Talk:Screaming Trees

Original Lineup?
The founding members were brothers Gary Lee Conner (guitars) and Van Conner (bass), vocalist Mark Lanegan, and drummer Mark Pickerel

This makes it sound as if this is the original lineup - however wasn't Mark Lanegan was originally a drummer? These are the founding members but the instruments are those which they were to end up playing, rather than started out playing.--*smb 19:53, 19 September 2006 (UTC)


 * In reply to the above...


 * The Trees have been known to highly muddle their own history in interviews (possibly due to different perspectives on what happened...or maybe it was the drugs) so it's difficult to distinguish what's fact and what isn't. But from what I've seen, the first line-up was Mark Pickerel on vocals, Lee Conner on drums, and Van Conner on guitar (no bass player). After a little while, Van and Mark kicked Lee out of the band, and invited Lanegan to play drums. This lasted for a little while, until Lee was allowed to rejoin as the bass player. This lineup lasted for a short while until it was decided that a switch of instruments was in order (as Van wasn't a very good guitar player and Lanegan was, by his own admission, a terrible drummer). So the Marks switched, and the Conners switched, and thus we have the "original" lineup, i.e. the lineup mentioned in the biography and the one that they first used to record music.


 * --Chrisby

Brief History Tidbit
The Trees were originally Mark Pickerel and the Conner brothers then Mark Lanegan was brought in. I first met the guys in 1986 when our band was recording at Creative Fire/Velvetone with Steve Fisk producing. I had heard their music from a cassette that was recorded at Velvetone in 1985 (Other Worlds) which is how we found out about the studio. We had been playing pretty regular in the Yakima area and we invited the guys to come play with us at the KC Hall. The Trees at that time really didn't play anywhere other then the video store where they worked, for rehearsal. The night of the show the guys showed up, Lanegan had been drinking and brought his beer into the hall. The old man Keith who was in charge of the hall told him to take his booze out, it was not allowed and with that Lanegan told the rest of his guys he didn't want to stay and walked out (the other guys just sat in silence). As he was walking out he told me "Tell Dan he still owes us 50 bucks"..... This is pretty much how their band was throughout its existance, very unsettled. The Conner bro's were nice guys but I didn't know Pickerel too well, though he seemed to get along with our singer fine. I did see them play in a barn in front of about 20 people in the orchards of Yakima, which could have been their first live performace and they sounded good! They played every song at 100mph, but it was tight, and good (this was the weekend previous to the KC Hall walkout). After Clairvoyance came out Steve got them some opening gigs in Seattle and Portland and the SST deal came a bit after that......Also, I had heard rumors that the reason Pickerel left (or was kicked out?) was differences with Lanegan about the splitup of the money, or that he felt he was getting the short end of the deal. Not sure if its true, but that's the word I heard 2nd hand.FWIW Mrhyak


 * Thanks for the first hand info, Mr Hyak! (Katey here from www.timeforlight.com) A few comments from me about the bio here:


 * - the relationship between the band's name and the guitar pedal has always been debated. Lee denys any connection though I have read other members claim that the name came from the pedal.


 * - the band that Van and Pickerel (and Lee at times) were in prior to the Trees was called "The Explosive Generation." They did play out but were strictly a cover band.


 * - and yes, stories to vary considerably member-to-member. The general trend seems to be Lanegan denying responsibility for anything, but in Lee's version of events Lanegan seems to responsible for maintaining relationships with record labels and the also to have been in creative control of the band.

British synthpop band?
"Not to be confused with the British synthpop group The Screaming Trees"? Since that band isn't famous enough to have their owm wiki page, is confusing the two particularly likely? I don't think this is necessary at all.86.128.12.93 18:03, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Indeed it isn't notable, considering the page it links to redirects to the Screaming Trees page. Notation removed. --Captain Cornflake 18:15, 2 December 2006 (UTC)


 * 35 years ago, I erroneously bought an album by this UK band, because I saw it listed in a mail order catalog. At that time, you couldn't look up things at sites like Discogs. -- 2003:E5:170A:C85:7CEF:923A:9EA2:EC54 (talk) 10:50, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

The Effects Pedal
Hello. Not wanting to be too anal (though I guess an encyclopedia has to be) the effects pedal mentioned (the electro-harmonix screaming tree) is not a distortion pedal in that it doesn't distort the wave form of the signal. It can overdrive a tube amp and be considered an overdrive like the tube screamer, but it's main primary function is a volume and treble boost that has one knob which boosts volume and treble simultaneously. The best known use of the screaming tree would probably be everything Joey Santiago did in the Pixies (bendy style single notes played on a Les Paul with the screaming tree). It is also used by Built to Splill. The pedal is discontinued now and can occasionaly be found on Ebay for about £30 GBP. It is an intense but fun pedal.

Nirvana an Associated Act
I added them because the bands started a bit of a blue act and recorded demos back in 1990. These demos show up on WTLO and Mark's solo album.


 * No, the blues band is associated with the Screaming Trees, not Nirvana. They were called The Jury. Speedboy Salesman 11:32, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

1995-2000: Dust and Break Up
I just edited this section a bit to reflect what really appears in the Allmusic biography. It does not mention the "shopping around" of the unreleased album. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Miguel Vieira (talk • contribs) 18:03, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Godfathers of grunge?
I just read where someone called the Trees, "Godfathers of Grunge"? This is not true. First off, they started out in 1985 in Ellensburg playing what was considered psychedelia type rock (60's influence) and did not sound anything like what was going on in the Seattle area. In the 90's they rode the Seattle band wave along with many other bands, but never reached the stardom as those such as Pearl Jam, Nirvana or Sound Garden (bands normally considered so-called grunge). The 'godfather' label is a bit strong IMO. --Mrhyak (talk) 01:42, 8 October 2009 (UTC)