Everybody Loves Our Town_ An Oral History of Grunge - Mark Yarm [21]
ALEX SHUMWAY (a.k.a. Alex Vincent; Green River/Spluii Numa drummer) The first time I saw Malfunkshun was at the Metropolis. We were waiting for them to play. Regan’s behind his drum set, and Kevin’s up there with his guitar on. And all of a sudden, you hear this real heavy, grinding bass. We’re going, “Where the hell is that coming from?” We’re all looking around, and when we turned around, there was Andy walking across the bar, with a wireless on. He had on white makeup with purple eye shadow and really red lipstick, and he was wearing purple spandex pants. And he had this peacock stride. Everybody’s going, “Oh, this is fuckin’ awesome!”
TOM PRICE The thing that always cracked me up about Malfunkshun—and the thing I loved about them—was that they would come to the end of the song and Andrew or Kevin would jump in the air to signal, Okay, the song ends here. Boom! But nobody would stop playing—the band would just keep going and going and going. Every show they did was one big, long song with a monster guitar solo all over it.
REGAN HAGAR We would get heckled for doing guitar solos. I feel like—and of course, I probably romanticize things—Malfunkshun changed the sound of the city by putting metal into the punk, which was such a taboo for a band like the Fartz, who would never, ever have a guitar solo.
MARK ARM I saw Malfunkshun open for Whitehouse, that neofascist industrial band, and Malfunkshun fuckin’ destroyed them. Whitehouse was a stale joke by that point: this guy in jackboots and a black leather trench coat coming through the crowd going, “I’m going to rape you!” I was like, “No, you’re not.” They weren’t the least bit threatening or real.
It was posturing, whereas I just saw a really unhinged performance on the part of Kevin Wood, who was on his knees the whole time with his eyes rolling back in his head, just playing the craziest shit.
JOHN BIGLEY One of the first things I remember about Andrew was him telling me, “If you’re ever on Bainbridge Island, let me know and I’ll show you my Kiss shrine.” I go, “Kiss shrine?” He was deadpan, not clowning around. “Oh, you’re not kidding.” And he starts describing this shrine: “There’s two red bongs and a signed Kiss Destroyer jacket”—and he just went on—“and I’d like you to see it.”
No, I never saw it—they were still living at their mom’s.
REGAN HAGAR When we moved out of our parents’ houses, Andy and I moved into a house together in West Seattle with Blaine Cook and two other guys from our circle. The place was a total shithole. There were parties, and all we ate was cereal. Because we were fresh out of our parents’ houses, and what does any kid want? Sweet cereal. We would cut the fronts off of all of the cereal boxes and cover the kitchen walls with them.
Andy started dating these two girls called Tiger and Jane. They were kind of like a lesbian couple. They were strippers—they took their clothes off and did their bit together in a club on the same street as the Showbox. I would get nervous when they were at our house because if you walked by Andy’s room and they heard you coming, they would literally come and try and grab you to bring you into their circus freak show.
BLAINE COOK Andy was just a regular Joe around the house. If anything, he liked to spend his time playing that little handheld football game.
REGAN HAGAR It was the Mattel Electronics football game. Our friend Paul and Andy and I had teams. Andy kept stats, and we had this thing called the World Bowl, which is like the Super Bowl, at the end of a season. My team, the Hawaiian Angels, beat his team, the Dallas Cowboys—he was always the Dallas Cowboys—and he cried.
ERIC JOHNSON (Soundgarden/Pearl Jam tour manager) It was either during the Malfunkshun days or right after, and Stone Gossard was working at this little bakery in Pioneer Square. I was talking to Stone when Andy came in wearing a white fur coat, makeup, white gloves. His look was amazing—and this was just walking around. He came in looking like that and started talking