Soundgarden “Ultramega OK” 1988. SST Records. Today, September 4th, is Soundgarden lead guitarist Kim Thayil’s 60th birthday (b. 1960) so I’m spinning their first full-length LP (they released 2 EP’s on Sub Pop in ‘87 and ‘88). Grungy/alt-metal, it secured a Grammy nomination in ‘90 for best metal performance. Thayil is considered one of the greatest guitarists (both Spin and Rolling Stone include him in the top 100) and many credit his style of playing – hard and heavy riffing – as basically setting the tone for the grungy Seattle sound of the late 80′s and early 90′s. I’ve only seen Thayil play once and not for Soundgarden but instead as part of the MC50 tour with Wayne Kramer in 2018. That was amazing.

Thayil wrote/co-wrote several of the tracks on Ultramega OK (I guess the title was a Thayil joke: the band wasn’t happy with the album’s mix but liked the songs so they considered the record “absolutely, unbelievably not bad” – it was remixed from the original tapes in 2017 and released on Sub Pop) including the lead track and only single “Flower,” “All Your Lies” (co-written with bassist Hiro Yamamoto), “Circle of Power” (one of my faves on the record and the most punk leaning) and “Incessant Mace.” Chris Cornell and/or Yamamoto wrote the remainder of the record besides the two cover tracks: Howlin’ Wolf’s “Smokestack Lightning” that also includes bits of the most excellent Sonic Youth song “Death Valley ‘69″ as well as “One Minute of Silence” which is not really a cover but another joke, this time on John Lennon’s song “Two Minutes of Silence” – Soundgarden’s version is a minute of not really silence because apparently Thayil couldn’t be quiet for a full minute so there’s some muffled noise in the background.