Everybody Loves Our Town_ An Oral History of Grunge - Mark Yarm [2]
—Mark Yarm, May 2011
LARRY REID (U-Men manager; co-owner of Roscoe Louie/Graven Image galleries; Tracey Rowland’s husband) This was Labor Day weekend of 1985. Here’s how I remember it. The U-Men’s roadie, Mike Tucker, thinks it was my idea; I think it was Charlie Ryan’s idea. And it’s not that I don’t want to take credit for it, because it was brilliant. But I’m sure it was Charlie’s idea because Charlie had a fetish for Zippo lighters.
MIKE TUCKER (U-Men roadie) The idea, I do believe, was born out of a conversation between Larry and me. I remember going with Larry and getting the lighter fluid, which someone poured into Mickey’s brand malt-liquor bottles.
JIM TILLMAN (U-Men/Love Battery bassist) I’m fairly positive it was John’s idea. Suffice it to say that we all thought it was brilliant.
CHARLIE RYAN (U-Men/Cat Butt/the Crows drummer) It was my idea. I collected lighters. I was the firebug. I was the pyro. My idea!
LARRY REID The U-Men were the first real punk band ever booked at the Bumbershoot Festival. I managed to sell them as a performance-art combo. God bless ’em, the producers trusted me, and they shouldn’t have—and never did after this!
CHARLIE RYAN Larry says, “We’re on Bumbershoot.” And we’re like, “Oh, my God. Okay. This is going to be the ultimate showcase for us.” I start thinking about the fact that there’s the moat, this body of water in front of the stage. I wondered, Could we light it on fire?
LARRY REID Nobody was quite sure it would work, so we filled up my bathtub, poured some lighter fluid on it, and …
CHARLIE RYAN We took a match and threw it in, and it went boom! Flames.
LARRY REID There was a curtain on the window above the bathtub and it fucking went up, man. If we would’ve thought about it, we probably would’ve tried it outside using a bucket of water. The alarm went off, all hell broke loose—they had to empty the building, but it didn’t catch the apartment on fire. We were all high-fiving each other, and like, “Yes, this was a good thing. This is gonna work!”
So skip to the gig, a couple weeks later. Bumbershoot was held at an outdoor venue called the Mural Amphitheatre, which is on the grounds of this large city-owned property called the Seattle Center. There were hundreds of people in the audience because it was free.
KURT BLOCH (Fastbacks/Young Fresh Fellows guitarist) I was right there in the front. They’re setting up and everybody’s like, “Something crazy’s gonna happen, something crazy’s gonna happen.”
KERRI HARROP (Sub Pop Records sales and retail employee) I can even remember what I was wearing, the show was that significant. First of all, Bumbershoot’s this family-friendly event—it’s out on the open lawn in the shadow of the Space Needle—and you have these complete weirdos out on this stage.
CHARLIE RYAN It’s sunny and nice out, and we’re all in black leather and top hats and dark shades and being as menacing as we could be. Our freak show only appeared at night, in dark places, but here we are, in broad daylight. My mom was there—the end of the show wasn’t her proudest moment.
LARRY REID At the end of the set, the sun was just going down. Mike Tucker and myself walked out to the edge of the stage, and we’re each pouring what appeared to be a gallon of vodka into the pond. And Bigley comes out—they’re doing this song called “They,” which at that point was the standard last song.
JIM TILLMAN The last song was “Green Trumpet,” though I could be wrong. There were 2,000 or 3,000 people there. A couple of our friends, this guy Mike, who was sort of a roadie, and this other guy Tommy Bonehead—his real name was Tom Simpson, but he was called Bonehead because it didn’t matter how hard you’d hit him, he’d always fight—are pouring lighter fluid on either side of the stage.
TOM PRICE (U-Men/Cat Butt/Gas Huffer guitarist) We were playing a song called “10 After 1.” And John ducked behind an amp, because we didn’t want the authorities to see what was going on.
JOHN BIGLEY (U-Men/the Crows singer) I had gotten a broom and cut