SUB POP GRUNGE PARADE PT.1 Green River
Aug 18, 2008
Seattle Savants: In 1987 they sparked a regional scene and spawned the grunge movement.
BY GILLIAN G. GAAR
In honor of Sub Pop’s 20th anniversary celebration in July, we take a look at two of the label’s acts that reunited especially for the event — Green River, and the Fluid. For our Fluid coverage go to our companion feature “Sub Pop Grunge Parade Pt .2." And for our blow-by-blow coverage of Sub Pop 20 itself, along with links to killer photos from the even, go to our feature “Swingin’ On The Flippity Flop.”
Mark Arm can still remember Green River’s first show, in Seattle in 1984. The venue was a storefront where the headliners, Positive Mental Attitude, also happened to be living, and it was the band’s only show as a four piece, as newly recruited guitarist Stone Gossard didn’t feel he knew the material well enough yet. “There were maybe like 20, 30 people or something,” Arm recalls, “and the show was a lot of fun; really positive, really great. And I can remember the second show too, which was the exact opposite! For some reason, nothing gelled, and I remember thinking, ‘Maybe this whole singing in a band thing isn’t what I should be doing…’”
But Arm, and Green River, persevered, becoming the first of what would come to be called “grunge” acts to actually release a record in 1985. Their second EP, 1987’s Dry As A Bone, was grunge personified, all fuzzy guitars and abrasive howlings, that also, not incidentally, helped establish a fledgling Seattle label called Sub Pop. The band imploded by the end of ’87. But among the many acts reuniting for Sub Pop’s 20th anniversary concerts, Green River, who laid the groundwork for so much of what would follow in the Seattle music scene, are undoubtedly the most appropriate choice for a series of shows, that, in the words of Sub Pop co-founder Jonathan Poneman, “are not so much about Sub Pop as much they are about our community, and the culture at large.”
The first Green River line up consisted of Arm, guitarist Steve Turner, drummer Alex Vincent (aka Alex Shumway), and bassist Jeff Ament, from Montana punk act Deranged Diction. The band’s name not only referenced the Creedence Clearwater Revival album, it was also sparked by the name given to a then-unknown serial killer who left the bodies of his victims in the Green River, outside of Seattle (the killer, Gary Ridgway, was finally arrested in November 2001). Gossard was soon brought in so Arm could quit guitar in favor of concentrating on his vocals.
The band’s music meshed together influences from punk to metal, and early demos reveal Arm’s struggle to develop a distinctive vocal style. “It’s the worst singing imaginable,” he says of his work on the band’s first recordings. “I was screaming in this low growl and it’s just awful.” On the EP Come On Down, released on Homestead in 1985, the musical blend is smoother, though Arm calls it “kind of a schizophrenic record,” contrasting the simplicity of “Swallow My Pride” (an intriguing mix of sexual braggadocio and anti-war rant) with “ginormous epics” like “Tunnel of Love.” “Which is just an absolutely ridiculous song,” he says. “We were for the most part kids who grew up playing hardcore and started testing the waters and trying things out — it might have better had we not actually recorded that stuff, just done it and left it by the wayside.”
Turner left the group when the EP was finished, replaced by another Deranged Diction cohort, Bruce Fairweather, who joined in time for the band’s first tour. Though that tour was ostensibly to promote the EP, the record wasn’t actually released until after the cross-country trek (which consisted a mere handful of shows) was over. The band somehow secured a late night spot at CBGB’s (Arm: “We basically played to the bar staff. And they liked us!”) while other dates were more hazardous, such as a gig opening for death rockers Samhain in Detroit. “The audience was really there to see them,” says Fairweather, “and we were like long-haired freaks with eyeliner and makeup on. And Jeff had a pink shirt on that said ‘San Francisco’!” (“In purple cursive script,” Arm notes). Inevitably, a fight erupted. “The only thing that saved us was that the security guy was an actual off-duty cop with a gun,” says Arm. “And after the show we were presented with a skinned deer head by some punk dude,” adds Fairweather. “We didn’t get killed; that was the important thing!”
The atmosphere in the Pacific Northwest was more conducive, though shows could be just as fraught. “Mark used to throw shit onto the crowd all the time,” Fairweather says. “Which I was always worried about, because they could just throw it back at you!” At one Seattle show, Arm placed a foam cooler with green Jello on the stage, planning to stick his head in it and then shake it over the crowd. But when the cooler broke, he instead flung the Jello around at random, landing some hits on the club’s big screen TV system. “We got 86’d,” says Fairweather, still chuckling at the memory. “They’re like, ‘You’re never playing here again!’ And a month later they’re like, ‘Hey, you guys want to open for Sonic Youth?’” Agent Orange was also displeased when a fish that Arm swung around during a set ended up leaving an odorous mess on their drum carpet. “Love Battery [Fairweather’s subsequent band] ended up opening for Agent Orange years later and I reminded Mike Palm [the band’s singer/guitarist] of the story, and he still wasn’t pleased!” says Fairweather. “I was totally laughing about it and he was just like, ‘Yeah. Whatever.’”
Though the Homestead release fizzled, Arm’s friend Bruce Pavitt stepped up for the next EP. Pavitt’s Sub Pop label had started out as a fanzine in 1979, later becoming a “cassette zine,” and 1986 saw the release of the label’s first vinyl album, Sub Pop 100 (Pavitt also used the name “Sub Pop” as for a radio show and music magazine column). But though technically not the label’s first release, Dry As A Bone crystallizes the moment when the “Seattle scene” aesthetic came into being, encompassing not just the music but the look of movement, particularly Charles Peterson’s blunt, arresting photographs. “Charles’ photography was instrumental in inspiring me to try and focus on Seattle,” says Pavitt. “Because I realized that with a consistent visual representation, the label could help develop a form.”
“It seemed to me like Dry As A Bone was our best record,” says Arm today. “I think that’s where we’re hitting our stride.” The band’s growing confidence is evident from the bracing assault of the opening track, “This Town,” and there’s a fresh energy that keeps the excitement up throughout — Poneman’s assessment “There is no fat, no dross on that record at all; it’s pure intensity,” isn’t so much an opinion as a simple statement of fact. As the first non-compilation release on Sub Pop, it seemed to herald the beginning of new regional musical sensibility as well, and Sub Pop’s catalogue inadvertently gave the movement its name when they described the release as “ultra-loose GRUNGE that destroyed the morals of a generation.” By the time of the EP’s release, Pavitt had joined forces with Poneman (then a promoter and radio DJ) through their mutual love of Soundgarden. Poneman was not only interested in releasing a Soundgarden record, he also had the cash on hand to make that happen, so the band’s guitarist, Kim Thayil, suggested he partner with his friend Bruce Pavitt, who also wanted to release a Soundgarden record and had a label already established.
Soundgarden’s Screaming Life EP was released a few months after Dry As A Bone, and with Green River then in the studio working on a follow up, Pavitt and Poneman decided to make the leap and give up their day jobs. But as it turned out, Green River was on its last legs.
Ament, Gossard, and Fairweather had begun jamming with Malfunkshun singer/guitarist Andrew “Landrew” Wood, whose glam-metal tastes were a better match with where they wanted to go musically. And though Arm doesn’t recall any undue tensions during the sessions for their last record, Rehab Doll, he has no trouble identifying the musical chasm that had developed in the band. “The riffs are these kind of Aerosmithy riffs, and I’m just spewing angst and black humor over the top of it,” he says. “It doesn’t really mix very well. Landrew’s approach was much more light-hearted at the time than mine was. And the sound is horrible. It’s got that big ‘80s production on the drums and it’s overwhelming. And I’m not alone in thinking that. But that was unfortunately the style of production of the day.”
The end came during a West Coast tour in the fall which saw Arm blow out his voice just in time for an LA date opening for Jane’s Addiction that they hoped would attract A&R reps. “I could barely croak out a note,” he says. “I’m sure that let everyone else, including myself, down.” Back in Seattle, he arrived for what he thought was a practice, and was told by the other band members that Green River was over. For their part, Pavitt and Poneman were dismayed by this sudden development. “Frankly, Jon and I were a little shocked,” Pavitt admits. “We quit our day jobs, and as soon as we opened the doors we got the tape for Rehab Doll, and it was like, ‘Here’s your tape, we just broke up last night.’ Great!”
But Arm soon rallied, forming Mudhoney with Steve Turner, and 1988 would see the release of their landmark single, “Touch Me, I’m Sick.” Soundgarden was still a going concern, and by the end of 1988 Sub Pop had released the first record by Nirvana, a move that would reap an unexpected windfall sooner than anyone would have guessed. The rest of Green River formed Mother Love Bone, whose career ended prematurely with the death of Wood in 1990; Ament and Gossard then formed Pearl Jam, while Fairweather ended up in Love Battery.
At a November 30, 1993, date in Las Vegas, Arm joined Pearl Jam onstage to perform two Green River songs during the encore. “Which I’m sure just bummed out all the kids there,” he jokes. “Because that was the height of not even Pearl Jam mania but Eddie Vedder mania — they weren’t screaming ‘Pearl Jam’ between songs, they were going ‘Ed-die! Ed-die!’” Last year, Poneman asked Arm, now working as Sub Pop’s warehouse manager, if Green River would be up for a more formal reunion, and everyone proved to be agreeable. “Our first rehearsal was a little sloppy,” Fairweather says, “but the second time was quite a bit better. It was fun to see all those guys again.” Turner came back to the fold as well for the occasion. “It’ll be a three guitar onslaught,” says Fairweather. “Like Molly Hatchet! Or 38 Special, take your pick” (Fairweather and Ament are even working on a Deranged Diction reunion; check myspace.com/derangeddiction).
At present there are no plans to take the reunion beyond the Sub Pop show. “Even if we got shows with guarantees that were good in Mudhoney terms, it would be nothing compared to guarantees that Pearl Jam gets!” says Arm. “It would be like, ‘Come on you guys, you want to do a little van tour with us?’ That doesn’t seem like a reality! And I don’t think anyone really wants to put that much effort into it. It’s like kind of a fun thing to do.”
Not to mention providing a reminder to audience and band alike of how far the Seattle scene has come since those days when “grunge” merely referred to dirt. “It was a great time because we were all basically trying to make a career,” says Fairweather. “We were so cocky. We were just like, ‘Oh man, we’re the be all and end all of the Seattle music scene!’”
And in many ways, that’s exactly what they were.
***
SELECTED DISCOGRAPHY
Come On Down EP (Homestead, 1985)
“Together We’ll Never” / “Ain’t Nothing To Do” 7” (Tasque Force, 1986)
Dry As a Bone EP (Sub Pop, 1987)
Rehab Doll (Sub Pop, 1988)
Rehab Doll/Dry As a Bone CD (Sub Pop, 1990)
blog comments powered by Disqus
More Photos
