Screaming Trees Firmly Planted On Seattle's Alternative Turf

Screaming Trees, King Krab, Earth and Some Velvet Sidewalk, tomorrow, 8 p.m., University of Washington HUB Ballroom, $6 for UW students, $10 for general public.

Witness brotherly love in action.

According to Screaming Trees guitarist Gary Lee Conner, the group started with his brother Van Conner and a high school friend, drummer Mark Pickerel. ``I couldn't get into a band,'' says Gary.

Van says, ``Mom made me put him in the band.''

The group started seven years ago as a diversion from daily life in Ellensburg, with the initial goal of putting out an album. Their show tomorrow night at the HUB Ballroom will be a homecoming for one of the latest Seattle-based groups to sign with a major record label.

``After `Buzz Factory' (their 1989 release on independent label SST), we decided we wanted to go with a major. We did some shows in California, where there were supposed to be some label people, but they all hated us,'' says Gary. ``But we did a fall tour in 1989, and the label people in New York liked us. But the guy that signed us was from California.''

Their debut release on Epic, ``Uncle Anesthesia,'' is a noisy, swirling, psychedelic-tinged album typical of the group's other albums.

The sound is a contrasting mix of fuzzy, bleary guitar and the steady, mournful baritone of singer Mark Lanegan.

The dichotomy is carried out to its full potential in live shows. While Lanegan performs at a stand-still against the microphone stand, the Conner brothers throw their considerable bulk about the stage, with Gary throwing his hair around in complete circles.

The Trees' live experience has become one of the most popular in the Seattle underground scene, despite the difference in sound from the SubPop stable of punk-metal ``grunge'' rock, the main alternative music draw in Seattle. Being embraced by the Seattle scene, the Trees admit, was unexpected.

``When we started this band, we wanted to do original songs, but we had no real concept of the underground music scene. We started touring in 1985, and there wasn't much going on in Seattle,'' says Gary.

One of the main reasons they were able to migrate to Seattle's alternative scene was the acceptance of the influential Calvin Johnson, who runs Olympia's eclectic K label, and favorable press from Bruce Pavitt, who went from writing a Rocket column on American independent bands to co-founding SubPop records. One Pavitt article called the group the Conners' revenge for being taunted and having rocks thrown at them while growing up in Ellensburg.

The Conners each had different plans for the group when it first started. Van wanted more of a hard-core punk sound; Gary wanted more of a garage band and psychedelic sound. And although the sound leans more toward the latter, they now derisively label it ``classic rock.''

Although Pickerel performed on the last album, he quit the group in October because he was tired of touring. The other three members did offshoot projects last year before Pickerel's departure, which allowed the Conners to work with friends in other Ellensburg bands, and for Lanegan to do what he described as acoustic work ``very different'' from Trees material.

The latest addition to the group is Mudhoney drummer Dan Peters, who will perform on the group's upcoming American tour while Mudhoney, with its next two albums completed, takes a hiatus from live shows until summer. Peters is arguably the best drummer in Seattle, but for the group, the mere fact that he wants to be in the group is a positive.

The show is the latest in a three-year run of ambitious, high-energy alternative rock concerts put on by the University of Washington's ASUW Productions. The Four Bands Four Bucks series, started in 1988 under the guidance of former Productions director Stephanie Jordan, has become an essential showcase for local alternative groups, and concerts in the last few years have included the Swans, Bob Mould, the Posies and Ultra Vivid Scene.

The show, although not part of the series, will feature three other local alternative groups selected by the Trees to open: Ellensburg's King Krab, and Olympia groups Earth and Some Velvet Sidewalk. The groups range from Earth's grungy instrumental workouts to Some Velvet Sidewalk's disarmingly minimal one guitarist-one drummer set-up.