Everybody Loves Our Town_ An Oral History of Grunge - Mark Yarm [250]
MATT LUKIN The rest of the band claims Tomorrow Hit Today was my best bass performance. And I go, “That’s kind of funny, because that’s when I cared the least about it.” But I guess a lightbulb shines brightest right before it burns out.
A month or two after we got back from Japan, Mark came over to the house for something, so I broke it to him. I go, “Look, Turner took the wind out of my sails a few years ago with the going-back-to-school thing. And I really haven’t been able to get motivated since. I’ve tried.” He goes, “Yeah, we kinda noticed.”
I started working carpentry. I remember coming home from the first job I had by myself. I thought, This is fucking great. I’m going home, it’s 5 o’clock, I get to spend the rest of the night at home doing nothing. No one’s deciding if I’m going to work tomorrow or not. Of course, that turned into just being like everything else, a big headache. I can decide what I want to do when the bills are paid. Until they’re paid, I can’t decide anything.
RICK GERSHON (Warner Bros. Records/A&M Records publicity executive) Mudhoney’s last record for Reprise, Tomorrow Hit Today, I remember nobody stood up to be counted when that record came down the pike. I put my hand very high in the air and said I would be honored to work with Mudhoney. And the two years or so that I worked with them, it was one of the most satisfying experiences of my life, musically, personally, professionally. They are such an amazing band and such bright musicologists.
I always found it very ironic and sad that Mark Arm had a day job at the Fantagraphics comic-book warehouse in Seattle. To me, it just wasn’t fair. They were the band that should’ve become rich and famous. And then written some really funny songs about becoming rich and famous.
DALE CROVER Pretty much from when we signed on to do our last record for Atlantic, everybody was gone. Danny Goldberg wasn’t there anymore. Our A&R guy, Al Smith, was gone. We made Stag, and I thought, This is the best record we’ve ever done. I don’t know why they wouldn’t be able to sell a shitload of these records! But the people at the label at that point just had no idea what to do with our band.
VALERIE AGNEW I remember us feeling like we had more problems on an independent label than we did when we were on a major label. Once we were doing a record with Atlantic, it felt easier in some ways. We learned later it was because they didn’t give a shit about us!
SELENE VIGIL-WILK Contrary to popular belief, we didn’t get dropped by Atlantic. We broke up because we were having our own internal stuff going on. Things were just really intense. There was a lot of death—other very close friends of ours who weren’t popular musicians—and a lot of freaking emotion.
VALERIE AGNEW We probably would have been dropped had we continued. But I think Atlantic would have been willing to work with us still if we had been a little more agreeable the next time around with business-type suggestions. But we really got to a point where we couldn’t agree on some business stuff and we were arguing about our creative direction, which was new for us. And we were being very ambitious, trying to work together and not be living in the same city. Selene was in L.A., and Elizabeth and I were in San Francisco. And Roisin had quit the band, so we also had a new guitar player come into the mix. I think the combination of all those things made it really hard to be on the same page.
BUZZ OSBORNE When Atlantic picked up the option for the third album, I just about couldn’t fucking believe it. The big money would’ve come on the sixth and