Moroni's Retro-Review of Alice in Chain's "Jar of Flies"

I have to admit - I missed the whole grunge thing.  I was present in the '80s for the whole gothic/ birth-of-alternative thing.  There is even a memory in high school history class where I predicted a war that would lead to another counter culture movement, and I remembered one of the cheerleaders laughed at me.  But by the time Lollapalooza rolled around in the early '90s I was on hiatus.  So where was I?

After spending a stint in my teen years trying to invent myself as a beatnik, a hippie, a punk, a goth, a raver (complete with experiments with various substances), I swung to the opposite end of the spectrum, and I tried to re-invent myself as a pious fundamentalist Mormon.  In so doing, I forswore music.  I took milk crates full of vinyl and cassettes to the local record shop and sold them.  And those that I couldn't sell, I gave away in an effort to rewrite myself.

So I missed the whole grunge thing.  I was aware of it, but not really into it.  I knew who Alice in Chains were.  I have a specific memory of going to the record shop in West Valley City, Utah on a mission to buy the new Xymox album and seeing the poster for "Dirt" and kind of tripping out on the cover with the dead girl half-buried in the soil.  But I had never listened to them.

Eventually, I realized that I was mistaken trying to reinvent myself.  Yes, I am a Mormon fundamentalist, but I am much more than that.  The kid that wore guyliner and spiked his hair with egg whites, the kid who questioned authority, and strove to be different.  That kid will always be a part of me.  I am both people at once.

So it was around 1994 that I started to introduce music back into my life.  The Cranberries.  Live.  Alice in Chains.  It was like I was discovering who I was again.  To this day, I occasionally fall under criticism from other Mormon fundamentalists, because of my love of rock music.  But this is who I am.  This is who I have always been.  In my adulthood, I know who I am and where I stand with God, and I have a hard time believing that I will be judged harshly by a God just because I listen to Alice in Chains.

By the time I rediscovered myself, I was already married to Martha, and with a baby who we called Sophie.  I only owned "Jar of Flies" - the eponymous EP by Alice in Chains - on cassette.  So, every now and then, as money permits, I download digital copies of music that meant so much to me back then.  I find it funny that I am sometimes less nostalgic for the music of my teen years than I am for the music of my newlywed days.

Back then, life was new.  I looked forward to the future with anticipation of what would happen.  My whole life was before me.  I lacked the illusory permanence of my teen years, and I lacked the jaded disappointment of middle age.  There was never another time of hope as during that time.

And Alice in Chain's "Jar of Flies" was a part of the soundtrack of that magical time.

I still remember the first time I heard it.  I went to Cottonwood, Arizona to see my friend Steve's band play.  Matt was warming up on the bass and was playing along with "Rotten Apple".  I was impressed by the song so much that I went out and bought a used copy from Bookman's in Mesa.

The entire EP has that effect on me.  I have since gone back added other Alice in Chains albums to my collection.  But none of them stir my emotions like this EP does.

And ultimately, isn't that the purpose of music?  To stir the soul?