Last
time I saw Mudhoney was six years ago. I penned
a column for this mag about how lackluster their
show was, and how I was better entertained by
a heartbroken drunk pregnant chick putting cigarettes
out on my boyfriend's arm in the bar. They were
old and tired and all but DOA.
But we've all come a long way since 1998. I've
experienced four or more rebirths, so I figured
I'd give Mudhoney another try and OH-MY-GOD
they fixed my wagon. I haven't been so healed
by a rock'n'roll experience ever. When these
revered punks played "In and Out of Grace" I
had an epiphany. An Angel of the Lord came down
and said "Goddamn it Las Vegas you were put
on this earth to ROCK and just to pound it into
your head the girl next to you will pound it
into your head." It was that great! Then the
girl next to me pounded me in the head and I
had to call the cops and go to the hospital
and--worst of all--missed the Melvins.
You'd think this band would need no introduction,
but for all
you brand spankin' new 18-year old strippers
reading this mag in the dressing rooms, Mudhoney
was absolutely seminal in the Northwest Scene
that exploded with Nirvana, prompting big labels
to take risks on wacky emo, punk and hardcore
bands for a year or two before they settled
back into their Backstreet Britney bullshit.
Mudhoney's first release,1988's single Touch
Me I'm Sick, encapsulated what would become
"grunge"--mostly heavy plodding distorted guitars,
a prickly marriage of heavy metal and punk,
peppered with partly ironic self-destructive,
self-effacing sentiment.
Now, in 2004, when Nirvana and Soundgarden and
whatnot are dead in the water, Mudhoney sounds
better than ever. Founding members Mark Arm
and Steve Turner celebrated twenty years of
playing together in 2000, and drummer Dan Peters
has been on board since Mudhoney's inception
in the late eighties. Relative newcomer (2001)
Guy Maddison plays bass. These guys are here
to stay.
VIVA:
Is Mudhoney paying the rent?
VIVA:
What do you guys do for day jobs? Mr. Mom? You
were with your kid in the minivan when I called,
right?
Steve
Turner: It's not my kid; it's my girlfriend's
kid. But that doesn't pay the bills either.
I'm a gardener, a musician and a writer--a tripod
of non-money-making stuff. I'm supposed to write
a book about skateboarding in the next few months.
VIVA:
Oooo. Don't neglect Paying In Pain! It's
very philosophical. The skateboarders' Book
of Five Rings.
Turner:
I know Paying in Pain. It's from Visalia.
I skated that skate park down there.
Turner:
It's alright. For California it's pretty good.
I went on tour with a guy--Nik Freitas--who's
from Visalia. He used to be a photographer for
Thrasher and now he plays folk music.
There's actually a new movement called Skate
Folk.
Turner:
Yeah I do skate folk.
Mark
Arm: He put out a record. He's working on his
second one.
VIVA:
Love it! So, are you aware that "Touch Me I'm
Sick" is on the jukebox at Mary's Club? [blank
stares] You know Mary's Club, right? Have you
never been in there?
VIVA:
What?! It's like the best strip club in the
world! It's Portland in a nutshell. When "Touch
Me I'm Sick" comes on all the drunks snap out
of it for half a second and go, "Yeaaaaaghhh!"
It's a touchstone, a rallying cry, for that
whole grunge era. Is there a grunge timeline
that you visualize in your head? Jimi-Neil,
etc.?
Arm:
You could include Howlin' Wolf.
Turner:
Well you've got the Johnny Burnett Trio and
Link Wray in the late fifties; you can jump
to the Sonics in the mid-sixties. Lightnin'
Hopkins has one of the gnarliest guitar sounds
on a few of his songs.
VIVA:
Is that grunge? The gnarly guitar sound?
Turner:
Yeah. To me it's about guitar sound, that's
the base of it.
VIVA:
Superfuzz. Big Muff.
Turner:
The oldest place I've seen the term grunge was
describing a guitar tone in the 1979 liner notes
to a Johnny Burnette Rock'n'Roll Trio record.
To me that's the timeline. A song recorded in
1955, written about in 1979.
VIVA:
And that's it? What about the eighties?
Turner:
The eighties were about hardcore. We were hardcore
kids.
Arm:
But there are hardcore records that are grungey,
like the Mentally Ill single Soldier,
Black Flag, the Melvins...
VIVA:
Los Olvidados? 
Turner:
Fuck I love Los Olvidados. Ray Stevens! Buddy
of mine. Basically Ray Stevens took a rad skater
and told him "Ok now you have be my guitar player."
And he really took to the guitar. Became a really
cool, really weird guitar player.
VIVA:
So Neil Young is the granddaddy of grunge because
of his fuzzy guitar tones?
Turner:
I don't know why that started coming on. I mean,
he's had some really gnarly tones... Rust
Never Sleeps--that stuff is amazing.
Cortez the Killer.
VIVA:
I don't like Neil Young. I hate his voice. I
hate his lyrics. But I wanna like Neil Young.
What should I do?
Turner:
The Meat Puppets got me into Neil Young. In
Meat Puppets 2 they kept referencing
Neil Young's Zuma. So I'd say go get
the 1975 album Zuma.
VIVA:
Blue jeans. What kind do you wear? I'm assuming
there's some sorta standard that Mudhoney has
to follow, like they can't be too fashiony or
too clean.
Turner:
Well, generally 501's. Right now I'm wearing
a nice pair of seventies stretchy Levi's.
VIVA:
And Arm's rockin' the cords. What do you do
for money?
Arm:
I work at Fantagraphics.
Arm
(laughing): No, shipping.
Turner:
We're totally unemployable.
VIVA:
I know! When I have to stop stripping it'll
be a sad 
day.
Arm:
I might have to start. But I don't think anyone
wants to see my saggy old ass. [Arm's got
a bit of a lisp. Yum. --ed.]
VIVA:
Are you kidding me? There's a huge Mark Arm
cult out there.
Turner:
Isn't there a gay bar in this town called Mark
Arm's Saggy Old Ass?
VIVA:
Actually there is! I hadn't made the connection!
So, that was your girlfriend's kid.
Turner:
Yeah, but it was my minivan.
VIVA:
Did you get the minivan to accommodate the kid?
Turner:
I got a minivan to accommodate the skate folk.
Arm:
Dan got a minivan just recently, to accommodate
his second kid who just popped out.
Turner:
He got a minivan mainly because of my great
love for my minivan.
Turner:
I've got a Chrysler Town and Country.
VIVA:
What's Dan do for work?
VIVA:
Do the kids come along on tour?
Arm:
Not yet, but we're teaching them hardcore math.
They're gonna sell merch, do tour managing...
Turner:
If you have a ten year old tour manager you
really psych out the old people at the door,
counting the money.
VIVA:
I've talked to Jon Spencer and Cristina Martinez
a couple of times, and they said other tours
they knew where all the strip clubs were. Now
with Charlie along, they know where the zoos
are, the children's museums...
Turner:
So they're a couple of squares is what you're
saying. We've still got a rock'n'roll heart.
Arm:
Yeah, we're not afraid to take our drummer's
kids to the strip clubs.
VIVA:
Best strip bars in the country? [Loooong Silence]
Turner:
Uh, Canada? I think Montreal had the gnarliest
ones I've ever seen.
Arm:
The gnarliest was that one in Anchorage. That
place sucked!
Turner:
Oh yeah! The end of the universe--I think we
discovered it--is a strip bar in Anchorage.
All the strip clubs there have cover charges.
One doesn't. It is the end of the line. It is
where dying strippers go. It was gnarly.
VIVA:
Most grunge song of all time?
Turner:
"Gacy's Place" by the Mentally Ill from the
upperclass Chicago suburb of Lake Forest. 1979.
Pure retardation punk rock. Think the Spits
if the Spits were really dumb and not just pretending.
The Spits are my favorite Seattle band.
VIVA:
Sexiest song of all time?
Turner:
"Are You on the Inside or the Outside of You
Pants" by the Makers.
VIVA:
Sexiest singer of all time?
VIVA:
Ewww!
Arm:
Michael Stipe. [laughing]
VIVA:
Sexiest record of last year?
Turner:
David Dondero. The Transient. It's
the only record I bought last year.
Arm:
I can't think of anything that isn't a reissue.
VIVA:
What do you listen to at home on Sunday mornings?
Turner:
The Staple Singers, generally.
VIVA:
Favorite Stones record?
Turner:
That's so hard... I love Between the Buttons.
The first album! Just "King Bee" alone is
one of my all-time favorite Stones songs.
"Go on, Buzz a lot."
Arm:
I can't believe your making me make these
decisions... Maybe Beggars Banquet
or Let It Bleed.
Turner:
Goat's Head Soup... Flowers...
VIVA:
Favorite Dylan record?
Turner:
The Bootleg Series.
VIVA:
Favorite Pretenders' song?
Turner:
That whole first album. I love that record.
VIVA:
Sexiest thing you've ever seen onstage?
Turner:
Bow Wow Wow when I was sixteen. I was in the
front row when they played Seattle. I was
about 5'2, and looking up all I could see
was white panties on that sixteen year old
girl. That was something. That was really
really really great.
Arm:
I was going to school down in McMinnville,
Oregon, and I wasn't twenty-one yet. A bunch
of friends and I got in the car and drove
up here and when they asked us for ID we whipped
out our lunch room cards. And they're like
"Oh they're from Linfield, let 'em in! They
came all the way from McMinnville, Oregon."
Bow Wow Wow were great.
VIVA:
Sexiest thing you saw on stage, too?
Arm:
Pretty close. Especially at that age. Oh,
you know, my favorite record from last year
was the Country Teasers record. Full Moon
Empty Sports Bag.
VIVA:
Sexiest city you've ever been to?
VIVA:
What is sexy about Seattle?
Arm:
The town hates itself. It destroys all the
cool buildings and puts up shitty condos and
stuff. There's not much sexy there.
VIVA:
They even took the hyenas out of the zoo!
Arm:
They used to hump all the time.
Turner:
Wait wait wait. The hyenas aren't still there
at the zoo? We were just there... The hippos
were pretty amazing. Those were sexy.
Arm:
Emily and Rochene[?] climbed into that hippo
tank one night.
VIVA:
What?! They're like the most dangerous animals
in the world.
Arm
(laughing): They didn't know that. Then a
week later we saw something on the news about
hippos killing more people in Africa than
any other animal.
Turner:
They're evil. Pure evil.
VIVA:
Do you guys have pets?
Arm:
Yeah! Two dogs. Dexter and Stella. I had a
cat named Scabby but she died about a year
and a half ago.
Turner:
I had a cat named Vietnam but she left me.
Arm:
We had a guinea pig named Mr. Guinea Pig that
was actually a woman.
VIVA:
Would you rather go bowhunting with Ted Nugent
or drink til ya puke with Lemmy Kilmister?
VIVA:
I think bowhunting with Ted Nugent would be
kinda fun.
Turner:
He's way too gay for me.
Karl
Annala: You have to fuck the liver. The Nuge
likes to fuck the liver.
Turner:
Ted Nugent is mentally ill. He's like a really
dangerous man.
VIVA:
Something about that appeals to me.
Turner:
Lemmy is like the voice of reason compared
to Ted Nugent.
VIVA:
What color panties are you wearing and how
long have you been wearing them?
Arm
(affecting an accent): Well, they're a tartan
pattern...
Turner:
...as are mine...
Arm:
...and I've been wearing them for about...ten
hours now.
Turner:
What day is it? [laughter] This would be day
three.
VIVA:
Are they boxers or are they like boxer-briefs?
Turner:
Real boxers. None of that combo thing.
VIVA:
Everyone was so into those for a while.
Turner:
No, no, no. NOT down with the combo thing.
Dan still does it, you know, the combo whatever...
I roll with the man hammock myself.
VIVA:
Tartan man hammock?
