by Pete Bilderback
I recently had the privilege of talking with Barrett Martin, the former drummer for the Screaming Trees who has issued the Trees’ Last Words: The Final Recordings on his own Sunyata label. In addition to being available for download at the usual places, Sunyata is currently taking pre-orders for the CD. If you pre-order from Sunyata, you’ll get the CD in September, a month before the street date.
Barrett was driving into Sacramento while we chatted, and I was impressed by his ability to discourse intelligently about music while doing something else. Perhaps his multi-tasking skills should not surprise me considering that in addition to being a drummer, he is also an upright bassist, composer, visual artist, music Professor, and an an ordained Zen priest in the Soto tradition.
Barrett’s drumming has been much in demand over the years, he did stints with both the Screaming Trees and Seattle grunge-rockers Skin Yard, and he has also drummed for R.E.M., Mad Season, Air, Luna, The Twilight Singers, Queens Of The Stone Age, Stone Temple Pilots, Victoria Williams, Greg Olson and others. Lately he’s been known to play in his own, jazz-oriented project, The Barrett Martin Group, as well as the Seattle area bands Visqueen and CoBirds Unite (featuring Pure Joy/Flop frontman Rusty Willoughby). (more…)
