Mudhoney might be the most Seattle band I can think of.
I first heard “Touch Me I’m Sick” sometime around ’89 or ’90, back in Queens. Somebody had a copy of the Sub Pop single and it sounded completely fucked up. Fuzz everywhere, Mark yelling like an idiot, drums pounding away underneath it. I loved it immediately.
Then I found Superfuzz Bigmuff and that pretty much finished the job.
Mudhoney were one of the bands that made Seattle seem like this strange place on the other side of the country where everybody owned a distortion pedal and nobody knew how to wash their clothes. Of course, when I finally moved here I found out Seattle was mostly coffee, rain and people complaining about parking, but the records still sounded great.
I saw them at the Crocodile on October 4, 1992. That was actually the same night Nirvana showed up as the surprise opener under the name Pen Cap Chew, so obviously everybody remembers the Nirvana part.
But Mudhoney were the band I’d gone there to see.
That’s something I always feel a little bad about when people talk about that show. Mudhoney somehow became the footnote at their own gig because the biggest band in the world decided to open for them.
They were great anyway.
Mark Arm has always been one of my favorite frontmen around here. He’s funny, sarcastic and never seems particularly interested in convincing anybody that what he’s doing is important. Steve Turner’s guitar sounds like somebody dropped a radio into a bathtub. Dan Peters hits the drums like they owe him money. And Matt Lukin always looked like he’d wandered into the wrong building and decided to stay.
That lineup made some of my favorite records from those years.
Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge is probably still the one I play most. Superfuzz Bigmuff is the obvious answer, I know, but Every Good Boy has “Good Enough,” “Let It Slide,” “Into the Drink,” “Shoot the Moon”… that record is just ridiculously good.
When they signed with Reprise, I remember wondering what the hell a major label was going to do with Mudhoney. Turns out the answer was basically let them keep being Mudhoney for a while.
Piece of Cake has some great stuff on it. My Brother the Cow is even better. I never thought those records got nearly enough attention because by then everybody outside Seattle seemed to be looking for the next big thing.
They lost Steve for a while, got him back, made Tomorrow Hit Today, and then Matt finally quit in ’99. For a minute there I honestly thought that might be it.
Apparently not.
They’ve been playing again with Guy Maddison on bass, and from what I hear they’ve been recording new stuff around town. No idea when any of it is coming out, but I’m glad they’re still making noise.
That’s probably what I like most about Mudhoney.
Trends came and went. Bands got huge. Bands broke up. Labels lost interest. People moved away.
Mudhoney just kept being Mudhoney.
