Paranormal Researcher Heather Taddy's Life As a '90s Music Fan
Music, pilgrimages, and a series of convergences
Our world is a strange, interesting place. That’s a large part of why I work as a paranormal researcher. People know me from my time on TV shows like A&E’s Paranormal State, Travel Channel’s Alien Highway and Portals to Hell, but off-camera, I’m deep into music, and I discovered that being a hardcore music fan is strange, too.
Exhibit A: My life as a listener has been colored by a series of convergences.
I don’t know how it all started, or how the pieces all fit together. I do know that my older brother played a large role in my musical life.
When I was in grade school, I played the violin. My older brother Joey had a massive collection of CDs that I would help him alphabetize and organize. I spent what seemed like hours looking at every CD jacket. (I always spent a little extra time looking through the art in the Mr. Bungle album. Boy was it bizarre!)
Joey was cool. He skateboarded, built halfpipes in our yard, and constantly had the sounds of ’80s and ’90s alternative tunes blaring on his gigantic stereo system. He had a poster of Jane’s Addiction singer Perry Farrell on his wall—from the cover of their debut live album, where Perry’s wearing the corset. My mom looked at it and always exclaimed, “Why do you have a dead person on your wall?”
Joey played Jane’s Addiction repeatedly. Once I heard Eric Avery’s basslines in their music, I learned the bass to “Mountain Song,” and I literally quit violin and taught myself bass instead. I couldn’t believe how explosive their music was. It took my child brain on a wild ride.
I have a vivid memory of my 7-year-old self rolling around on my brother’s waterbed shouting in my high-pitched tiny voice Everybody has their own opinion! Everybody has their own opinion! Jane’s music moved me so deeply that I ended up getting the title of their second album, Nothing’s Shocking, tattooed on my back in the same font from the album cover.
In the late 1980s, Jane’s were wizards of Los Angeles’ underground music world, and the people who passed through their life, photographing them and inspiring their aesthetic and songs, are now kind of legendary.
Years after I became a Jane’s fan, I briefly worked with this woman named Karyn in Las Vegas. I thought her name sounded familiar, but I couldn’t remember from where. She ran a cool jewelry store in Burbank, and I worked for a company in a showroom where she also worked a few times. I thought nothing of it. Then one day, another co-worker ended up recognizing my Jane’s Addiction tattoo, which was partly showing through my dress, and she told me to talk to Karyn. Then the name clicked: Karyn Cantor. I had come across her name in various interviews about the band. This Karyn used to live with Perry Farrell. She was a member of Jane’s circle, from their earliest days. Karyn was the one who took the photo of Perry that he painted and turned into the cover of their debut album—the image that hung on my brother’s wall! Karyn took many of the live photos that appear on the debut album’s liner notes. She was the one who photographed Jane Bainter, the band’s namesake and inspiration for one of their most recognizable songs, “Jane Says,” in what became the only circulating image of Bainter. Karyn ended up telling me some great stories of her days photographing the band and how she still had so many unseen photos. I was amazed. She went back to an early Jane’s era whose shows many of us fans would have love to have experienced. The weirdest part about this is that the day before I met Karyn, I was wearing the shirt from the band’s debut album—the one she actually photographed!
I’ve had other odd coincidences relating to Jane’s.
When Twitter was still a thing, my friend Cheyenne decided to comment on Jane’s guitarist Dave Navarro’s Twitter feed without telling me. This was when Jane’s was playing those full album shows for Nothing’s Shocking and Ritual de lo Habitual, back in 2015 and ’16. She tagged me and told Dave that it was my thirteenth time seeing Jane’s live, and she mentioned my show Paranormal State. Dave responded and said that he’s seen every episode and had a crush on me. I was so embarrassed that she did that. But then he invited me to watch a few of their shows from the side of the stage, which was incredible.
Despite my initial embarrassment, it was a surreal experience that I would get to watch the masters of alternative music play my favorite album right in front of me as I stood there singing along.
Dave was the sweetest, most down to earth human. In between each song he would walk over to the side of the stage where my friend and I were standing and talk to us, while jokingly reciting the intro to Paranormal State. Meanwhile, in my head I’m thinking How is it that 17 years earlier, I was a teenager sitting in my room trying to play Dave’s solo on “Three Days,” and now he’s five feet in front of me playing “Three Days” live?! I guess nothing really is shocking anymore. I really appreciated his sense of humor.
He had me hold his guitar for a picture, and I just kept thinking Don’t drop it Heather, don’t drop it. Before we got onstage for a show, he told us to stand in the crowd on his side of the stage and he’d get his guitar tech to bring us up. I’ll never forget seeing Dave recognize me and come kneel down right in front of us while playing the song “Up the Beach.” I’ll also never forget walking behind Stephen Perkins playing drums during “Ted Just Admit it,” then seeing Dave walk up to hug me and kiss me on the cheek. WHAT?!
The second time he let me stand onstage during a show, we watched the bands Living Colour and Dinosaur Jr. play the same bill. What a strange life. It would have been amazing to have lived in L.A. in the 1980s to see their very early shows.
Jane’s is one of my favorites, but I have a deep love for Seattle music, too. Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Mark Lanegan, and Mother Love Bone—I’m enough of a fan that I’ve made the almighty musical pilgrimages to the Emerald City. I sat outside Kurt Cobain’s house on Lake Washington, reading a book. I sought out all the old venues that were integral to the Grunge explosion where my favorite bands have played, like The Vogue, Off Ramp Café, RCKNDY, and the OK Hotel. Sure, things change, but it’s still so disappointing to see them as other businesses.
I really loved seeing the blacksmith shop where Pearl Jam had their first practice space in an alley on the 2300 block between 2nd and 3rd avenues in Belltown—and possibly where Soundgarden had their practice space at one point. I stood in the alley at the back door imagining what it must have been like to walk past there 30 years ago and hear them practicing.
I’ve seen a lot of those bands play, but one major regret I carry is not seeing Mark Lanegan play when I happened to be in Seattle when he played one of his gigs in 2018. Big mistake on my part for being “too tired.” What an idiot I was!
Thankfully, I’ve seen some incredible shows. Soundgarden, Chris Cornell, Mudhoney, Alice in Chains, and even one of Tad’s projects. The music just seems to orbit me.
I have one last ridiculous Seattle story.
In 2023, I was waiting to see Henry Rollins do a speaking engagement in Pittsburgh, and this woman sat next to me. We started talking about music, and I somehow got on the topic of the early Seattle band Green River. She immediately started talking about how she saw them live, and I thought, Wow, this woman was in Seattle at the right time. Green River was short-lived but arguably the first “Grunge” band!
So, she casually goes on to tell me that she helped create a compilation with her then-boyfriend, Chris Hanzek, called Deep Six on their label C/Z Records. I was like Oh my goodness! I knew exactly what she was talking about. Deep Six was the first compilation to record the bands that went on to define Seattle’s early 90s sound, including Green River, Soundgarden, Malfunkshun, The Melvins, and Skin Yard. That compilation was hugely influential.
I proceeded to blow her mind by naming the studio it was recorded in—Ironwood Studio, for the record—and I dropped my nerd knowledge on all things Seattle music. She was super impressed that I knew all these weird details.
We talked more about music and then one of the theater attendants walked over and told her that she was in the wrong seat, haha! It was such a strange moment. Of all people to accidentally sit down next to me. Her name was Tina Casale. I never saw her again.
See what I mean about our universe being such a mysterious one?
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Can’t wait to see part 2 with you Katrina Weidman @dustinparri!!!!
Cool post! The photos really added to the experience.