It’s like preaching to the choir when we’re all well within one standard deviation. If you’re reading this sentence you probably like Mudhoney.
Steve Turner, the guitarist from Mudhoney wrote a book called Mud Ride that came out on June 13. I bought it that day and plowed through it in a couple days. But before I finished it, I bought a copy of the super deluxe 2 disc 30th anniversary edition of Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge. I also dug through my pile of t-shirts hoping to find my Superfuzz Bigmuff shirt. Unfortunately I gave that shirt away long ago, faded and falling apart.
At SeaTac the other day I stuck my head into the SubPop gift shop for about 15 seconds. I will not be buying my next Mudhoney t-shirt at the airport.
Mud Ride appeals to me on several levels. It’s a well written narrative on the evolution of a pretty important chunk of Seattle music and Seattle history in general. And for that, it is interesting. But for me it was a checklist to look back on what I was doing at various times Turner brings up and that time and that other time too. It’s not a book I would recommend to my parents, because I know they don’t give a shit about Mudhoney. But I’ve been talking with my boss about it because he knows those guys and he’s a musician. And I’ll recommend it to you because you’re reading this sentence.
I like to picture Turner cruising around town on any old bike, going to shows at the StoreRoom, or lurking around in the U district with Dan Peters or Mark Arm. I like to imagine Mark Arm when he was a student at UW and I imagine he had a late night show on KCMU.
Turner didn’t get accepted to UW because he fucked around in high school a lot. He got into Seattle U but didn’t last long. Then he did some time at Seattle Central, because he promised his parents he’d get a college degree someday. I like to visualize passing him on the streets of Capitol Hill in 91 or 92, not knowing who he was. Or seeing him at a party in the U district in 1993 completely oblivious. I did see Kim Thayil once at Targy’s Tavern but I knew exactly who he was.
Turner is a few years older than me. He was a clean cut kid from Mercer Island. Oh so close to calling him a clean cut catholic kid from Mercer Island, but he pissed off his catechism teachers so much he never got confirmed.
I got confirmed but not long after that I complained about church so much that my mom let me start staying home on Sundays.
Turner was into bikes, all kinds of bikes and he raced BMX. He was also into skateboards from the moment his dad brought one home and into the present day, just at slower speeds.
I was into bikes as a kid too and I still am. But I wasn’t really into skateboards much past 3rd grade.
I only heard of Mudhoney in 89 or 90 from a college friend who had much deeper musical tastes than me. But I didn’t listen to them until my brother in law gave me the Superfuzz Bigmuff & early singles CD in 1991. I liked it. I really liked it. And I still really like it.
Now I’d like to draw your attention to the Showbox ticket stub from 5/16/97. That was the Friday after my very first day at Elliott Bay Messenger Company. I have absolutely no recollection of my 5th day as a bike messenger or the show after it. But I can safely say bikes were ridden, beer was consumed and that 09 Dave was at that show with me.
On my first tour at WA Legal (a small legal messenger company) in 1998, Dan Peters (the Mudhoney drummer) would pop in and work here and there delivering legal documents and serving process whenever Mudhoney was not on a world tour. He was just another chill guy, friendly and not rockstar-like at all.
This brings to mind Turner mentioning in his book that he could always go out to the store or go to shows and blend right in. Something that Eddie Vedder, Kurt Cobain and Chris Cornell could never do when the Seattle music scene blew up. Turner also compares and contrasts how Nirvana handled mega-rockstar status Vs. the way Pearl Jam did. Note how I used Vs.
When Matt Lukin, Mudhoney’s bass player, was ready to move on. The band was in search of a replacement. One of the people they wanted was Steve Dukich from the band Steel Wool. I went to high school with Dukich and I was very happy to see he got a couple paragraphs in Turner’s book. Dukich was not interested in joining the band full time but he played several shows with them and did a little tour.
Steel Wool had a couple albums out on Empty Records and I was a big fan not only because I went to school with 50% of the band. I saw them live whenever I could in Seattle and Bellingham too. When I was putting out a little bike messenger zine, Empty Records would buy ad space in it. They never paid me cash, they paid for their ads by mailing me CDs of bands I’d never heard of, bands that got my attention like Sicko and Dead Moon.
I noticed in his book, Turner only mentioned the Screaming Trees once: “a band from Ellensburg” Turner’s book is quite a bit different from Mark Lanegan’s, the lead singer from Screaming Trees. Turner also says zero words about Layne Stayley. He talks of Andrew Wood from Mother Love Bone, but mostly because of all the overlap of various band members coming and going and new bands forming. He talks a little bit about heroin but only because Mark Arm was fucking around with it and it jacked up their tours sometimes. If you want to read more about heroin and Seattle music, read Lanegan’s book: Sing Backwards and Weep.
Mud Ride was enjoyable for the history but more so for me because I identify with Turner’s experience being in Seattle and being sort of aimless. But all the while he stayed authentic, never pretending to be something he’s not. This is who we are and if you don’t like it, go fuck yourself. We’re not in it for the money. We’re in it because we want to be in it. Mudhoney is the real deal and Turner is a big part of why that’s true.
PS: one more Mudhoney moment came back to me today on a slow uphill grind as I was chanting “we wanna be free to do what we wanna do…”
At the beginning of In ‘n’ Out of Grace there’s a sample of Peter Fonda’s speech from Wild Angels. You can watch it below and or listen to it on your Mudhoney album.
In the early 90s I was living in a giant dirt cheap studio apartment with a landline and an answering machine that had those cute little cassette tapes.
I wrote a letter to an Anthropology professor at WSU asking for any possible internships or research positions focusing on Archaeology with a recommendation from one of my college professors.
The WSU guy got my letter and actually called me. But he got my answering machine message which was that sample directly from In ‘n’ Out of Grace. The gist of his message was, I needed to change my answering machine right away. I didn't change my machine and I didn't call him back.
Thank you Mudhoney for changing the trajectory of my career, or lack thereof.
I made to the end of this fine review, somewhat surprisingly, somewhat not surprisingly
I didn’t live in Seattle in the 90s or listen to Mudhoney, but I did live in the 90s and listened to Nirvana and Pearl Jam.
I appreciated how you used Vs. there.
And I enjoyed the trip down memory Layne
