www.infinitechug.com
It’s a virtual single by THE BUGS. i challenge you not to love THE BUGS. and it’s FREE.

Posted by Andrew Clare on Thursday, August 18th, 2005
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Lord knows why I’m listing this. I mean, the chances of me getting time to practise enough for it to sound anything near good and the chances of my throat holding up til then, and the chances of anything good actually coming out of my hands or brain when I’ve been the most part-time of all part-time musicians lately…the chances of any of these things are slimmer than that girl from Mi and Lau (who is very slim). But anyway. Yeah, we’re doing a gig! An acoustic set, supporting people with squeezeboxes. 21 August, 12 Bar. Do come.

Posted by Frances May Morgan on Thursday, August 18th, 2005
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Was guest presenter on the Totally Wired show on Juice 107.2 FM last Sunday evening. Here’s what I played:

1. Kitty Daisy & Lewis – Honolulu Rock’n'Roll-a (Oof!)
2. Devendra Banhart – I Feel Like A Child (XL)
3. Herman Dune – Not On Top (Track & Field
4. Supergrass – Coffee In The Pot (Parlophone)
5. The Organ – Memorize The City (Noize)
6. The Bobby McGees – No Friends (demo)
7. Calvin Johnson – Rabbit Blood (K)
8. Dan Sartain And The Serpientes – Cobras Pt II (One Little Indian)
9. The Long Blondes – Lust In the Movies (Angular Recording Co)
10. The Milkshakes – You Got Me Girl (Damaged Goods)
11. Misty’s Big Adventure – Never Stops Never Rests Never Sleeps (SL)
12. Albert Kuvezin & Yat-Kha – Love Will Tear Us Apart (Yat-Kha)
13. Jona Lewie – Stop The Cavalry (Stiff)
14. Squeeze – Up The Junction (A&M)
15. Kraftwerk – The Model (EMI)
16. Red Krayola – Don’t Talk To Socialists (Drag City)
17. Huw Jones – Mathowny (Finders Keepers)
19. Killing Joke – War Dance (Virgin)
20. Burning Pilot – It’s The Music (Transgressive)
21. Be Your Own Pet – Fire Department (Rough Trade)
22. The Diskettes – Museum (Blocked Blocked Blocked)
23. Rock Onic & Bob – Mr Blue Sky (Rob These)
24. The Legend! – It’s Easy Writing A Song (Constrictor)
25. Wevie Stonder – The Everyone That I Love Stink (Skam)
26. Daniel Johnston – Lonely Song (Sketchbook)
27. Julia Vorontsova – Rock n Roll (Abaton Book Company)
28. The Sweethearts – Pop Machine (demo)
29. The Research – I Love You But (EMI)
30. Lord Beginner – Nobody Wants To Grow Old (Honest Jons)
31. Orange Juice – Simply Thrilled Honey (Domino)

Posted by Everett True on Wednesday, August 17th, 2005
(2 Comments)

You know me. Not a big fan of rock’n'roll. Belonged to the generation before me.

But fuck it, man. You wanna talk rock’n'roll? An hour ago, I was standing about two feet away from Patti Smith, front row, as she crouched down on the stage during a full-on version of ‘Like A Rolling Stone’, Lenny Kaye and Tom Verlaine duelling on guitars. You wanna talk rock’n'roll? Talk Patti’s discarded jacket, thrown giddily across the stage. Talk shirt collars and New York accents. Talk ‘Piss Factory’ and ‘Horses’. Talk ‘Freemoney’ . . . took me completely by surprise that one, didn’t even have time to discard my specs and plastic carrier bag before the pogoing started. Man. Patti Smith. I could’ve reached out right then and touched her boots.

Rarely have I wanted to punch the air so much.
Well…outside of Dirtbombs concerts.

Posted by Everett True on Tuesday, August 16th, 2005
(3 Comments)

You know me. Not a big fan of rock’n'roll. Belonged to the generation before me.

But fuck it, man. You wanna talk rock’n'roll? An hour ago, I was standing about two feet away from Patti Smith, front row, as she crouched down on the stage during a full-on version of ‘Like A Rolling Stone’, Kaye and Tom Verlaine duelling on guitars. You wanna talk rock’n'roll? Talk Patti’s discarded jacket, thrown giddily across the stage. Talk shirt collars and New York accents. Talk ‘Piss Factory’ and ‘Horses’. Talk ‘Freemoney’…took me completely by surprise that one, didn’t even have time to discard my specs and plastic carrier bag before the pogoing started. Man. Patti Smith. I could’ve reache out right then and touched her boots.

Rarely have I wanted to punch the air so much.
Well…outside of Dirtbombs concerts.

Posted by Everett True on Tuesday, August 16th, 2005
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Last summer I did a load of stupid things, but one of the stupider things I did was that I forgot to write about this album. I mean, I listened to it most days for a few weeks, me and my wife and a musician friend of ours who listened to it with his head cocked in that position that I recognise well as half admiration and half seething jealousy that someone else got there first and a bit better and with a really good honky-tonk pianist. And I was writing most days too. But somehow I neglected to write about Andre Ethier’s self-titled solo album, which I think came out around last July over here. See, I don’t even know.

It was kinda hard to care about specifics when Ethier’s whisky-gargling tones were the accompaniment to what felt like the last summer of sleazy, sore-headed not-that-much-fun-at-all-really fun I was ever gonna have. I didn’t reel home at 6am in a torn silk dress and kick off my boots and crack open a beer and think to myself, gosh, this Canadian boy from that garage rock band the Deadly Snakes has made a rather fine piece of dirty country blues, hasn’t he. I just thought to myself, should I wake up my wife so we can get a bit more pissed and sing close harmony versions of Hearts On Fire? Or possibly, hey, shall I write me a nihilistic song of my own hahaha? Then when I’d woken up and sobered up the next day, I didn’t think, wow, must write about the scope of Christopher Sandes’ piano playing and the great rhythm section on that Andre Ethier album. I just thought, oh jesus god I have a magazine to help run, and a gig to practise for and two jobs on top of that - better get cracking, eh? Oh and, ouch.

A whole year later, I’m thinking, well, was it such a good album after all? Was it just, in fact, great drinking music? Ethier’s album both was - and is - great drinking music, it’s true. It’s even been compared to Bob fucking Dylan, which, as I know from working in a pub with a “great jukebox” (ie, there’s loads of Dylan and Tom Waits on it for 32 year old middle class men to put on when they’ve had three pints and feel lachrymose. Great!), is supposed to be great drinking music, although personally Dylan makes me wanna break glasses, not sup enigmatically from them. But yeah. I concede that there are similarities. The rough-textured voice, the so-charming love/hate attitude towards the ladies, the moments of minimal folk hollering and the shambling bar-room honky-tonkiness overlaid with what’s obviously a smart, textually aware mind - all these could, if you wanted to, make you think of Dylan. But who the hell wants to think of Dylan? I mean, really? When you could think of this instead. When you could drink to this instead.

This album works with alcohol because it’s loose, first and foremost, but because it never falls apart, gets undignified, bursts into tears or loses its keys. The musicians sound a little drunk themselves, but in a fantasy drunk way: the kind of drunk that makes you produce ragged works of laid-back genius and makes girls want to save your life. The songs are simple and memorable and the lyrics direct and suggestive in equal measure, right from the off, as Ethier shows up on your doorstep with a chorus of “Oh…won’t you let me…put my suitcase down…” He’s been sleepin’ outdoors and he’s tired and there’s no one who could love you more than he does, he says, so what’re you gonna do? Come on in, Andre. We got two bottles of red for a fiver.

Once you’re ensconsed together in mutual self-indulgence, lips sticky from cheap booze, it’s all downhill from there, and sweetly so. Ethier entertains you with some proper old-school Americana about thieving and lying and gettin’ hanged for your crimes and you nod your head to the shuffly drums that sound like they’re made out of junk shop chairs. He puts the fear of god into you with ‘Sinners”: “The ground it rots beneath us, and our roots are overgrown,” he testifies, amid vignettes about wasp’s nests and walking sticks played out over a stomping bassline and a Nicky Hopkins-style waterfall of burlesque piano. He tells you he just burnt his baby’s bed (after stealing her shoes, obv). He even asks you to sweep up after him. And you love it.

The wry amorality of Andre Ethier’s lyrics coupled with the regretful, rueful lilt of the melodies and rhythms slips down as easy as a bottle of good bourbon. His immersion in the mores and modes of a bygone time are so complete and relaxed (and so darn funny in places) that they cause very little in the way of what I call retro discomfiture, that being the feeling you get when someone reappropriates old musical idioms like they’re trying to win a prize for precision and adds nothing of their own. No, Ethier reappropriates lovingly and skilfully, but carelessly (sluttishly, if you will), and he does it because it’s fun, despite the death and desertion and capital punishment going on in his songs. And like TK Webb, whose recent evocation of Kansas City blues sparked in my imagination like a busted neon sign, Ethier works some kind of transmutational magic into what are ostensibly straightforward country blues songs, weaving an instant classicism into tracks like ‘Honey Drips, Butter Runs’ (“and honey, you better run…”).In drinking terms, it’s the sonic equivalent of looking around you, as if through a smeared lens, and feeling as if you’re in a poem, a story a song. Feeling as if the person who shares the bottle, whose sleepy eyes meet yours over the refilled glasses, is the best friend you ever had.

But let’s not push the metaphor too far, because I listen to Ethier today punctuated and stimulated by nothing stronger than a pot of coffee and a happy heart. Last summer’s chaos withers in this summer’s bright, sweet light like a vampire in the dawn. Still Sandes’ beautifully confident piano tickles my toes, and the low twang of the stand-up bass stirs the corners of my mouth in a smile. And Andre Ethier’s dirty, musteline voice still gladdens and excites like the friend you’re always pleased to see. Whatever the hell they persuade you to do next.

So I’m sorry that time - and I - seem to have forgot this album. It’s great, whatever your pleasure. Go get it, while there’s still some summer left.

Posted by Frances May Morgan on Tuesday, August 16th, 2005
(8 Comments)

I heard an odd anecdote a couple of days ago, concerning Billy Corgan and myself.
Sorry. I can’t divulge it cos it would upset a friend but…man. Billy really should get over himself. I haven’t even thought about him for the longest time.

Posted by Everett True on Saturday, August 13th, 2005
(5 Comments)

Saw Devendra Banhart, supported by Espers and Josephine Foster the other night…
Bunch of fucking hippies.

Posted by Everett True on Thursday, August 11th, 2005
(7 Comments)

Just found this while researching my Nivana book. Thought I’d share it with you. The original was printed in The Stranger.

MUDHONEY NSFAQ
By Everett True

(NSFAQ = not so frequently asked questions)

1.1 HOW DO MUDHONEY FARE IN RELATION TO THE RAMONES RULE?
Mudhoney fails virtually every criteria of the Ramones Rule.
Keep your songs brief. Keep the solos to a minimum. Don’t revel in showmanship. Stick to the instruments you know. Root your sound in the Girl Group lore of the past. Image is vital. Image is all. Root your melodies in the Beach Boy harmonics of the early 60s. Don’t overstep the 1.15 minutes mark. Don’t overstep the 2.15 minutes mark. Don’t overstep the 3.15 minutes mark. Keep the same haircut. When founder members leave, replace them with fans. Argue with each other constantly for 23 years and stonewall anyone who dares to even vaguely publicise the fact. Run off with one another’s partners. Don’t play lead on your own records. Never abuse a guitar. Never resort to spontaneity. Punctuality is next to cleanliness.
Founder member bassist Matt Lukin retired from Mudhoney in 2000, after 12 years of service – they don’t give out gold watches in rock, just the illusion of a pleasant house in the suburbs. It was in no way a Ramones moment. Dee Dee was replaced after 15 years by a punk kid gone AWOL from the Marines: Matt was replaced by a former Lubricated Goat, Guy Maddison – not a punk kid at all, but at 37, a trainee nurse from Australia with an encyclopaedic knowledge of rock. Dee Dee was off his head. Matt wasn’t.
“If you want to draw parallels,” states singer Mark Arm, “It’s like when Dave Anderson left Hawkwind and Lemmy joined.”
Explain, please. Give us the juice.
“No personal stuff, after all this is the local paper…”
Matt Lukin (the journalist types) ’s early claim to musical infamy was a sojourn in the mid-Eighties with Aberdeen band Melvins, terminated after the band claimed to have lost interest in music; in fact, they’d moved to San Francisco and recruited Shirley Temple’s daughter as his replacement. Melvins, of course, later became irretrievably linked with corporate American music, despite being primal, raw and mind-blowing LOUD (and rather amusingly non-commercial). Matt then hooked up with Dan Peters (Bundle Of Hiss), Mark…
“What the hell are you doing,” Mark shouts as he hears the journalist’s fingers tapping on the end of the phone line. “I don’t want that printed.” What? No, no, it’s just research. Scurrilous stories have no place here. We’re applying the Ramones Rule, not Behind The Scenes: Aerosmith. OK. You’re the boss. Is The Rocket still going? No? Oh, shame. What a great paper that was, responsible for so much in town: Charles Cross’ late conversion to Nirvana, and a yacht.
Mark starts imitating English accents, badly like Joe Strummer. “What else do you need to know? I keep making music because I still love making music – why else? It’s not like I’m making money off it.”

1.2 WHAT IS MUDHONEY’S RELATIONSHIP WITH SUB POP?
It’s good. The fidelities of the past are long forgotten. According to the definitive – or, at least, the most entertaining – account of grunge, Live Through This, the band kept the label alive through the dark days of 1991, when the minimally-promoted “Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge” shipped 50,000 copies through word of mouth alone. This was long before the silver prairie of Geffen appeared on the horizon, with the golden pony of Nirvana royalties heralding the dawn. Mudhoney were offered shares in lieu of payment, so one story goes – so they left, refusing such obvious and insanely desperate devices.
Another (more reliable) story suggests that everyone was pals from way back – and hell, if this isn’t the place to go into local history then what is – through Pavitt’s biweekly radio programme during the 80s, Sub Pop, and his local column; also Jonathan Poneman’s radio show on KCMU. It’s Seattle. Everyone knows everyone, and if they don’t then they certainly do when they move to Olympia to go to Evergreen State College, a town where it is geographically impossible not to have sex with your next-door neighbour’s cousin twice. Mark, Steve and Bruce all knew each other from way back when. They’d go record shopping together, shoot… the breeze. Everything comes around. Believe it.
Certainly, the first release on Sub Pop was from Mark Arm and Steve Turner’s pre-Mudhoney band, Green River (’Dry As A Bone’, 1987) – and please don’t make us hold an impromptu history lesson here, remarking upon Seattle’s remarkable ability to cannibalise its own musicians until someone somewhere has made another million (we’re looking at you, Presidents Of The United States Of America). When Mudhoney recorded some demos with Jack Endino at Reciprocal – Jack, Jack, he’s the man you can’t smack/Jack, Jack, take your money back (he don’t need it) – Mr Pavitt was first on the case (after Amphetamine Reptile, actually) to release ‘em…
All of this may go some way to explaining why Mudhoney’s new record ‘Fuck ‘Em If They Can’t Take A Joke’… sorry, Since We’ve Become Translucent… is their first non-major label studio album since the torturously magnificent 1991 outing and it’s on Sub Pop. There’s no place like home, Tonto. Toto.
Plus, of course, 2000’s very wry double-CD retrospective, March To Fuzz, was on Sub Pop. And very great it is too. Everything you need to know about grunge™ in one sweet package.

1.3 IS THERE AN AMUSING STORY CONCERNING MUDHONEY, FORMER PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON AND PEN-WIELDING GRANNIES?
Yes: “Now, who are these Mudhoneys, and are they popular with the MTV?”
That’s the remark Clinton was supposed to have made to Eddie Vedder, the day after Kurt Cobain died.
Mark Arm remembers it differently: “That was a quote I attributed to Bill Clinton for an article I wrote for Grand Royale. He probably didn’t even know we were in the White House that day. It was an odd afternoon. Kurt’s body had been discovered the day before. Pearl Jam had been invited to the White House, and we were like, hey can we go too? A secret service agent showed us behind the ropes. There were some frat boy types going ‘Hey, it’s Pearl Jam!’ – and we’re like, ‘We’re not Pearl Jam’. Later on, some kids actually recognised us, and asked for our autographs, and the next thing we know there are the sound of purses opening, old ladies with pieces of paper and pens shoving them in our faces – what the fuck! Then I realised the power of the velvet rope. Now if I want to be noticed when I go out, I walk around with a velvet rope around me.”

1.4 HOW DEEP DOES THE STOOGES CONNECTION LIE?
Mudhoney differ from the Ramones in their motivation.
Johnny Ramone kept going because he wanted enough to retire on – it took a little longer than he expected. Like 18 years. Not Mudhoney. They’ve never been under any illusions: although one wonders that when Mark states he always knew his band would never be big it’s with the silken crutch of hindsight.
Another crucial difference between the two bands is that the Ramones have nothing to do with the raw power of The Stooges and MC5, two bands they’re erroneously associated with – perhaps because they shared a mentor in common (Danny Fields). OK, all three bands have an energy level central to all great rock’n’roll, be it from Detroit, Seattle or Tiramasu. But that’s it. Anyone who tells you that Mudhoney owe nothing to The Stooges is a dirty stinkin’ liar who will burn for all eternity in a fire fuelled by the meltdown of a thousand record stores overstocked by Strokes and Vines records.
Yes, they’re wrong. Mudhoney have always been about indulgence, showmanship, spontaneity, and great fuckin’ rock’n’roll. Oddly, though, they’ve never seemed to have given a damn for that most motivating of all factors when it comes to people who choose to live and breathe and queue up for that golden computer and musical carrot in Seattle – fame. Fortune? Sure, we could all do with a little scratch.

1.5 HAS MARK ARM GONE ON RECORD DESCRIBING THE PROCLIVITIES OF HIS FELLOW MUSICIANS?
Let’s take a little detour into the personalities of the current members of Mudhoney. (“We don’t have a manager any more, but we sure have a booking agent.”) The following comments (in inverted commas) are supplied by Arm, the only (male) musician worth listening to in the entire Pacific Northwest, this side of Calvin Johnson.
Steve Turner (guitar, single, degree in anthropology): “Steve is the genius behind the orgies that happen upstairs at Gracelands after hours and he’s a shit hot guitar player.”
He’s more than that. Steve Turner is the American equivalent of Blur’s Graham Coxon. That’s not to say he falls about drunk at the front of Billy Childish shows while trying to cop off with members of Huggy Bear although…who knows? It’s more to intimate that through Mudhoney’s eight albums, he’s exhibited willingness to experiment and challenge and reinvent that goes far beyond the expected boundaries of his music. Plus, he’s been known to fall down drunk at the front of Billy Childish shows.
Back to Mark (who is married, and has an English degree, incidentally)…
Dan Peters (drums, married, with a kid): “Dan is the cuddly teddy bear who turns into your creepy uncle when he’s drunk. Actually, he turns into a cuddly, creepy uncle. He’s the most even-keel person in the band. I’ve never seen him have any kind of freak out or anything, and he’s one of my favourite drummers.”

1.6 WHO THE HELL IS GUY MADDISON?
We thought you’d never ask.
Guy Maddison (the journalist types) is Mudhoney’s new bassist. He played his first show with the band at Tex Games 2001, and helped the Seattle band record their new album – everything bar “Inside Job”, which Wayne Kramer played on. Maddison has previously played with Bloodloss – a rather fearsome full-on racket that also featured Mark Arm – and, of course, the Goat (featuring the Hornéd One, Stu). He is currently in college and that’s why Mudhoney are foolish to even employ a booking agent, probably…
“He’s a rock’n’roll nurse,” explains Mark Arm, “and it turns out they aren’t at all what I pictured when I first heard the New York Dolls. He’s got this amazing memory, all these insanely arcane facts and bits of history blocked up in there – you ask him anything and he’ll know the answer, or something about it. A gift I wish I had… He’s a dark handsome Australian who plays with his fingers – Matt played plectrum style.”
Guy was once known as Buster Smallgoods: “I just got a copy of Blunt,” Mark continues. “On the back of the book there’s a publicity still of this band called Monroe Fur – they later moved to Seattle and I played keyboards with them sometimes. Everyone is sitting on rocks out in the desert, and Guy is completely naked for no apparent reason.”

1.7 DO THE EVENTS OF HALLOWEEN 1987 HOLD MUCH SIGNIFICANCE IN LATE 20TH CENTURY AMERICAN POP CULTURE?
Sure. Mudhoney formed on Halloween 1987. Guitarist Mark Arm was fed up of the fancy triplets his colleagues insisted on playing in Green River, despite the fact an entire record label (Sub Pop, duh) had been started for them. Ed Fotheringham (Thrown-Ups) continues to balk at the idea of practising with guitarist Steve Turner. Dan Peters is the sweetest person in Seattle, this side of the guy whose future job it was to hold Dan Savage’s coat You can reverse future imperfect tenses, right? The first practice takes place on January 1, 1988 – Mark Arm is 29 years old. Unusually for a profession so deluged by vanity, he doesn’t lie about his age. Steve Turner is 14.
Superfuzz Bigmuff (Sub Pop, 1988) and Mudhoney (Sub Pop, 1989) follow. These are two incredible albums. We’re sure we don’t need to tell you how to headbang or crowd-surf or drink kegs of beer or have yourself a damn good time.
These are not necessarily seismic events in themselves, but they started a sequence of other events that within a few short years would lead to the following people becoming very rich indeed: Danny Goldberg (estimated wealth $75m), David Geffen (estimated wealth $110m), Courtney Love (estimated wealth $8m), Bruce Pavitt (estimated wealth $4m), Everett True (estimated wealth $0.21m, and that’s only if you don’t take a loss-leading magazine into account).
The simple act of creation leads to pain, envy and a realisation that life in the main sucks, is unfair, bites the big one and is probably best left to mosey along under its own devices because if you pay too much attention beyond the tiny stuff it’s going to get you every time …
Mark Arm, on the other hand, works for Fantagraphics Comics.

1.8 ARE THERE ANY AMUSING ANECDOTES INVOLVING MUDHONEY ALBUM TITLES?
Just one: involving the fourth album, My Brother The Cow (Reprise, 1995) – actually a stunning return to form, courtesy of a timely reunion with Mr Endino, and a London date that featured Australia’s Greatest Living Slapheads, the Cosmic Psychos, but everyone was looking elsewhere sadly. To fucking Silverchair, and the Stone Temple Plagiarists, if memory serves correctly… Jesus!
The tale goes thus: that a nameless member of Bloodloss was easing the pain of a turbulent romance by, “anaesthetising himself with a heavy amount of bourbon,” as Dan Peters explained. “We stopped at a drive-through, and he’s in the back of the car, passed out. We asked him if he wanted anything, and he kinda came to enough to say, ‘I will not eat anything of my brother the cow.’ And he passed out again.”

1.9 WHICH RECORD IS NOW COMMONLY ACCEPTED AS THE NADIR OF MUDHONEY’S CAREER?
Piece Of Cake (Reprise, 1992) is a bit of a HOO-EY, HOO-EY STINKEROONIE.
Five Dollar Bob’s Mock Cooter Stew (Reprise, 1993) isn’t so hot either, but at least it’s funny.

2.0 WHERE WAS THE WEIRDEST SHOW MUDHONEY EVER PLAYED, AND WHY?
It was in Manila: “We were in South East Asia with Pearl Jam for four shows,” recalls Arm, “and the security standing in the trench in front of the stage all had fucking machine guns. It added a strange vibe to the proceedings. We were supposed to play Saigon on that trip. I’d have loved to have done that.”
Mudhoney have played a veritable A-Z of the world’s nations: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, England, Finland, Germany, Holland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, USA and Wales… and quite a few others as well.

2.1 WHAT ARE MUDHONEY’S MAIN MUSICAL INFLUENCES?
In the November 1995 edition of Rockstar magazine, Mudhoney were given a six out of 10 for fame, and an eight out of 10 for guitar loudness. The magazine suggested they’d have made four perfect filling station attendants “without grunge” (“I can’t live/If living is without grunge”) and that in the future they’ll turn into a “low success blues group”. The main insight given, however, was in the list of perceived influences (marks from 0 to 3): “Beatles 0, Led Zeppelin 2, Black Sabbath 0, Jimi Hendrix 1, Stooges 3, Neil Young 2, Velvet Underground 0, Sex Pistols 2, MC5 3, Pink Floyd 1”.
“They’re wrong, they’re totally wrong,” asserts Mark when confronted with the figures today. “That doesn’t even account for The Fall or Gang Of Four or Devo or anything like that.
“I’ll re-grade them for you,” he states, the Record Collector’s Record Collector. “The Beatles is right. Led Zeppelin should be a zero. Black Sabbath is a 3. That’s obvious. Jimi Hendrix would be a 3, but we just can’t play that good, so it’s a 2. The Stooges is right, obviously. So is Neil Young. Velvet Underground 1, Sex Pistols 2, MC5 is correct, and Pink Floyd…? It depends what era you’re talking about. I’ve been doing this a lot lately, figuring out the exact moment when a band turns bad, probably because we’ve been around so long. Live At Pompeii is so great, but if you listen to Atom Heart Mother that’s pretty fucking bad, so… once they stopped being psychedelic warriors, I guess.
“I’m self-aware, so that keeps things in check hopefully. I’d hate someone to say we’ve been bad since Piece Of Cake because I know that isn’t so great, but we have been improving since then…

2.2 DO MUDHONEY LIKE TALKING ABOUT THEIR INVOLVEMENT IN THE FILM SINGLES?
No.

2.3 WHY DID MUDHONEY LEAVE REPRISE?
“We didn’t make them any money,” states Mark bluntly. “We knew the game was up when we did [the sensational] Tomorrow Hit Today (Reprise, 1998). It was like pulling teeth the label had changed so much. It had been bought out by Time, so it was Time/Warner and now it’s AOL/Time/Warner. We had to do a demo for that album… I don’t know what Reprise were looking for – the new head of A&R was hired because he produced the breakthrough Sugar Ray album. It’s a darker record – you can tell from the title and the album art. We were glad to be gone. They had no idea what to do with us. Reprise definitely had radio-friendly bands, but the label hadn’t had a major hit since Alanis several years before so obviously there were some fairly inept radio people around.
“After that, we didn’t feel like going around looking for record labels. We didn’t want to do any more demos.”

2.4 WHO IS BOB WHITTAKER?
He’s Mudhoney’s formerly retired manager, and now works with R.E.M. Do a search under his name on guardian.co.uk, and you’re sure to be enlightened: “Bob was up in First Class with Peter Buck during that whole incident,” Mark states. “I was periodically logging into The Guardian’s website to keep track of events, and it described Mr Robert Whittaker as having yoghurt smeared all over his face and giggling uncontrollably – which I find incredibly hard to imagine.”
He is being sarcastic.

2.5 IS THEIR NEW ALBUM ANY GOOD?
You think The Stranger would be wasting your time if it wasn’t?
It blisters. It strips earwax from the ceiling and smears it all over your smalls. It blows up the sweetest wailing sax storm since Mark, Steve and Dan debuted in the ace Sonics tribute band, the New Original Sonic Sound – a band put together for the express purpose of playing in a museum – alongside saxophonist Craig Flory, and Tom Price (Gas Huffer). It peels back strobe lights from the walls and deposits them throbbing in your lap. It turns several tricks and manages to simultaneously snarl and seer with unseemly beauty. Some tracks last several minutes, deservedly so. Some tracks don’t, because hell… it’s sweet, being brutal. Occasionally, it recalls Price’s Monkeywrench (yet another band that Tuner and Arm moonlight in). Occasionally, it recalls the 60s guitar garage maestros, the Sonics themselves…somewhat unsurprisingly as it too features the righteous horns of Flory and pals on the psych freak-out ‘Baby, Can You Dig The Light?’, and swirling maelstrom of ‘Where The Flavor Is’ (“You taste great with or without fruit”).
Nine of the songs were recorded in batches of three – at three different studios – in bursts of creativity.
‘Inside Job’ was recorded after a website called musicblitz.com offered the band $10,000 for one song: “We were like, no problem. It was while the Internet was still really big.
“The new album has 10 songs,” Arm states with the deadpan delivery that has sometimes been blamed for Mudhoney’s lack of success. Sarcasm isn’t usually a trait encouraged in rock stars more’s the fucking pity. Stupidity, yes. Wit, no. “It is a departure, yes and no. Steve and I have been playing together since 1983, and we’ve generally been playing like a punk rock kind of thing so in that sense it’s more of the same. Sometimes it gets louder. Sometimes it gets quieter, sometimes faster sometimes slower. There’s a little of all that. The most different thing is that our new bass player brings in a whole new feeling down in the bottom end.
“This is our first new album since Tomorrow Hit Today. We haven’t done jack for four years. It took us a while to deal with Matt quitting. We weren’t sure with how to proceed. Steve and I dealt with it by not thinking about it and working on the Monkeywrench record. Dan dealt with it by having sex with his wife until they had a kid.”

2.6 SO WHY DID MATT LUKIN LEAVE?
He wasn’t too interested in playing with the band any more.

2.7 IS THERE AN AMUSING STORY CONCERNING ONE OF THE HUNDREDS OF FESTIVALS MUDHONEY PLAYED IN EUROPE?
What do you reckon?
This tale happened one particularly rainy third day at Reading Festival in England, 1992. Mudhoney were about halfway up the bill, and the crowd were pelting them with mud balls, an occasional hazard when bands are faced with the mewling herd. Mark Arm pleaded with the crowd to stop and threatened to walk off, so of course the barrage only increased. So Mudhoney dropped their instruments and started throwing the mud back at the audience, much to everyone’s surprise. From there, it quickly developed into a memorable full-on mud fest.
“L7 played before us,” Mark recalls, “and people were throwing mud at them and we knew we were gonna get it because of our name. All L7 had to retaliate with was Donita’s tampon [Mark is referring to an equally infamous incident where L7’s singer threw her tampon at the crowd in retaliation]. We didn’t have any such thing, so we just threw back what they threw at us – a little bit of mother earth mixed with piss and the occasional bit of rock. I remember at one point saying, ‘You guys can’t throw, you’re used to playing soccer and kicking balls with your feet, in America we have baseball’… and right then one hit me right in the face. That’ll learn me. Never taunt an armed audience.”

2.8 HAVE MUDHONEY CHANGED OVER THE YEARS?
“Mudhoney! They’re Motorhead meet Spacemen 3 meet Blue Cheer meet Iggy on a stroll back from an MC5 concert. They’re loud, comprehende?” (Melody Maker, 1989)
“Have we changed since then? I don’t know. It’s all in there. It’s part of the fabric of my existence. Those guys wanted us to say we wanted to be rock stars, and we’d be like ‘It’s not going to happen’…. There’s a ceiling to what we do. That’s fine. I don’t want to play shitty music to become popular. That’s not what’s it’s about. I’m happy with the small life that I lead.
I know people who are freaked out you work at Fantagraphics.
“I freak out that I work here sometimes too.”

2.9 WHAT DOES THE STRANGER’S MIKE NIPPER THINK OF MUDHONEY NOW?
“They still smell like beer.”

Posted by Everett True on Monday, August 8th, 2005
(4 Comments)

Come to this! It will be lovely! I am DJing briefly throughout the day, which is really exciting for me, as I have never yet DJed in a church.

Palimpsest Festival
An all day event of new music and outside folk sounds
All Saints Church, Jesus Lane, Cambridge
Saturday 13th August 2005
2PM – 11PM
Featuring performances from:
Alasdair Roberts
Josephine Foster
Mi and L’au
Kiila
Lionshare
Um
Dan Merrill
Fuzzy Lights
And DJs American Booze, Sami (Kiila) & Bad Timing
along with video projections, and record stall
Tickets: £8.50 advanced / £10 on door
Advanced tickets from www.htrecords.co.uk (all major cards accepted)
More information please visit www.palimpsest-festival.co.uk
After neigh on three years of promoting events of the musical sort in Cambridge, Harvest Time presents a unique one day event with artists from America, France, Finland,Scotland and of course England all under the sacred roof of All Saints Church (1863),Cambridge renowned for its colourful interior with painted walls, ceiling and fittings and of course, stunning stained glass windows. Palimpsest features performances from 8 artists all creating new music. The performances include minimal post rock from Fuzzy Lights, skewed electronic compositions with pop sensibilities courtesy of the enigmatic Um, a free improvisation on violin from Dan Merrill, which will lead us into an evening of outsider folk based music from Alasdair Roberts, Josephine Foster, Mi and L’au, Kiila and Lionshare. Further to this will be video projections, a wide range of DJs playing throughout the day, a record stall from Harvest Time Records along with stalls from Cambridge based micro labels.

Posted by Frances May Morgan on Monday, August 8th, 2005
(2 Comments)