Alice in Chains (Layne Staley) - Same Old Trip

"If you attended Eastglen Composite high School in Edmonton in the early 90s you may remember the dark hallway. It was a stretch of lockers in an area of the school that had no classrooms, therefore was pretty much unsupervised. Due to this lack of supervision, the school administration tried various methods to deter students from choosing these lockers. Their methods included wiring the lockers shut and cutting the power to the area, leaving the hallway in perpetual darkness. All of this, of course, was highly unsuccessful. The area was quickly adopted by skaters, snowboarders, musicians and artists – it was our own sanctuary, an area of anarchy in an otherwise heavily ruled society. For me, that thirty yards of hallway exemplified the look and vibe of the early nineties better than any movie or book possibly could.
Of course, the oversize plaid wearing crowd of the dark hallway equally loved all the Seattle based grunge bands, but for some reason, for the last 30 years every time I hear Alice in Chains I think if this place and the characters it produced. I’m not sure if it’s the edge in Layne Staley’s voice, his look, or a combination of both, but nowadays the opening bass line of “Would?” instantly transports me back to that wonderfully creative time and place. For me, the soundtrack of that era will always be timeless, aged like a fine wine, it truly is “the same old trip it was back then." -Stickman