Everybody Loves Our Town

by Mark Yarm

  CHRIS HANZSEK Tina and I split up during the mixing stage. Yeah, the breakup was my present for doing Deep Six. Let’s say you’re already having a hard time getting along with your tough-as-nails girlfriend you’ve been with for about five years. And then some giant pressure-cooker struggle of “Let’s make six bands happy and put out a record” thing comes along.

  TINA CASALE No, it didn’t have anything to do with the record. We were together for seven years and by that time we were just separating. I ended up moving back to Pittsburgh, back to where I grew up.

  CHRIS HANZSEK The record came out around late February of ’86. We pressed 2,000. This is the part that for years made me a not-so-happy camper: I quickly picked up on the buzz that I wasn’t promoting the record enough. I felt dumped on. And I also heard some feedback that the record wasn’t well produced. A lot of that democratic process—all those conversations and having the artists there for mix-downs—showed up on the record itself in terms of its sound.

  KURT BLOCH I remember being excited for Soundgarden, but their songs on that sound pretty crappy. It could’ve been a really exciting introduction to those sort of bands, but it just sounded like it was recorded on a cassette recorder.

  CHRIS HANZSEK There are all sorts of rookie issues going on with the recording. Let’s just call it “muddled.” But I think Deep Six did its job in the sense that it was a signal flare that there was something afoot, that there was life on this planet here in Seattle.

  DANIEL HOUSE It didn’t sell for shit. Nobody cared about Seattle or the music coming from Seattle. And at the time there weren’t really bands playing music like this. What was big was synth-based New Wave. Everything that the bands on Deep Six were doing was basically a “fuck you” to the popular music of the time.

  But locally, it was a big deal. After that record came out, we had no problem getting shows at all. Deep Six got a lot of play on KCMU and acted as a beacon for more people to begin starting bands, ones that were a lot more guitar-heavy and maybe dark or angry.

  JACK ENDINO My then–future wife, Dawn, actually wrote the review in The Rocket. She called attention to the fact that we needed a name for this music: “What do we call this? It’s not metal, and it’s not punk.”

  DAWN ANDERSON (reviewing Deep Six in The Rocket, June 1986) The fact that none of these bands could open for Metallica or the Exploited without suffering abuse merely proves how thoroughly the underground’s absorbed certain influences, resulting in music that isn’t punk-metal but a third sound distinct from either.

  Some of these influences are apparent visually; blatant posing on stage is acceptable again. I’ve seen all but one of these bands live at least once and a few of the musicians, along with many of their fans, could pass for members of Ratt. Some people find this distracting, as it seems to have little to do with the style of their music. I personally don’t mind boys in makeup. If bands today can get by with rifling rock history for any cheap thrill they can find, I say that’s great, because it serves to further break down divisions and discourage snobbery and purism, the worst enemies of rock ’n’ roll.

  TOM PRICE The second of the U-Men’s three tours was called the Miserable Sinners tour. Every night, something weird would happen. One night, we all took some very powerful LSD in Indianapolis, Indiana, and boy, things got really out of hand. A couple windows on the tour bus got broken out, one of us wound up flailing around in the mud in the rain outside. People screaming, minimal clothing. It’s all a little hazy.

  JIM TILLMAN The goal of that tour was opening for Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds at Danceteria in New York. Some people compared us to Nick Cave’s old band, the Birthday Party, but I think the comparisons are more due to people’s ignorance. If you listened to everything we did, it would be harder to compartmentalize us.

  CHARLIE RYAN We’d get paid $75, and we’d want to run to the liquor store, and Jim would be like, “You know, we should go buy some gas. Buy some food, maybe?” We’d say, “Fuck you! No money goes to food! Absolutely not!” That was our rule. Jim wasn’t as much of a raging alcoholic as the rest of us.

  JIM TILLMAN I was not a teetotaler by any stretch, but when everyone else was getting really loaded, I wasn’t. Somebody had to drive. When I was in the U-Men and later in Love Battery, I was the mom and the cop. And it’s not the most enviable position to be in.

  MIKE TUCKER I remember arriving in New York for the Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds show and parking on Eighth Avenue near 14th Street. John was the first one to go off the bus, as if we had landed on the moon or something. It was like he was Captain Kirk, and he went to go check it out. Came back and reported that everything was good, and it was exciting.

  That was the big-deal show, because they definitely worshipped Nick Cave. I remember being on some steps near the stage, and Blixa Bargeld from the Bad Seeds stepped on me. I was thrilled: “Blixa Bargeld stepped on me!”

  JIM TILLMAN So we’re standing outside the club. All of the sudden, we look up and my mom is standing there with John’s parents. And we’re all, “What the fuck?” She had elected to call John’s parents, unbeknownst to me, and said, “Let’s go to New York and see our kids play.” Immediately, everybody looked at me and said, “Dude, what are they doing here?”

  John actually came from a little bit of money, but he never wanted that to be known. And being the singer and the center of attention, he was even more mortified when his parents showed up. It was all on me that our parents showed up. It certainly seemed like a nail in the coffin of my relationship with the band.

  JOHN BIGLEY Jim’s mom invited them? Oh, really? I never figured out how the fuck my parents knew. We were on our bus, power-drinking, and they showed up with a bottle of champagne. It’s the first time to my knowledge that they had seen the band. They were taken aback. Blown away that that many people would want to see the show and by the life forms there, as well—all the fuckers crawling from Alphabet City to go to Danceteria to see Nick Cave.

  JIM TILLMAN John was so nervous that he got wasted beforehand. I recall Larry elbowing him, saying, “Dude, wake up, you’re sitting next to Lydia Lunch!” And John’s like, “Huh?” He was so wasted he didn’t even realize he was sitting next to her.

  LARRY REID The craziest thing was the U-Men playing in front of 1,500 people in New York City at a sold-out show with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and the audience knowing the lyrics to the U-Men’s songs. And singing along with the band—what the fuck?

  CHARLIE RYAN The show was unbelievable. The place was huge, four floors, and it was absolutely packed. That was one of the highlights of the band. That was as big as it got for us.

  BRUCE FAIRWEATHER We went out on our first tour in October 1985, and if anything should’ve broken up Green River, it should’ve been that tour. We went in Stone’s piece-of-shit station wagon, which we called the Shled, and attached a U-Haul trailer.

  ALEX SHUMWAY I like to call it the Prema-Tour, because it was premature for us to go out. Our record, Come on Down, was supposed to come out about a month before we went on tour. Then it was supposed to come out three weeks before the tour. Then it was supposed to come out a week before the tour …

  STONE GOSSARD (Green River/Pearl Jam/Mother Love Bone/Temple of the Dog/Brad/Satchel/March of Crimes guitarist) We put up our own money to go out to tour in New York. We played six shows in frickin’ six weeks, which is a joke. We were just pretending. Or we were doing it, but it was like we were making three or four fans. Someone behind the bar would go, “Hey, you guys are pretty good.” Or not.

  ALEX SHUMWAY We played Cincinnati, opening for Big Black, and across town the Red Hot Chili Peppers were playing that night, which meant we weren’t going to draw anybody. In the middle of our set—boom!—all the power went out onstage. We thought they had cut our power. And Mark was like, “Fuckers! Motherfucker!” and he went over and grabbed every mic off the stand and threw them into the audience.

  MARK ARM Actually the show was in Newport, Kentucky, across the rive
r. I can’t even recall what my motivation would have been for acting so stupidly, but I just decided for some reason to take the microphone and throw it as far as I could.

  BRUCE FAIRWEATHER It turns out that the club had just blown a fuse. The guys in Big Black said, “You guys should leave,” because somebody called the soundman and he was probably coming to kick our asses.

  STEVE ALBINI (singer/guitarist for Chicago’s Big Black; recording engineer) I was looking forward to playing with Green River because I was into a cassette of them I’d gotten. But they were acting like fucking rock stars. They were kind of petulant.

  I remember the singer, Mark, smashing a couple of microphones, getting pissed at the monitor or something like that. And there were just 10 people there at that point. He was being a total crybaby, and it really bothered me. Everyone I had grown up admiring in the punk scene thought of all that rock-star behavior as stupid and offensive. I don’t know how to describe it, except maybe like going to a vegetarian restaurant and seeing them slaughtering hogs in the lobby.

  MARK ARM They were threatening not to pay us, and I remember Steve Albini going, “ ’Course they don’t want to pay you—you just fucking destroyed a mic,” and me feeling admonished, and rightfully so. What I did wasn’t calculated. Maybe I was spoiled by being able to get away with really stupid shit in Seattle.

  BRUCE FAIRWEATHER When we made it to Detroit, we played this place called the Greystone, out in a sketchy part of town. The show was on November 1, after Hell Night.

  MARK ARM We were driving into Detroit, we put in the Stooges tape, and we’re like, “Fuck, this is gonna be so great. Detroit.” But everywhere you looked were these buildings with the windows smashed out, just totally desolate. You’d see a lone figure huddled near a fire.

  ALEX SHUMWAY Buildings were burning. It looked like a war had been through there.

  MARK ARM The next morning we went to eat breakfast somewhere. The waitress, who was probably about our age, finally just asks if we’re all gay. We’re like, “What?” It could’ve been the way some of us were dressed, sure. Jeff’s hair was a little big at that point. And Bruce Fairweather, his jeans had holes in them and he’d wear his girlfriend’s fishnets. But the waitress’s reaction was a signifier of what Detroit was gonna be like: If you’re not totally tough, you’re gonna be considered gay.

  ALEX SHUMWAY We were opening for Samhain, one of Danzig’s bands. Everybody there was grrr-grrr, ruff-ruff kind of fans. People were calling us fags, throwing shit at us. I remember Jeff came onstage and he was wearing Capezio dance shoes and a T-shirt that said SAN FRANCISCO in pink letters.

  MARK ARM Jeff is wearing a pink tank top that says SAN FRANCISCO in purple cursive writing. Why would he do that? Because he has giant balls. I remember there was this particular girl in the front row that kept spitting at Jeff, like she was really offended by him. At one point Jeff stuck his foot up in her face, like, Knock it off.

  JEFF AMENT And her boyfriend, from behind, grabbed me, pulled me off the stage, into the crowd, and I got pummeled! … I’m just getting like beat to death. It was horrible.

  MARK ARM I’d gotten pulled into the crowd before, when we opened for Black Flag, and Jeff had thrown his bass off and jumped in after me and saved my ass, so I’m like, Oh, great, it’s my turn. I gotta save Jeff’s ass.

  ALEX SHUMWAY I wasn’t gonna jump in a crowd of 700 people! Screw this crap!

  BRUCE FAIRWEATHER All I remember is Stone and I look at each other, and we just backed up. I was like, They’re on their own, man. I thought they were going to get killed.

  MARK ARM We’re about to get pummeled by the angry crowd that surrounded us. But a security guard, who was an off-duty cop with a gun, stepped in and saved our asses.

  JEFF AMENT Went up to get paid afterwards, after probably the most humbling experience ever. And Corey Rusk, who was in the Necros at that point—I was really excited to meet him, ’cause I loved the Necros—and he runs Touch and Go now, he was the promoter for the show. We were supposed to make like a hundred bucks, which was a huge payday for us at that point. He’s paying Danzig like $12,000 or whatever he’s making that show. And I put my hand out, and he goes, “Man, I thought you guys sucked. I’m only giving you $25.”

  BRUCE FAIRWEATHER The reason for this whole tour was that we were supposed to open for the U.K. Subs in Boston. Gerard Cosloy from Homestead had booked the show, so we drove all the way to Boston to find out that the U.K. Subs didn’t make it into the country. So that show didn’t happen.

  ALEX SHUMWAY Gerard said, “Okay, I can get you guys a show on Wednesday at CBGB’s in New York.” We were going, “Fuckin’ awesome! CBGB’s!”

  MARK ARM Of course, we played last, which is cleanup—it wasn’t the headlining slot. The place cleared out, and we played in front of the staff and a couple of Japanese tourists.

  ALEX SHUMWAY On the way back, we were driving through some part of North Dakota or South Dakota, and it was pitch-black out and snowing lightly. We were all just wiped out. Mark was driving. I was laying in the way back of the station wagon, and we were all talking about lighting farts on fire. “Oh, you can’t light a fart on fire.” “Sure you can.”

  And Stoney goes, “Yes, you can,” and he puts his legs up, takes a lighter, puts it between his legs and just rips one out. And the flame goes boom! Everybody was like, “Fuck! Oh, my God!” thinking he was gonna blow the place apart. And it scared Mark so bad that he yanked the steering wheel and hit black ice, and we go flying off into this ditch.

  MARK ARM Fart-lighting? (Laughs.) I don’t recall anything like that happening at all in Green River. It wasn’t like a frat house. Also, the sun was just starting to come up, and everyone was pretty much asleep when that happened. We were driving through a snowstorm and had to get gas. So I started taking an exit and the exit was basically a sheet of ice, and we ended up going off the edge of the road.

  BRUCE FAIRWEATHER Me and Jeff and Stone were in the back sleeping. All I remember is waking up, with Alex going, “Oh, my God, oh, my God! No!” And looking up and seeing the trailer bouncing and snow flying everywhere. I just wrapped my head in the pillow and went, “Oh, let it happen.”

  Mark was never the greatest driver, and he took an exit on black ice going 60 miles an hour. We just went off down this hill, totally out of control, through a ditch and … ended up right at a gas station.

  We were fine. We were all just terrified.

  MARK PICKEREL (Screaming Trees/Truly drummer) Ellensburg, Washington, was definitely a sleepy little town. It was mostly a farming community, a little rodeo city, but there was also a university there that saved it from being a total backwards hillbilly town. It was a strange juxtaposition of farmers and some very radical thinkers. I would say that the Screaming Trees were, if anything, influenced more by the university than by the farmers.

  Van Conner and I met when I was a high school freshman, in fall 1981. It was a school-sanctioned band trip to Walla Walla, and I had my Walkman and was running low on options for listening. I happened to be passing Van as he was going through his cassettes and I asked him if I could glance at what he had. I didn’t think he would have anything good, because Van was kind of a square kid back then—his clothing did nothing to indicate that he was into, you know, good music. He had everything from standard stuff like Cream and Jimi Hendrix to a lot of groups I hadn’t heard before, like Echo and the Bunnymen, XTC, Siouxsie and the Banshees. He told me, “Most of these cassettes my brother made for me.” His brother being Gary Lee Conner, who had already graduated from high school but still lived at home.

  Van told me his brother played guitar and was looking for somebody to jam. So I brought my drums over and set up shop in Lee’s bedroom, which was in a garage that had been converted into a rehearsal space. Lee was obsessed with the 1960s, everything from the Monkees to the 13th Floor Elevators.

  Van was the original singer. At that point, our name was Him and Those Guys. Later, we became the Explosive Generation. Sho
rtly after we formed, Gary Lee Conner Sr. booked us at Lincoln Elementary School, where he was the principal. We played the Sex Pistols and Dead Kennedys and Rolling Stones and Cream at this third-grade assembly. It was the most awkward experience of my life up until then. These third-graders were just completely terrified by us. Not only were we playing pretty edgy material, but it was really loud and out of tune.

  VAN CONNER (Screaming Trees bassist) My dad got in trouble for that. A bunch of teachers complained officially because he was bringing “satanic” music into the school.

  MARK PICKEREL Later on, Van started telling me about this guy Mark Lanegan, who he shared a drama class with. It turned out that Lanegan was a big fan of the Damned and Black Flag and Motörhead and all these bands that we thought belonged exclusively to our weird little group of art-fag friends.

  Lanegan came from a circle that we were all afraid of. It was a crew of guys that were hillbillies and some jocks and stoners—but the edgier side of each one of those cliques. I think Mark spent maybe a season playing football. Back in those years, he was a stoner and did a lot of drinking, so it’s hard for me to imagine that he attended practices religiously.

  I was kind of afraid of Mark because he was quite large in high school—he had to have been a good 60 to 80 pounds heavier than he is now. He was wearing a beard and looked like a logger. The jobs he had were usually manual labor, so he dressed the part. He was flying the flannel, as Mike Watt would say, a good eight years before it was in Vogue and all the fashion magazines.

  VAN CONNER I met Mark Lanegan in detention when I was a sophomore. He saw that I had a Jimi Hendrix button on my coat, and people in Ellensburg didn’t even listen to Jimi Hendrix back then. So we started talking and he told me about this band the Stranglers, who I didn’t know. And then we started trading records.