally enough he did run into him again. After a few gigs Scott knew he had to upgrade the quality of musicians he was playing with. Scott met up with Robert and asked him to join but he wasn't joining unless they got rid of the keyboardist Britt, and the guitarist Cory “...I now he’s your close buddy, but i also think we don't need cory.” Cory took the news like a champ he teared up, but as he put it “he sensed it was coming”. Britt, not so much, feeling like he had been duped by the two. They then recruited Roberts Big Brother Dean as lead guitarist, or rather they tried to, but he was reluctant at first, he did help them get gigs down in san Diego though. Once Dean finally decided to jam with them, as scott put it “ we were never the same”. Moving on to the background on the brothers. They both got their start playing in jersey club bands, this is where they learned to write together and formed a musical bond. About his brothers writing in the 25th anniversary of core interview Dean said “when Robert writes, i feel it in my center” Deans playing was inspired by the great bands of the 70’s. Dean robert and weilend lived together on an off moving from place to place looking for a drummer and kept the name Swing!. They met Eric Kretz at a long Beach Club, and that's honestly all the info i could find on him sadly. With this new addition the roots of stp were sown. They went under the name Mighty Joe Young at first and recorded some demos under that name, most if not all of them can be found on youtube. The song that changed the most? Absolutely would be “fast as i can” i mean just listen to this. Also in these tapes you can definitely see their swing and jazz roots at their finest. They had to change the name though not wanting to be sued by the blues singer and all, but what would it change too? Scott loved the STP oil brand “As a kid, i had stp stickers on his bike.” and he loved how Richard Petty of nascar fame wore the brand on his shirt and decided that they should adopt the letters into their band name. But what would they call it? , shirley temples pussy, Stereo Temple Pirates? Eventually they decided they only liked the temple part and came up with the actual only good name Stone Temple Pilots, a name which, unless im mistaken, is now more popular than the Oil brand ironically. With all the basics down stp began to play shows, with the record deal happening after 3 main shows. Gotta say, wish it was still that easy. anywho, the first was when they opened up for ice T’s band body count, at the Palladium. The 2nd was when they opened for the Rollins band at the whiskey. The third happened when Tom Carolan- an atlantic records representative-caught one of their gigs at a bar in L.A called the Shamrock at the behest of a friend. After the show he asked “You guys are great!, how would you like to make a record?”. They acted like they had people to contact but they were just playing though, “of course we were going to make a record for atlantic” scott. When they started recording they wanted to get to the core of what they were about. “We thought we had an original voice, og stories and an og sound.” Dean worked a day job for 4.25 an hour and recorded Demos on his 8 track on down time. It's there at the guitarist burbank apartment that the formative songs of core were made. Some songs were written “on the run” as they called it, with weilend taking time off his job at a modeling agency to go hear some ideas Dean had, who was across the street from the place. Fun fact Core was almost produced by eddy offord, Engineer and co producer for 7 albums by the band Yes! A band in which i have little to no knowledge in. It wasn't meant to be as during recording of songs they'd constantly stop to ask about his previous work, getting side tracked for hours at a time. Michael lockwood, a friend of robert, recommended producer brendan o’Brien, who you may recognise from being on the back of all those pearl jam cd’s. According to robert they “clicked immediately”. o'Briens setup was to record live at rumbo studios “bleed and all” and then dubbing weilends vocals over it. When it came time for said vocals o'Brien said “ when that cat walked up to the mic, i knew we had a hit record” During the recording process the band jived well together, sometimes having the same melodies without even talking to each other. Fun fact about the recording process, every stp albums drums are always recorded in a off the wall manner, this album was recorded through a P.A system, and recorded with room mics to give it that extra umph. So what makes Core one of the most influential albums from this era of music, what sets it apart from all the others?
Second part: Core review
- Dead and Bloated
Outside of once by pearl jam, i can honestly not think of a band from this era that opened their album better. There’s a reason this was released as a promotional single, and was the opening track. While not the heaviest song it exudes energy, and let’s you know your in for a thrill ride of an album. The opening words being sung through a guitar amplifier is probably the best part of this song, and that's not to take away from the rest of it, it just makes this song stand out in particular from the rest of the stp repertoire. Now my main problem with this song is in the repetitive lyrical choice with the Verse being a bombardment of “i am…” The chorus and bridge is where i personally see this song shine. I love the lyrics “i run through the world thinkin’ bout tomorrow”, and the guitar work throughout both sections is exemplary. But still, I feel that outside of the opening being absolutely stellar, it does little to stand out from the crowd, as stp themselves has better lyrics, guitar, bass, and drums on the majority of their other songs on this album. However being all that said it’s still a kickass song that’s bound to get someone humming along, and a good introduction to both core and to the band
- Sex Type Thing
Taking a step back from analyzing the history to analyse the music, this song is, outside of plush, the most defining song this band had at the time, and that's not without good reason. This song, for lack of a better word, rocks. From the opening guitar hook, the impactful drums all throughout, the descending bassline, to especially the roaring voice of scott. Of course stepping back into the actual reception of the song… (crappy transition, input the news clips of the song being blasted)
Yeah the critics tore the song, band, and label a new one for allowing such heinous things to be promoted. Looking at just the lyrics it's easy to see where they were coming from, but the same also happens when you take nirvana's titular song rape me out of context. The critics completely missed the point of the song, as scott puts it “I thought it’d be more impacting if i put myself i that perspective”~ scott in a 1992 interview with MTV. receiving all this flack led to a plethora of press where they explained the actual meaning of the song, and eventually led to the famous drag show performance for all the skinheads in the audience who took the song literally and felt it empowering. “This song is really not about sex at all. It's about control, violence and abuse of power” After the big seattle boom and the situation was cleared up the song received medium-heavy rotation on mtv. Speaking of the video this is where we first see stps knack for strange, yet fitting videos. Sex type thing going down as one of the more straight to the point vids they made. Now being this was one of the standout tracks from the bands discography, let's talk legacy. Back in the early nineties when Doom 2 came out there was a mini track for into Sandy city that is clearly based off of Sex Type Thing I mean just listen to it furthermore the song is consistently played at almost every Stone Temple Pilots show most prominently featured as an opener even today when the new band is touring it's still commonly seen played I-4 I for the life of me seem to can't find a show where it wasn't played outside of that the song has received numerous covers over the years and well most of them aren't from Mega bands it's prominently on YouTube it's prominently a song played by YouTube creators hell I've even thought about making one myself moving on to the next song on the album Wicked Garden. now aside from plush from here on info about the songs becomes more and more stingy to find for instance one of the only statements I can find about this song was that a deals with loss of innocence and that is a promotion that came out the same day as the album and making us promotional single is a little strange to me for one sole reason. It might just be me but the first time I listen to this song it didn't exactly come out and grab me for example like dead or bloated bed or specially like the later song crackerman did. however over the course of many many repeated listens I find myself coming back to the song more and more. the mixing of the drums in this song make it clear that it was recorded in an oblong fashion as mentioned earlier. as they really kick and outside of that it's a really strong by the Numbers guitar lick that opens the song and the bass just follows the guitar like it this is some kind of Nirvana song. honestly the opening of the song might be one of the weakest on the album and not to knock on the Song it gets extremely better as it goes on, but the opening is just weak and that's a shame because as demonstrated at the 1993 unplugged performance the opening of the song can be way more powerful with the lead in it had the vocal performance in the song is astounding and really and really showcases the power Scott had in his voice at this time I also think the overdubs in the vocals during the chorus and verses really benefit this song it's strange I have a love-hate relationship with this song I love aspects of it and at its best it's one of the best songs on this album if I really step back and look at it this is really one of the weaker songs on the album. however this song is still consistently plan on rock radio and is considered among the greatest songs that the band made. it just has the opposite problem of Dead and Bloated. where in the intro is weak but the rest of the song is great. now let's talk about the video. I really like this video it's not just a regular performance of the song no it showcases cut out images of the band and some Wicked camera tricks I legitimately did not even know this was a video until the 25th anniversary of core album came out and I watched it this is more than likely because I didn't receive heavy rotation on MTV or that it's one of our less popular songs that got a video. that's a pretty good video and showcases once again Stone Temple Pilots neck for strange , unorthodox videos. the song also apparently talks about loss of Innocence which looking at the lyrics definitely seems a fitting I mean a garden is considered a place of innocence and he's going to burn burn burn it down bad puns aside, let's move into probably my personal favorite song on this album the combo song no memory and sin.
No memory is this beautiful little guitar peace that last for just long enough that it doesn't overstay its welcome. just before at Lowe's you off to sleep it punches you in the face with the start of sin. now this song is phenomenal now if someone can find this quote then they get extreme props but apparently when the song was first thought up without any vocals they were so excited about it that they just played it live with Scott either not singing or just scatting the vocals and that is an entirely fair thing to do as even without Scott's voice the song is just f****** amazing the guitar is unlike anything else from the jonra the drums have a Kik and the bass keeps the song going and going and going and It all just comes together to make this wonderful song however once we had the lyrics back in there's no better song on the album. Obviously this is my extremely biased opinion. now this song according to Scott is about violent and ugly relationships and if you look at the lyrics you can definitely see that symbolism as holy water drowning my thanking sinking low now keep on drinking clearly shows someone who is so caught up in their partner that they don't even notice how ugly they're being towards them and looking at other events of abuse domestic abuse it's clear that this is a thing that happens unfortunately extremely often. and it's here where I'd like to point out that core is a very albums from the rest of stp discography. whereas purple we're going to talk about Scott's relationship and drug use and problems that a just started or tiny music being a fever dream of drug use in heroin or number for being about it relationship issues this album focuses on broader issues as Scott was more than likely not comfortable sharing personal issues with the public just yet. not to say there is no parallels between this album Scott's personal life but the album as a whole has a much more broader scale and I believe this did help with the overall appeal of the album as it can focusing on issues that more and more people deal with and not the issues that every grunge rocker dead from that era. now unfortunately the song it wasn't as well received not meaning that it was bashed but it barely received any radio play more than likely due to its length but in conversations I've had with people about Stone Temple Pilots it's really a song that rarely comes up and that's heartbreaking to me. as it is truly one of their better songs everything just jives together.
Moving right along we have naked Sunday. of course the thing that most obviously sticks out in this song is the return of the almighty bullhorn now unlike Dead and Bloated I don't think this was sung through a guitar amplifier. other than that the song starts off with a slowly fading in drum beat that sounds like it's being run through a chorus pedal. I have always really liked the effect of the beginning of the song with the drums and it's a great way to ensure that the song stands out from a among the midpoint of the album. other than that the base is what really drives the song Home it's at the Forefront of everything else. I think more than any other song on the album The Bass has the absolute priority over everything else except for the vocals of course. speaking of which the idea for the distorted vocals was entirely Scott's idea saying he wanted to sound like a Salesman on a soapbox. and on the soapbox he spouted about organized religion and all of its pitfalls. listen to the song with this context I do believe gives a new meaning. other than that I find it one of the more weaker songs on the album and that's not to discredit it it's just that I believe the other songs on this album are stronger. it's the type of song that a live performance would get the crowd hype AF.
of course if it wasn't plush and if it wasn't Wicked Garden or Sex Type Thing the song you more than likely know Stone Temple Pilots for is creep. now a fun fact there are actually two different versions of the song and likewise there are two different videos a fact of which I did not know until the 25th anniversary release of core. this was the third single from core releasing on November 1st 1993. the song has lyrics about of course not fitting in and according to the bass player Robert on writing the song “it was one of those instances where we look at ourselves in the mirror”now I'm like the rest of the songs on the album that this one was recorded that Rumbo recorders and to really set the atmosphere for the song they had a lit candles and listened to what they had recorded afterwards with their producer Brendan O'Brien believing they had had a hit that they had captured something truly special. and I personally agree creep is one of those songs that defines this era of music a generation whose problem was fitting in. a message which is honestly true of every generation up to this point but was extremely prevalent in the music of the early 90s. now onto the two different versions of this song the first one which appears on the album is slower and extremely self-loathing. while this holds true of the re-recorded version I find that the way Scott sings the second verse in the newer version conveys those emotions a million times better than the original ever could as he really just screams it out And as for the differences on the videos for some reason the re-recorded version is clearly the bassist for the actual video but for some unknown arbitrary reason on the 25th Anniversary Edition it's set to the original so we see Scott screaming the second verse but it's just calm collected lyrics which is very jarring to look at. On to the fundamentals of the song The Guitar is something any guitar player of five months could play easily but that's not to discredit the song as it's a riff that I feel sticks with you days after listening. much like plush I feel this is a song that could be played with only vocals and the guitar and fittingly that's what's brought to the Forefront in the mixing for this song unlike naked Sunday the bass takes a backseat and the drums follow a simple pattern throughout. personally I think this was done it deliberately most of the songs in the genre of grunge got away with simple 3 cord Rock however while being more basic the Simplicity of creep allows it to be this slow, thoughtful, and especially mournful reflection of someone who just doesn’t feel right and knows why they don’t, but just doesn’t have the will to fix themselves any more, begging the listener to take time with a wounded hand, no matter how much they do wrong. its placement in the album is extremely fitting as we've just been through four five songs of hard hardcore Rock and we need that Lowell in the middle to drive us off to sleep right before piece of pie weights us right the back fuck up.
a piece of pie another song that doesn't get nearly as much recognition as it deserves but this one doesn't hurt me as much as no memory / sin does. as much like naked Sunday this is really just a rocking tune meant to be played at live shows 2 hype the f****** out of the crowd. there's not much information about this song so this is going to be one of the lighter introduced now much like naked Sunday as well the bass drives this song well not to the same extent it's still a wonderful performance by Robert. lead guitar show shows in excellent performance complemented by a killer solo probably the best on the album. however for the rest of it it mostly just follows the bass or vice versa however you want to look at it. the drums in the song do more to complement rather than stand out so another excellent performance by Eric Kretz. the vocals on the other hand making no sense well that's a bit of a stretching of the truth they do make sense but it's one of those songs by everybody's going to have their own meaning. personally I see the song as somebody who takes a look at their life and realizes that they serve everybody else and this leads them to have no emotions for others as at first they're standing around dressed like a clown and then the next minute they're wearing a crown of apathy. the singing in the song however is one of Scott's most blooming vocal performances a thing of which unfortunately only really appears on core and then maybe one or two tracks on number four. it's a voice which conveys probably more power than Eddie vedder's what does and that's not something I say lightly as when Scott was at his best he was truly the best singer of this era in my opinion. other than that piece of pie is another strong a track on a great album.
now for what many would consider stps magnum opus plush. and despite how popular the song was during nearly every single live performance especially especially the acoustic performances everybody claps turn the f****** pause and every time this happens I burst out laughing uncontrollably I mean really just go look at the performances everybody claps during the pause and then looks like an absolute idiot when they keep playing it's Sublime. now of course this was the second single off of core released May 13th 1993 and like all good and Amazing Ideas it was written and a hot tub during a conversation between the drummer and the lead vocalist Eric and Scott. this leads me to believe that drummers can have amazing ideas for songs and that they shouldn't be kicked out for having a song idea. now of course this song Shot them to number one on the Rock charts and more famously won a Grammy in 1994 for the best hard rock performance which the song absolutely deserves as when people talk about era-defining songs from this time it's always 1 Smells Like Teen Spirit 2 alive 3 down in a hole and four plush. this was really the song that catapulted the band into mainstream success it was a song that got everybody listening and wanting more from the band. and the music video for this song is in my opinion the best music video Stone Temple Pilot has ever done. as it tells a simple to follow story that the lyrics pretty much spell out for you I mean there's no doubts that the songs about a dead girl in the woods that dogs find and that's what I'm pretty sure the music videos getting at you know besides showing the band in a small Jazz Club. now the first thing that hits you in the song is of course beans magnificent guitar playing which incorporates many different chords All of which blend together to create this while simple very very elegant song. the drums to our just booming with power in this one and the base is nothing to scoff at either. and of course in the vocal Department we have the booming vocals of Scott Weiland now while overplayed this song is probably the best example of why a STP is an amazing band everything just Blends together perfectly every part of this band is excellent there's honestly nothing more I could add to the song that you haven't heard a million times before so we're just going to get moving right along.
now we get to the part of the album that most people in the early nineties probably skipped over because they're beta cucks. wet my bed best track on the album 10 out of 10 IGN would play again don't at me list rap shows STP at their most improvised and bear back Glory and leads us right into the Power Trip of cracker man.
He's a man he's a man crackerman crackerman he's a woman to. Now while I don't want to facilitate the rumors that Pearl Jam and Stone Temple Pilots at this time were extremely similar and extremely big quotation marks there. much like Evenflo the song was at least the lyric wise inspired by the homeless people Scott passed on the LA sidewalk before that the song apparently went through multiple incarnations lyrically some of which well all of which I'm interested to hear as without the inspiration of the homeless people what would this song even be about. unfortunately other than that the song There's a little to stick out from the rest on the album in my opinion being the weakest song There is. the guitar is fantastic but other than that personally nothing really sticks out to me. it's the definition of a by-the-numbers STP song and apparently they played it like five times during the beginning of the unplugged performance when they were just like setting up personally if I was there waiting for that I would be pissed if they started with crackerman. the vocals do feature the return of the almighty bullhorn but other than some awkward mixing on the 25th anniversary release which exclusively puts the bullhorn to the left speaker in a process that gives me a headache every time I listen to the song with headphones the song it does nothing to stick out.
while I'm sure I've said it multiple multiple times throughout the course of this video where the river goes an extremely underrated song I almost never hear it brought up and that is unfortunate. The song starts off with a slow drum beat which leads into a guitar solo a move which makes it stick out much like naked Sunday starting with that drum beat wonderfully. and the main Rift was resurrected from a song that's being wrote back when they were living in New Jersey and from there and a couple of jam sessions it was eventually just brought to life. the vocals featured the last appearance of that booming Scott voice that will here for quite a while and talk about being steadfast in the face of extreme opposition a message that when taking the rest of the album's lyrics into account really is positive and uplifting the lyrics come off as almost effortless and the way they're written and at the same time you can tell have extreme care and their delivery. the drums are as powerful as ever throughout the song but the bass unfortunately mostly follows the guitar throughout this one which is pretty much the only thing I can knock it for. the song Almost follows the way this album sounds with lul in the middle being creep and then the rest just being a powerful hard-hitting sound. It's one of the songs you'll find yourself singing the lyrics to weeks after you listen to it. and is a great way to close out a fantastic album and as they do at many live performances as well close out the show.
Closing thoughts
now obviously I have some huge bias towards this album but I hope I've made even just one person see what I see in this album and this band especially. On the topic of his singing after recording the album o'brien said that Weiland “shuffled mood swings like a card stack…” when he sang. Years later during the 25th anniversary of core interview The other band members said that the lyrics foreshadowed scotts life in a way as he was expressing himself the best he could he wanted to get his issues across. Personally i see core as looking at a variety of different issues from and almost Outsider perspective they do get introspective with songs like creep but for the majority of the album its overall vague subject matter I feel later albums 12 much deeper into Scott's personal psyche and how he how has issues affected his life drastically especially in works like purple or tiny music which lyrics almost solely exist to dwell into how he was feeling at the time. being as the goal of the album was to allow the band to be Pioneers traveling across America debuting at number 3 on the billboard album chart aint a bad place to start and while it was seen as a flop from the critic perspective it was a commercial hit. today course it's at selling just above 8 million copies a milestone in which any band would be lucky to achieve but it wasn't luck that led this band to its success it was a combination of teamwork and just Shear skill that led to this debut. from the interviews they give out today it's clear that the rest of the band have a huge amount of respect for Scott and genuinely genuinely miss him and I think it's best to say they had differences but those differences LED to something amazing well I personally feel that the new reformed STP with lead singer Jeff Gutt is still a great band I have yet to see that they will reach the masterfulness of what they had with Scott Weiland after all “Scott weiland is one of the greatest lyricist of are time. He was brilliant, man, just brilliant.”~ Dean DeLeo.
