In all that is going on in the craziness of the ‘new normal’ I was overlooking the anniversary of one of my most important heroes that i have always been moved by over the years.

Chris Cornell was a singer some may know, some may not. To me he was so ahead of his time in his writing and some things get brushed over. By chance I got to meet Chris Cornell as a teenager thru a friend who knew the band Seaweed before grunge became a thing. Looking back at the timeline it was probably before Matt Cameron joined the band in place of Hiro Yamamoto.

Regardless it was a powerful memory of musicians just being people off stage talking music and being people.

Years later I was carving and establishing my career as an artist early on and working in Ballard with Bruce Cook III on a pole. Moe’s was a venue that I was just aware of and Presidents of the United States of America was big at the time. We were on a break from carving and walked by when he noted the sound thru the wall and said it sounded like them and said we should go back so later that night we did.

To a big surprise they hosted a closed show, PUSA under a different band name. At the time the grunge scene from Nirvana' broke and Seattle became a different place. But there I was in a show because Bruce said hey lets go check this out. What stands out to me looking back is that not only was I in a limited show and felt like VIP where they could have charged big money for labels. These musicians cared about their energy and love of making music. I was able to meet Kim Thayil and Ben Shepherd. I was enamored. These guys fueled my youth from me teens into a career choice. They were brought up to the stage because the had a song called Spoonman about a man who caught their attention in Seattle that nothing to his name. Something about that show and knowing he was there and not exploited moved me so much. It wasn’t about that and to the bands of Seattle that I grew up with always gave me pride in growing up here. Along with the release of the track that wasn’t wide release and a nod to Black Sabbath and my early respect in remixing ideas “Into the Void (Sealth)”

Years later I saw the show before the band broke up at Key Arena and I could tell it was being forced. I had a mix of my friends around me and we looked to one another and could see it wasn’t right.

I was always skeptical of talks about Cornell joining Rage Against the Machine but then again I was skeptical about a director Christopher Nolan making a new Batman movie.

He broke out of a shell for a time touring and I’m not going to dive into his career so much as the reason I felt compelled to write this in the first place.

I got to meet a person who changed ideas who grew up in Seattle and saw the world. Go through many ups and downs and that is what life is. Regardless I come back to a song that made me think as a teen, the power of writing and thinking that never left me and has only now been awakened in his absence.

HANDS ALL OVER

Don't touch me
Hands all over the eastern border
You know what I think we're falling
From composure
Hands all over western culture
Ruffling feathers and turning eagles into vultures
Into vultures

Got my arms around baby brother
Put your hands away
Your gonna kill your mother, gonna kill your mother
Kill your mother
And I love her, yeah
I love her

Hands all over the coastal waters
The crew men thank her
Then lay down their oily blanket
Hands all over the inland forest
In a striking motion trees fall down like dying soldiers
Yeah like dying soldiers

Got my arms around baby brother
Put your hands away
Your gonna kill your mother, gonna kill your mother
Kill your mother
And I love her, yeah
I love her
I love her

Hands all over the peasants daughter
She's our bride she'll never make it out alive
Hands all over words I utter
Change them into things you want to
Like balls of clay
Put your hands away

Yeah, put your hands away
Put your hands away
Gonna kill your mother
Gonna kill your mother
Gonna kill your mother
And I love her
I love her
I love her
I love her
And she loves me, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

he didn’t live to see it but he inspired the remix of those ideas into making these four paddles that represent Sealth, Leschi, Chief Joseph and Patkanim. I called it my four fathers and if not for him I wouldn’t have had the courage to make it and write about them for people to learn about.

I circle back to meeting him when I knew very little about the art traditions of our people. He said he didn’t like the album art they did because it wasn’t a reflection of the people from here. It was an idea that never left me and one that made me look deeper into music and art and history.