News, pics, videos & more for all things Stoney. THIS IS A FAN FIC FREE ZONE. Gonna try to post content that isn't the same rehashed pics & video thats out there 🤞🏻 Stoney solo, Mother Love Bone, Green River, Temple of the Dog, Painted Shield, Pearl Jam, Loosegroove Records, charities etc
PLEASE SHARE, SIGN THE PETITION (linked on the website above), REPOST this on ALL social media platforms & CALL AND/OR WRITE ALL SEATTLE POLITICAL AND REAL ESTATE CONTACTS LISTED AT THE ABOVE WEBSITE. IT MAY NOT BE TOO LATE TO SAVE ANOTHER PIECE OF SEATTLES VANISHING HISTORY Follow on IG for updates @savethevirginiainn and @virginiainn
As of April 11 2025: To our loyal customers and friends, it is with a heavy heart we inform you the Virginia Inn will be permanently shutting our doors on Sunday, April 27th. Our lease has been terminated by our landlord, the Pike Place Market PDA, due to failed negotiations for an equitable lease.
The V.I. — as it’s known to regulars — has a long and colorful Skid Row history dating back to 1903. In the 1980’s, we became one of the first art bars in Seattle, showcasing a rotating selection of local artists. We were featured in the iconic “grunge era” 1992 film, “Singles.”
We are Pike Place's oldest institution; older than Pike Place itself. We have seen this city grow and change all around us. We have survived through Prohibition, the Great Depression, the Great Recession, the COVID pandemic, and many other events in between.
Please join us in celebration for what makes the Virginia Inn such a beloved historical institution. Have a drink, share a cry or a story, buy a t-shirt. All t-shirt proceeds will go into a fund for our employees.
On our behalf, please direct your grievances to Pike Place Market chairs Devin McComb ([email protected]) or Zack Cook ([email protected]). Consider writing to Mayor Bruce Harrell. We have a staff of 20+ people; many long term employees who have dedicated their lives and love to this place. We want to stay!
Hi everyone! I hate to come with hat in hand to ask for help, but I was supposed to sell my vehicle to get the money for rent on a beautiful new place in Seattle, but the person ghosted me and I am truly screwed now. I've put in my months notice here, and I will have nowhere to live. I desperately need $3,000 by Monday.
My PayPal is @magpiewithacamera
I know we've all got hard times right now, but if you could see a way to help me out, please, I am honestly begging. I feel this is my last chance to grab a life in Seattle.
Please help me, and please reblog if you can. Thank you very much.
Apologies to the decent people on here who appreciated things I shared. I thought maybe fans would like seeing some things (both new and old) that haven't been published for mass consumption. Things seen from an insiders perspective because over the years and decades I've seen that alot of fans can be pretty chill.
Clearly I was naive in assuming that the handful of people who ruin shit for everyone else in every other aspect of daily life would somehow not do the same here. This account had a short run but I appreciate the love and fun messages people sent. I'm sure the wording I'm about to use will rub some people the wrong way but oh well. When you're given access to something as a privilege and people fully abuse that privilege even after being called out and approached privately to just give credit when they steal, that privilege goes away. (Paulo the stalker and daily.gossard, I'm lookin' at you)
It's a real shame because even just the past year or 2 our friend group has seen and shared some truly joyful and fun memories and life events amongst ourselves but lately I've been reminded again why all our social media accounts are private.
Stone Gossard And Regan Hagar On Bookending Brad Via Pair Of New Releases
Brad guitarist Stone Gossard and drummer Regan Hagar on bookending Brad via reissue of the group's 1993 debut 'Shame' and the new album 'In
Since forming in 1992, Seattle rock outfit Brad has released six albums, experimenting with voices and sounds which allowed them to operate outside the grunge groundswell developing around them.
Driven by the soulful, one of a kind vocal of singer and pianist Shawn Smith, Brad’s music has always maintained a sense of honesty, the singer’s earnest delivery and thoughtful storytelling defining their best work.
Sessions for the group’s 1993 studio debut Shame, newly reissued to celebrate the album at 30, moved notoriously fast, with Brad emerging with a self-produced album in just 17 days, the result of a highly collaborative songwriting process.
“I think Regan has been using this word more often. But he talks about inception and how he’s so attracted to art that is sort of the first moment or the first time that something reveals itself,” explained Brad guitarist Stone Gossard, referencing Brad drummer Regan Hagar. “I think we had that on the first record in spades,” he said, looking back at Shame. “Because we were just jumping off a cliff saying, ‘Well, let’s make a record. We don’t have any songs but I know we can do it in 10 days. And we’ve never heard this bass player before but I bet he’s gonna be good! And we’re gonna go in a studio and it’s probably all gonna work out.’ And it actually did!” recalled the guitarist. “And the reason why is because we had that spirit of sort of dreaming and collaborating.”
Smith passed away tragically in April of 2019 at just 53 years old, the result of high blood pressure and a torn aorta shortly after the start of sessions for what would become Brad’s sixth studio album.
Processing the loss of their friend and bandmate, Brad reconvened to finish the music that makes up the new In The Moment That You’re Born, now available on vinyl and for online streaming, a collection of ten songs which includes a Brad take on “Stars n You,” Hagar revisiting his work alongside late singer Andy Wood in the group Malfunkshun.
“To me, this record is the most similar to the first. So, it’s interesting that they’re bookending each other from our career as it were as a group collectively,” Hagar observed. “The early tracks, it was 17 days of just kind of throwing ideas down and that kind of collaboration - working through songs in real time onto tape,” he said of the Shame sessions. “This latest record is actually a collection of those moments through the past decade really, where we had gotten together for a weekend at a time to throw ideas down - always with the intention of getting together later to finish,” Hagar explained. “When we did get together to finish, Shawn wasn’t with us any longer unfortunately. So, it remained rawer and more like the inception of the songs than some of the other albums. Which, I think, looking back at it now, lends itself so much to our first outing, the Shame album, that it’s poetic in a sense.”
Both the Shame reissue and the new In The Moment That You’re Born album are now available via Gossard and Hagar’s own Loosegroove Records, a label they ran together between 1994 and 2000, relaunching the label in 2020 in partnership with music distributor The Orchard, a forward thinking entity focused on great music which drills down on the lost art of artist development.
I spoke with Stone Gossard and Regan Hagar about the legacy of Shawn Smith, the cathartic process of wrapping up In The Moment That You’re Born and bookending the Brad story in surreal fashion via a pair of new releases. A transcript of our phone conversation, edited for length and clarity, follows below.
Jim Ryan: Stone, when you and I spoke in 2020, you mentioned that you were hoping to get this last Brad record out. Here we are almost three years later. I imagine it’s a difficult process but is it cathartic at all seeing it out there now starting to find an audience? Does that bring closure at all?
Stone Gossard: I think it’s cathartic. And it does bring some closure for sure. The process was three years and I think it was appropriately long in terms of sort of all of the things that needed to happen to sort of move through the process of listening, finalizing and bringing back the sort of key players that are going to be part of the decisionmaking in terms of Brad and Shawn’s estate and Lucy his partner. And just kind of getting everybody to see the idea and to approve. So that was a good process for us.
We got deep listens on a lot of tracks that we had recorded over the last five years. And I think we went in with the mental attitude of, “How do we move through this like Brad would move through stuff naturally?” And I think we were able to do that. Leaving it raw and loving elements that are sort of unpolished - but also sort of messing around and tweaking stuff and flipping it over and trying new stuff.
It gave Regan and I a chance to spend some time with Keith Lowe. Keith was a major contributor on the songwriting end of this record, which is a great, great thing. We really got to sit in the studio together and just listen to these old tracks. And spend some time together and think about Shawn and how much we miss him and how much his musical energy and his kindness and his humor and his view of life - just how much we appreciated that. And it was a good process. And I think in the end that the record turned out great.
“In the Moment That You’re Born” is the first single and it’s kind of one of the best Brad songs that I think we’ve ever written. It has an element of Satchel in there, which is Shawn and Regan’s other band. It’s heavy and it’s soaring and it has one of those lyrics from Shawn that sort of transcends and that can really bring a lot of meaning to a song. So, it was a good process.
Regan Hagar: I appreciate Stone’s answer there. It was quite an experience losing Shawn. And then going through and listening again gave all of us different ears for a moment. And just hearing Shawn’s message was coming across so much clearer in his absence. It was an interesting experience - very fulfilling.
Ryan: I was listening to the album again this morning. I think there’s a real honesty in Shawn’s lyrics. And I think that’s something that very much comes across in his vocals too - they’re so earnest. What sort of struck you about hearing him deliver these new songs as you started to reapproach them again after a few years?
Stone: Earnest is one word. I do think there’s very little between Shawn’s singing and sort of the very present sort of emotion of what he’s going through. I don’t know what the right word for that is. In terms of my experience with other singers, and just in music in general, his ability to sort of summon that kind of energy out of the universe in terms of being able to crystalize his emotions into a vocal melody, and even a vibration in his voice and how his voice comes across - it’s very pure. And it has an element to it that’s just undeniable when you’re in the room with it and when you’re listening to it. In the moment of creation, Shawn is really at his best. He really has a superpower there.
Ryan: I know that writing Shame was pretty collaborative. But by the time you get to this one, everyone’s just busier. There’s so many more things in play 30 years later. But, at least initially, how did these songs start to come together as you guys started kicking around the idea of a new Brad album?
Regan: To me, this record is the most similar to the first. So it’s interesting that they’re bookending each other from our career as it were as a group collectively.
The early tracks, it was 17 days of just kind of throwing ideas down and that kind of collaboration - working through songs in real time onto tape. This latest record is actually a collection of those moments through the past decade really, where we had gotten together for a weekend at a time to throw ideas down - always with the intention of getting together later to finish. So, when we did get together to finish, Shawn wasn’t with us any longer unfortunately. So, it remained rawer and more like the inception of the songs than some of the other albums. Which, I think, looking back at it now, lends itself so much to our first outing, the Shame album, that it’s poetic in a sense. This record reminds me of the first experience in its raw nature.
And the fact that we’re looking at a collection of song inceptions. And not that they’re not finished, but a lot of times in the studio you’ll redo things several times or add parts. And that wasn’t necessarily the case. The bulk of these songs are really just one or two passes with the band in the studio. So, it’s fun.
Ryan: Regan, what was it like revisiting Malfunkshun? How did you guys go about putting a new spin on “Stars n You” and kind of reapproach that track?
Regan: That was actually Stone’s idea. It was one of those weekends where we just got together and only did that song. And we had been apart for quite a long time at that point. It wasn’t initially going to be on the record I don’t think. In our first setup it wasn’t there. I had a really good time kind of revisiting that. Shawn was such a fan of Andy’s that when he approached it, he sounds to me very, very much like Andy. I can barely tell the two apart on that particular track - which is pretty phenomenal. As opposed to thinking he didn’t have an angle on it, Shawn shows amazing respect to Andy on that track. It’s been a good experience.
Stone: I knew how much that song meant to Regan and Shawn and I. And I think at the time it was like, “What’s something that can sort of remind us of where we came from? Something that’s fun that really could sort of reenergize our collaboration in a way?” Andy Wood was one of the most powerful, amazing sources of love and joy for all of us - everyone that met him, including Shawn. Invoking one of his songs just felt like the right thing to do at the time, you know?
Ryan: One of my favorite tracks on the album is “Without Guns.” A bit of a message there, some pretty powerful storytelling. But musically it’s great too. Am I hearing saxophone on there?
Regan: Yes! So, again, that’s a sketch. Sometimes Shawn would just vocalize what he thinks a melody should fit into a verse section and then would come back and do that later. This was one of those situations where we had a missing verse and we asked Hans Teuber, who had done some various horns and assorted instruments and keyboards and stuff with us on that album, to go in there and jam with Shawn’s scatting as it were - just kind of vocalize his idea. And it ended up just being really cool having the two of them run consecutively together. That’s what I’m thinking in my mind’s eye right now when you bring that up is that I really love that second verse where it’s Hans on sax and Shawn kind of scatting. It’s really amazing.
Stone: It’s great that you brought up that song. Because that’s definitely like a wonderful sort of - it’s not a Frankenstein but we started out with... I think Shawn did that as sort of a late night drum machine, one guitar and threw a vocal down where it was like, “OK. Here’s just kind of a crazy sketch…” But the more we listened to it, the more we fell in love with that character. The song has this... I don’t know what the right sort of word is. But this sort of homemade quality of it and… I don’t know. It has sort of has this quality to it that’s so nasty and broken and unpolished and unvarnished…
Regan: Like a drawl.
Stone: Yeah. It’s like he’s channeling some character from some place that is not Capitol Hill, you know? It’s great.
Ryan: Regan, you directed the video for “Hey Now What’s the Problem?” There’s this cool combination of vintage horror film imagery, cool pop culture moments, footage of the band - what were you going for with that video?
Regan: Right. I had initially been so excited about that track when it was first cut that I just threw together a bunch of my - I have a collection of pop clips. I am a bit of a videophile. This must’ve been six or seven years ago but I cut together all of that stuff without any of the band in it. Just running on excitement from cutting the track and listening to it and what Shawn was singing about, I just started getting the imagery of kind of how ridiculous some of those quote unquote “spooky” things are to people. And I found it somewhat ludicrous. So, I had just started comping that stuff together. And it sat for a bunch of years. And then when we finished the record, and it was time to generate some videos for it, I thought, “You know, I want to change that - but keep the same vibe.” But I ended up going and refreshing it with a bunch of clips of us playing that we had just to kind of bring it up to date. But it was just kind of goofing off with pop video stuff, which I really very much enjoy doing.
Ryan: Well, Regan, I think it was you that used the word “bookended” earlier. And that’s exactly the word that was in my head this morning. What a surreal way it is to sort of bookend this Brad story with the Shame reissue plus the new album. What did each of you learn in the process of working on both of these albums and taking a rare look like back like that in the depth you have throughout?
Stone: I think Regan has been using this word more often. But he talks about inception and how he’s so attracted to art that is sort of the first moment or the first time that something reveals itself. And I think over and over again through our careers, particularly with Regan and I, and with all of the bands that we’ve played in, when you first get together and you don’t know what anything is and you’re having this moment of like, “I’m free to be myself and I trust these people and I know that I’m safe...” I think that has been shown to us to be true again and again. The nature of the best stuff is when people let their guard down and come together collectively.
And I think we had that on the first record in spades. Because we were just jumping off a cliff saying, “Well, let’s make a record. We don’t have any songs but I know we can do it in 10 days. And we’ve never heard this bass player before but I bet he’s gonna be good! And we’re gonna go in a studio and it’s probably all gonna work out.” And it actually did! And the reason why is because we had that spirit of sort of dreaming and collaborating.
And I think the last record was the same in the sense that I think we came into the studio in those last sessions when Shawn was still with us and I think at the time we thought, “Well, what haven’t we done? How should we collaborate?” And I think the thing that we did was say, “Well, Keith Lowe, you’re a great player. You play some riffs.” And some of these Keith Lowe riffs that he brought out allowed us to kind of play in a different way than we normally played. And we layered those. And then Shawn Smith would come in and layer it in another way that we didn’t expect. And there was a generosity to the process that I think really comes across in the music.
So, long story short, I think it’s that inception and collaboration are those two things that really generate the most in the least amount of time.
Regan: I feel fortunate. And to see the absoluteness of it now with Shawn’s passing, I just feel thankful. And I’m glad that, though difficult at times, the band really stuck to doing what we wanted to do. And sometimes that was trying to please each other, sometimes it was trying to please ourselves. But I like that we did it together. We’re such old friends in a sense. It’s rare - being old now and realizing that it’s a little bit more special than we realized. It feels good.
loosey goosey where do u find all the new stone pics !!!!
I could tell you but then I'd have to kill you lol. Seriously though, from mutual friends and work acquaintances primarily. Honestly not entirely sure why I picked Tumblr to create this account and start posting to. Maybe because it's a more quiet platform here in 2023. I'm far too old for TikTok and IG is great but everything seems so disposable if that makes sense.
For anyone that has SiriusXM - check it out. I'll try to record some portions too. If you can catch, please do. It's really a special episode especially with the way Stoney & Regan compliment (literally and figuratively) each other so well.
Stoney with Michael "Goldie" Goldstone (he signed MLB and later Pearl Jam after staying in contact with Stone & Jeff even after he moved from PolyGram to Epic/Sony) and a few other pics from the private Loosegroove industry event in Brooklyn tonight. Also - a quick clip of Stoney playing with members of Tigercub and Jonny Polonsky (both Loosegroove artists) covering Sabbath🤘🏻
Gonna hold back a few more pics & video clips for now given recent events
Sup, jsyk that daily.gossard @ Instagram just posted a personal picture from your tumblr
That's gross, huh? No credits or mention of your page
I don't get people that are like that. Even when they take stuff from a professional photographers page there is no credit given. I noticed too that that particular IG has the settings so that you can't save any pics or videos posted as the link function is disabled. Something oddly amusing about a person whose entire account is stolen content making it so someone else can't save any of it from their page without screenshots 🤔
Hello all. My name is Floyd Reitsma. I work in the Fremont area of Seattle. Out fron… Floyd Reitsma needs your support for Benny the Stoned
Benny has been doing amazing free standing rock sculptures for two decades around the Fremont neighborhood. His chalk & rock designs have decorated Litho for years.
He now has stage 4 cancer, a terminal cancer diagnosis, and is struggling to make ends meet. He needs help with funds for housing first & foremost but could use assistance with everyday expenses too. His monthly rent is $1,600 of which he has about half. Please give what you can to help Benny or share the link.
Stoney & Regan talking to members of James And The Cold Gun about their new album release. The full interview audio is available on PJs SiriusXM channel if you subscribe.
Another chance to win tix to the invite only Loosegroove Records private industry event next week in NY.
Tuesday, July 25 at Brooklyns Saint Vitus Bar Stoney will be there tending bar, Regan will be DJing music by Loosegroove artists and both Jonny Polansky and Jamie from Tiger Club will be performing.
Tix are also being given away via Loosegroove Records Instagram page but you have to like, comment or tag their post about the event by the end of the day Sunday to be eligible.
It's a bar so obviously you and your guest have to be 21 or over and have a way to get to St Vitus in Brooklyn.
Good luck all!
There will also be performances from Loosegroove artists and other special guests, and we have 20 tickets to give away!
