Grunge Is Dead

by Greg Prato

  CRAIG MONTGOMERY: I really got to know them when we went on the European tour. It was then on that Nirvana started viewing me as their sound guy, and really wanting me to be there at their shows. Krist had been to Europe before when he was a kid. Everyone reacted to that pretty differently. The insanity of the crowds was pretty striking. The way that people would react to the music — jumping off the speaker stacks, going into an uncontrollable frenzy.

  KURT DANIELSON: We got the opportunity to tour in Europe for the first time, and not only that, but sharing a van and the bill with Nirvana. We got to know them well and become really good friends. We did seven weeks — forty shows in forty-five days, something like that. Your standard hellbent-Kamikaze-hellride-straight-to-hell-in-a-handbasket kind of action. We were young, flexible, and able to bounce back. I wish I would have known then what I know now. What was really great was watching Nirvana play every night. At the time, it felt like prophetic experiences — like watching a tidal wave approach from a great distance. Transcendent — just wonderful.

  BEN REW: Chad was über hyperactive. Tad calls me, and he goes, “They stuck me and Chad in the same room. Chad jumped up and down on his bed — for three hours. I swear to God, I wanted to kill him!”

  TAD DOYLE: I remember [Cobain] struggling with stomach problems all the time. We’d always make jokes, “I’ll hold the barf bucket for you, if you hold the barf bucket for me.” We actually ended up doing that for each other on many occasions. We’d both laugh our asses off when the other guy was blowing chunks out his nose and mouth. Tears streaming down our face because we were so sick. You get in a van, it’s as cold as hell in winter in Europe, every night’s a show — it wears you down physically, I don’t care how healthy you are. Certainly rock musicians who smoke and drink aren’t the healthiest of people. I remember one time we went to get our visa for going into Budapest, Hungary, and we had to get photos taken for that. Kurt and I exchanged photos. I still have that photo, and I don’t think anybody else in the world’s got it, except for me. That’s pretty special.

  CHAD CHANNING: I think [Kurt having an onstage breakdown] was in Italy. I guess he was questioning the whole band thing, and everything else. My perspective on it is kind of a lot different, because pretty much after I was born, I’ve spent most of my time moving. I’ve moved so many times it’s ridiculous, so I’m very accustomed to being on the road. When I’m touring, I’m completely comfortable, and happy when I’m out of my element. I may have been the only one on that entire tour that enjoyed myself all the time. I know it was tough — the other guys would complain being sick of eating bread and bologna spread. There were nine of us in this passenger van, so we were all in pretty close quarters.

  When Jason joined the band, the idea that Kurt was thinking was, “I’d like to get somebody in there so I don’t have to worry about always trying to keep that rhythm up, or if I mess up there’s someone to back me up. So I’ve got freedom to concentrate on what I’m singing.” We had the one tour with him, and to this day, nobody’s really sure — except for Jason himself — what went on. Halfway through the tour, when we got to New York, he got really quiet on us. We tried asking him what was up, and never got much response. We had a lot of fun with him until whatever happened changed — then it got kind of weird.

  BEN SHEPHERD: I was supposed to play the other guitar [after Jason left] — but I really didn’t do anything, except be a friend on tour. I was always like, “You guys should just stay a three-piece.” They came home for a little while, then I went on the road with them. Before we left, we rehearsed everything that basically became Nevermind, and never played that shit live. They only played Bleach back then.

  ROBERT ROTH: I almost joined Nirvana — we ended up setting up a session and it went really well. But they stayed a three-piece.

  SCOTTY CRANE: I was always really amazed by the sheer gusto they took the stage with, and how much everyone poured into the performance. I was in San Diego, and I crossed down into Tijuana to see Nirvana. This is the end of their West Coast tour — they knew they had no money — and they still destroyed Chad’s drum set! It’s like the stories of the Who and Pete Townshend having to go steal guitars after shows. Why did they play cheap equipment? Because they couldn’t afford it.

  DANIEL HOUSE: One of my favorite stories which really reflects both [Sub Pop’s] remarkable lack of competence and their amazing luck altogether was when they put out the Bleach record. I joke that I sold the first 50,000 copies of that record, because I pushed it to every store in America, and made sure it was being reordered. It was vinyl-only, and they decided, “Well, it’s time to put out a cassette.” They had earlier done this licensing thing with [Tupelo Records’] Gary Held for a four-song EP that came out of London, Blew — two of the songs were on Bleach, and two of the songs were non-released tracks. So they literally cut the tracks out of the Bleach master, recut them to a new master, and sent that off.

  They then decided to put out a cassette, so they sent the masters out for the cassette. We had to approve the master first, before they could start manufacturing. And Jonathan [was] like, “I’ll do it.” And I kept bugging him, “Jonathan, I need approval,” because I also took care of all the manufacturing and all the production issues. He kept going, “I’ll do it.” I’m like, “Jonathan, you’re too busy on the phone. I’ll do it.” He was just too disorganized to focus on it. The deadline came, the deadline went. Two weeks later, we’re pushing the whole thing back. “Jonathan, what the fuck? This is ridiculous — we need to get this out, we already have our distributor pissed at us because we’re behind deadlines.” He goes, “I’ll do it tomorrow.” So he finally puts the tape in, listens to it, but it’s really just playing the background — he’s on the phone the entire time. He tells me, “Yeah, it’s great. Go for it.”

  So I think we manufactured 50,000 cassettes, maybe it wasn’t that many — it was a lot though. Two tracks that had been pulled from the Bleach master and sent to London for [1989’s] Blew EP had never been reedited back into the tape. So, we had this Bleach master, with two songs missing from the record. The artwork reflected the full track listing — the actual tapes had two songs missing. The entire run got manufactured, all the orders went out, everything got sent out. Probably something crazy like sixty percent of the whole run was ordered straight up. It was probably a month or two later before it even became clear that there was a problem. So we’re like, “Oh shit.” We’re getting ready on taking a huge hit on returns of basically the entire amount — which we had to eat, because we approved it. We didn’t get returns. People actually went out to the store and began buying them up — because it was a mistake and a collector’s item! All it did was serve to sell the entire rest of the pressing out in record time.

  MARK PICKEREL: I also worked at Sub Pop during those years — I was a salesperson and did junior a&r — from ’89 through ’91. I was literally on the phone all day, selling hundreds of Nirvana shirts and CDs just in the average sales day. So I was aware of this movement bubbling under, and it was about to turn into something massive.

  MEGAN JASPER: Of course, their music was amazing. There’ll be no one who can dispute that. But the thing that was so great about them truly — they had a spirit that was so unique. The one moment that really sort of captures that for me, it was not even a Nirvana show — it was a Fluid show in Tacoma. There were these huge spools, without cable — they could have been used as a table. Krist and Kurt were at the show, and somehow, Kurt wrapped his body around the inside of the spool, and Krist pushed him. He was rolling across the venue. When he got out, he was super dizzy and clumsy — falling a bit. Then Krist wrapped his six and a half foot body around it, and Kurt was pushing him. They were having the best time in the world.

  ALLISON WOLFE: One night I was hanging out, I believe this is the summer of ’89. I was at Slim Moon’s house, which at the time, there was this duplex house with a basement, and Slim, Dylan, and some other guy lived on the right-hand side, and Ku
rt Cobain and his girlfriend, Tracy, lived in the basement. I remember I was hanging out and we were playing records. Kurt and Krist came in, and they always made a big entrance when they came — especially Krist, because he was so tall, loud, and obnoxious back then. They came booming in — like, “Hey! Hooo!” I remember all of a sudden the atmosphere changing from mellow and depressing to really fun and energetic. Those guys had a really good feeling about them. Kurt was jumping around off of tables and couches, kind of leapfrogging — pretending to be a frog. They were really sweet and fun.

  TRACY MARANDER: Basically, he just fell out of love with me. I think because I didn’t play music was a factor in it. I think he wanted to be with somebody he could play music with, and collaborate with. He started dating Tobi Vail before we officially broke up, and I found another place to live. Kurt and I went out for three years. A few months after we broke up, I was angry and didn’t want to talk to him at all. It was weird — one day I woke up and I wasn’t angry anymore. He came over one time and stayed the night — nothing happened — we just hung out, went to the Java-Jive, and he went back home the next day. Another time, he came over — he was dating this girl Sheryl — my boyfriend and I were watching a movie. It was Jacob’s Ladder — they ruined the ending for us. He was like, “Is this the movie where blah blah blah?” We’re like, “Hey, thanks.”

  CHAPTER 13

  “The sloppiness was essential”: The Thrown Ups, Mudhoney

  After the breakup of Green River, former bandmates Mark Arm and Steve Turner united once more as garage rockers Mudhoney. But just prior to Mudhoney, the pair was part of an improv band called the Thrown Ups, whose unpredictable — and often messy — performances are still legendary according to bewildered and stained bystanders.

  SCOTT VANDERPOOL: Before Mudhoney started, the other guys [from Green River] had started Mother Love Bone. But before they were Mother Love Bone, they were going to be called the Lords of the Wasteland. And Mark decided to put together what we’d call “a fuck band,” which was just a one-off thing. There was one he called the Wasted Landlords. Because of that, those guys dumped Lords of the Wasteland immediately! There was another fuck band show he did, as “Beergarden.”

  MARK ARM: After he quit Green River, Steve joined the Thrown Ups with Ed Fotheringham. The Thrown Ups were the brainchild of Leighton Beezer. Leighton decided that he loved to play, but hated to practice. So the Thrown Ups never practiced. In the beginning, the Thrown Ups had a rotating lineup, which centered around Leighton. Ed wasn’t the first singer; Steve Mack, who moved to the U.K. and joined That Petrol Emotion, was the first singer.

  STEVE MACK: I had to go back to college either the third or the fourth of January, and we had this huge party [on New Year’s Eve, 1983]. We decided for some reason that it would be a good idea instead of going to sleep to stay up nonstop until the start of college. We built up this arsenal of as many drugs as we could find, and then decided not only were we going to stay up, but we were going to make music continuously. And who should walk in, but Leighton Beezer — out of his mind on drugs. He joined in, and we kept playing and playing. We actually managed eighty-four hours before I said, “I can’t stay up any longer! I’m dying! ”

  JOHN LEIGHTON BEEZER: We finished playing and somebody said, “How did that sound?” And Ed said, “It was the audio equivalent of throwing up.”

  MARK ARM: Ed became the singer after a couple of basement parties. Leighton grabbed three people and began playing on someone else’s gear — just making stuff up. I know that sounds pretty horrible, but with Ed as the front man, it was one of the greatest things ever — a truly great band. I eventually weaseled my way into that band. Their drummer was a better drummer than me, but he didn’t really listen to what the other guys played. He would just get bored and randomly change the beat, throwing the rest of the guys off. In a band like this, the drummer’s got to keep it together as much as possible. I convinced the rest of the Thrown Ups that I could do that — although I’m a shitty drummer.

  Ed would do the goofiest things — he would come up with a different concept for each show. One time, he decided, “I’m going to make ‘zit pants.’” He made pants out of garbage bags — they looked like leather pants from a distance. He crafted these little pockets that he filled with shaving cream, and attached to the inside of the pants. He would stab one of these pockets with a pencil, flex his leg, and shaving cream would squirt thirty feet! [Laughs.] One time, we played wearing boxers and giant daisy heads, and we had a couple of friends who had horns so one of them was the sun and one of them was the moon. Just totally retarded stuff, but funny and interesting — at least to us. Apparently, Steve’s ball sac hung out of his boxer shorts the whole time. No one knew this except for the poor folks in the front! [Laughs.]

  Another time, Ed’s concept was, “Let’s be beatniks.” So we all dressed in black and wore berets. Ed decided he was going to be a beatnik girl, so hestrapped cups to the bottom of his shoes, wore a long straight black wig and a little mini skirt, and most bizarrely, cut a Ping-Pong ball in half, put each half in his cheeks, and sang the whole show like that. Since the Thrown Ups didn’t have any songs, we would have to make up a set list for every show. The process for this consisted of getting drunk and brainstorming. The titles that made us laugh the hardest became the songs we would play that night. Ed would make up the words for these songs on the spot. We did another show where Ed’s concept was we would be the dirtiest band on earth. We filled up a guitar case with dirt and bark from the median strip in front of the club, smuggled it into the men’s bathroom, shook up a bunch of Pepsi, sprayed it all over each other, and then threw the dirt all over ourselves. This of course, completely befouled the bathroom and the stage. The club was none too pleased with us. And I’ll tell you what — it was gross! [Laughs.]

  Mudhoney’s Mark Arm at the Paradiso in Amsterdam, May 19, 1992

  LARRY REID: The Thrown Ups were a great opening act, because they would play until they got unplugged, and that was my job [laughs]. They were horrible, but fun.

  MARK ARM: I joined [Steve] in the Thrown Ups about six months after he left Green River. When Green River broke up, I immediately called up Steve and asked him if he wanted to start a new band. He’d already been playing with Dan Peters, who, along with Greg Gilmore and Matt Cameron, was one of the three best drummers in town. Steve was really surprised he got Dan to play with him [laughs]. Steve, Dan, and Ed had been dinking around in the fall of ’87. Steve wanted to play written songs as opposed to making stuff up. But Ed’s heart wasn’t really into it — he wanted to do art and be an illustrator. It was very easy for me to worm my way in there [laughs]. With Ed’s disinterest, there was this instant band for me to join. When the three of us began practicing in late ’87, we didn’t have a bass player. We considered asking two people — Jim Tillman and Matt Lukin. Steve and I knew Matt pretty well since the Metropolis. We heard that the Melvins were moving to San Francisco and leaving Matt behind. So we asked Matt first since we knew him better than Jim. He was into it, and the next time he came into Seattle was New Year’s Eve. We had our first practice on New Year’s Day. So that’s when we mark the birth of [Mudhoney] — January 1, 1988.

  SUSAN SILVER: I remember it was New Year’s Day, and Chris and I were at my apartment by the Pike Place Market. Somebody called to say that Green River was breaking up — it was devastating news. And to learn that Mark was going on to do this other band, Mudhoney.

  JERRY CANTRELL: Green River was a band that I really dug a lot, and Mark continuing on with Mudhoney — a band of great importance to Seattle, and to me.

  LIBBY KNUDSON: We were all crazy about Russ Meyer, it was like, “Oh Mudhoney, ha ha ha.”

  STEVE TURNER: We were definitely way more in sync again with what we wanted to sound like. We were both turned on by a lot of the Australian stuff — feedtime, and the Scientists. If we were going to do a band, I wanted him to play guitar — I didn’t want him just jumping all over the stage. B
ecause he was such a terribly cool guitar player — he was an idiot savant on the thing. It came together really easy.

  MARK ARM: The very first show Mudhoney played was opening for Das Damen at the Vogue. I remember being super nervous, because I hadn’t played guitar in a band for a while. I’m not even sure if I picked up a guitar after I stopped playing in the first few months of Green River. I had gotten this baby blue Hagström II off a friend — Tom Mick [from Feast] — for eighty dollars, because he was in desperate need of some quick money. I felt bad that I was taking advantage of Tom’s proclivities, but he was going to sell that guitar for next to nothing to somebody, and it might as well be me. I really liked that guitar because it had a small, thin neck. It was easy for me to play a chord on it. I was partially inspired to use slide by feedtime — “Sweet Young Thing” has a pretty pronounced slide part in it, and the part I play in “Touch Me I’m Sick” is slide too. In the earliest days of Mudhoney, Steve and I would get together in my apartment with our guitars not plugged, just trying to show each other what we have. It sounded way better with a bunch of distortion.

  JONATHAN PONEMAN: There was a sloppiness to it, but the charisma was undeniable. The sloppiness was essential, because there was a real chaotic frenzy to what they were doing. The way they were using distortion pedals at the time — it harkened back to Lee Stephens and the Stooges. But there was a sense of humor. It was loose. It was menacing and playful — all at once.

  MARK ARM: In the earliest days of Mudhoney — we would play maybe once a month, so there would be all this built-up energy. We would just go ape shit. We would be bouncing off the walls.

  STEVE TURNER: They were really just a drunken mess, for the most part. But it was really fun. It was our friends and us basically, so it was very communal. A bunch of happy, sloppy, drunk people rolling around. Once we started touring, it was a little different. We were drunk at least.