This page is Point of Interest page 6 of the Alternative Rock, Grunge and Seattle Tour,

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Black Dog Forge

Black Dog Forge, in the alley behind 2316 2 ^nd Avenue, is a blacksmith shop that has gone down in grunge history. It is renowned for being the place where Pearl Jam and Soundgarden rehearsed in the basement. It's also the place where members of the two bands collaborated to form the groundbreaking band Temple of the Dog. But back then, this place was called Galleria Potatoehead. It was also the location where many of Pearl Jam's stage sets were created.

Before the bands Pearl Jam and Temple of the Dog were even formed, a series of events unfolded. Green River disbanded, and this split lead not only to the formation of Mudhoney and Mother Love Bone, but eventually to the formation of Pearl Jam and Temple of the Dog.

In the context of grunge history, Green River was one of the most significant bands to form in the mid 1980s. They are arguably one of the first bands to establish a sound that would be later considered "grunge". But the group is also noteworthy because of the significant bands that formed from the ashes of Green River's breakup.

Green River formed in 1984, and consisted of Jeff Ament, Stone Gossard, Mark Arm, Alex Vincent, and Steve Turner. Shortly after the band released the album ' Come On Down' on Homestead Records in May of 1985, guitarist Steve Turner left the band because of his growing interest in punk and garage rock, as opposed to the metal influences that were prominent in Green River. He was replaced by Bruce Fairweather. Many consider Come On Down to be the first grunge record.

After their release of Dry as a Bone on Sub Pop in 1987, Green River released the eight song album Rehab Doll in early 1988. But tensions in the band continued. There was a split between bassist Jeff Ament and guitarist Stone Gossard who wanted to pursue a major label deal and make more commercial music, and vocalist Mark Arm was more interested in punk simplicity and wanted to remain independent. Green River disbanded shortly after the release of Rehab Doll. Ament, Gossard and Fairweather then united with Ex-Malfunkshun singer Andy Wood, and ex-Ten Minute Warning and Skin Yard drummer Greg Gilmore to form the glammier Mother Love Bone. Mark Arm reunited with Turner to form the punkier Mudhoney.

Apple was scheduled for release in March 1990, but on March 19th, Andy Wood died of a cerebral hemorrhage brought on by a heroin overdose. This was one of the first hints that the drug culture in Seattle, which was also a significant part of the music scene – had the potential to be deadly and destructive. The release of Apple was pushed back to July of 1990, but Andy's death eventually caused Mother Love Bone to disband. Gossard and Ament were emotionally devastated by the loss of their bandmate, and they were uncertain of their direction as musicians.

Gossard began playing songs with local guitarist Mike McCready. McCready encouraged Gossard to ask Ament if he would play bass with them, and so the three of them began playing together in August of 1990. Still in need of a drummer and a singer, they put a demo together with Matt Cameron of Soundgarden and sent it out to several friends and acquaintances.

One of the tapes made its way to ex-Red Hot Chili Pepper drummer Jack Irons, who was busy drumming in his own band at the time - but Irons had an idea about who might work as a singer. He had met a guy named Eddie Vedder at a Joe Strummer concert in San Diego, and the two ended up becoming good friends. Jack passed along the tape to Eddie, who was working at a gas station in San Diego and singing for a local band called Bad Radio. According to Eddie, he listened to the tape, which consisted of three instrumental tracks: "Alive", "Once", and "Footsteps". He then went out surfing and thought of lyrics for the songs. Eddie, still with the sand on his feet, recorded the vocals and sent the tape back to Seattle.

The original tape that Eddie sent back to Seattle

Disclaimer: copyright of this image rests with the original copyright holder, no infringement is intended. Image obtained from http://www.revolutioncomeandgone.com/articles/11/m...

Impressed with Eddie's work on the songs, Ament, Gossard and McCready flew him to Seattle. Within a week, Eddie joined the band, and drummer Dave Krusen joined the group soon after. They played their first gig at the Off Ramp Café in the Eastlake neighbourhood of Seattle on October 22, 1990, They billed themselves as "Mookie Blaylock", after the well-known professional basketball player who played for the New Jersey Nets in the early 1990s. The band rehearsed and refined songs here in the basement space for their seminal debut album, Ten, During that period, Eddie lived in a small room that was connected to the basement rehearsal space.

A few days after Andy Wood's death, close friend and Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell began writing songs about Andy and then went on tour. His songs "Say Hello to Heaven" and "Reach Down" were stylistically unlike anything Soundgarden or Mookie Blaylock was doing, so Chris Cornell approached Gossard, Ament, and McCready, as well as Matt Cameron from Soundgarden, to work on a single as a tribute to Andy. They enjoyed both the material and the collaboration, and so they scrapped the idea of a single in favor of an entire record. They named themselves and the tribute album "Temple of the Dog", after a lyric from a Mother Love Bone song "Man of Golden Words". Temple of the Dog was rehearsed the same week that Eddie Vedder was flown down to audition for Mookie Blaylock, so he was present for the Temple of the Dog rehearsals.

Blecha, P. (2014). Future grunge-rock icons of Pearl Jam perform debut gig as "Mookie Blaylock" at Seattle's Off Ramp Cafe on October 22, 1990. HistoryLink.org. Retrieved from http://www.historylink.org/File/11003

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Pearl Jam. (2013). Pearl Jam Twenty. [Google EBook Version] retrieved from https://books.google.ca/books?id=uWa9AAAAQBAJ&pg=PA42&lpg=PA42&dq=pearl+jam+twenty+galleria+potato+head&source=bl&ots=jck6ZVAipQ&sig=TAhIJeI56ngcuKuV30cMR2zhPgo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjCxc_n-9nTAhVm94MKHU-_BQEQ6AEIQjAE#v=onepage&q=pearl%20jam%20twenty%20galleria%20potato%20head&f=false

Temple of the Dog. (2017). Retrieved (May 6, 2017) from the Temple of the Dog Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_the_Dog

Yarm, M. (2011). Everybody loves our town. Crown Publishing: New York, USA

This work was created by Kyle Huisman

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