Remembering Mother Love Bone's Andrew Wood

If the enigmatic Andrew Wood hadn’t died on this day in 1990, Seattle’s world-dominating grunge phenomenon, ironically, might not have been so big. The Malfunkshun and Mother Love Bone frontman’s latter, glam-leaning band was poised for stardom when he passed—at a time when the sound that would define a generation was still defining itself. Check them out.

Had he lived, there would have been no Temple of the Dog (formed by MLB members and Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell). There would have been no Pearl Jam (formed by MLB members and a San Diego gas station attendant named Eddie Vedder). Grunge “fashion,” if it came to exist, might have meant loud colors and white face paint.

And everyone who knew Andy or knows of him would trade all that rose from his void for the living man himself.

As you raise your glass this Friday night, toast the Man of Golden Words. Not that he’ll hear; he’s having too much fun romping around Olympus.