Soul Asylum Was A Party To Grunge Early In The Game

Soul Asylum, the band headlining Tuesday at the Moore, helped make the world safe for grunge. In the mid-1980s, along with such bands as Husker Du and the Replacements, the Minneapolis group was playing the kind of punk-meets-pop that made Nirvana famous. It toured and recorded constantly, paving the way for the grunge explosion. However, the band's new album, "Grave Diggers Union," is its least garage-y, least grungey offering. "Somebody to Shove," the first single from it, retains a punk attitude but is more pop than previous Soul Asylum releases. Called "the best live band in America" by the Village Voice, the group reportedly hasn't changed its wild, partylike performance style. The strong triple-bill also includes the Lemonheads, the ragged but melodic trio that recently released a great cover of "Mrs. Robinson," as well as an intriguing collection of a dozen fast-paced originals, "It's a Shame About Ray." Opening is the Jayhawks, the tight Southern blues-rock band that recently opened here for the Black Crowes.

-- Nirvana's "Incesticide" - made up mostly of pre-"Nevermind" material from a variety of sources - comes out next Tuesday on DGC Records and should enjoy strong initial sales, because it's the first "new" album from the band in over a year. But whether it will have legs is problematic. All the best cuts have been released before, officially or on bootlegs. Only two of the 15 songs have never before been available, for good reason. "Hairspray Queen" is nearly unlistenable, thanks to a fingernails-on-chalkboard vocal. "Aero Zeppelin" is formula punk notable only for its guitar solo, a homage to Led Zeppelin. Great cuts from Sub Pop are included - "Dive," "Sliver" and "Stain," all harrowing tales of childhood and adolescence from artful angst-meister Kurt Cobain - as well as the cream of a live performance broadcast on BBC Radio. Those songs, which seem to have an English feel, include one of Nirvana's finest, the sinister and funny "Aneurysm," as well as the brilliantly cynical comment on sexism, "Been A Son," and the delightfully poppy Vaselines' cover, "Molly's Lips." The album is basically a holding pattern while the world awaits the 1993 release of the next real Nirvana album, currently in the song-demo stage.

-- Meanwhile, the latest Nirvana video, for "In Bloom" from "Nevermind," is playing exclusively on MTV and is helping soften the band's image, battered by charges of drug use. The funny black-and-white clip is a takeoff on "The Ed Sullivan Show," with "People's Court" host Doug Llewelyn playing the Sullivan role. He praises the trio as fine young men, just as Sullivan did with the Beatles, even while they're destroying the set. Cobain looks like a nerd at first, with slicked-backed hair and horn-rimmed glasses. But later he kicks into his weirdo mode, jumping around in a dress. The song is one of the best from "Nevermind," and the video should become a big favorite.

-- Pearl Jam's Stone Gossard has completed a solo album called "Shame," set for release by Epic Records in March. The singer-guitarist goes to New York in February to mix the disc, which is said to be dance-floor-oriented and not at all like Pearl Jam. The whole band will be in New York New Year's Eve for a big show at the Academy - opening for Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones. Meanwhile, Pearl Jam's highly popular appearance on "MTV Unplugged" will be repeated for the third time, at 9 o'clock tonight on MTV.

-- Alice in Chains will be featured on MTV's annual New Year's Eve bash, starting at 11 p.m. Dec. 31. "MTV Drops the Ball '93" will include live performances from Roseland in New York from not only AIC but also Arrested Development, Bobby Brown (who will play the Tacoma Dome Feb. 17), Boyz II Men, Extreme, Spin Doctors and 10,000 Maniacs. And, of course, it will also include the dropping of the big ball in Times Square.

-- The Jimi Hendrix Exhibition, which has been drawing large crowds in Europe, will come to Seattle and several other American cities next year. The exhibition includes photography, lithography, paintings and "manipulated art" celebrating Hendrix's life, many created specifically for the show. Also promised are previously-unreleased photos of Hendrix. The exhibit has played London, Paris, Milan, Hamburg, Amsterdam and Dublin, and is currently on a five-city tour of Australia. The U.S. leg will open in April at the Ambassador Gallery in New York. It will come to Seattle next summer, with specific dates and site to be announced. It will also play San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Boston, Cleveland, Chicago, Atlanta and Nashville.