Craig Reptile: Your Sunday Sonic Sundowner writesFriday MP3 Shuffle: Happy Birthday Mark Lanegan Edition

(photo from marklanegan.com by Steve Gullick)

Today on the MP3 Shuffle, we celebrate the birthday of Mark Lanegan.  Lanegan fronted a band out of the Pacific Northwest called Screaming Trees from 1985 to 2000, one of many acts that got unfairly lumped into the “grunge” sound.  As is usually the case, reality was much more complicated-- the quartet captured an eerie, dark psychedelia through a buzz factory of guitars and Lanegan’s dusty, whiskey-soaked croak of a baritone.

But having seen the band play live and Lanegan perform solo, I much prefer the latter.  He’s a well-known collaborator (he’ll share the stage with The Afghan Whigs within the next few weeks at benefits for guitarist Dave Rosser, recently diagnosed with inoperable colon cancer) and has recorded a few records of reinterpretations, but he’s at his best when sharing his own nightmarish dreams and waking nightmares.  What better day than Black Friday to commemorate a man whose dark worldview should make him a worthwhile inheritor to the man in black himself?

To mark this day and celebrate Lanegan’s music, let’s play the shuffle. Grab your MP3 player or electronic device of your choice, press the shuffle button, and share the first 10 songs that play:

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