Everybody Loves Our Town_ An Oral History of Grunge - Mark Yarm [33]
It also drove things into more underground spaces, like house parties. And when Seattle promoters wanted to do bigger all-ages shows, they would have to go out of town. There was Natasha’s in Bremerton, and the Crescent Ballroom in Tacoma, where we played a great show with Redd Kross.
BRUCE FAIRWEATHER Green River opened for Redd Kross in Tacoma, along with Soundgarden and Malfunkshun. And a label person was coming up to see us play. Soundgarden played first, and we found out after the show that Susan Silver had snuck them out of the building during our set, so whoever the A&R person was didn’t see us play. She did what a manager would do, and got them out of the building. Back then, they weren’t signing bands left and right. Jeff was furious with Susan for a long time about that.
It was a really awesome show, too, so we were totally bummed out. Mark had on his silver pants and the black negligee that he used to wear. He might’ve been on drugs that night.
MARK ARM I was out of my mind on MDA that show and thought it would be a really great idea to climb to the top of the P.A. and, from there, jump onto a fluorescent light that was hanging by two chains from the ceiling and try to swing on it like it was a kid’s swing.
TOMIE O’NEIL Mark Arm, wantin’ to do something crazy there, climbs up on top of the P.A. It was a pretty tall building, and they had four-foot fluorescent lights hanging on chains down from the ceiling. With the mic in his hand, he jumps on top of that thing like a swing, and the minute he hit it, it pulled down about six to eight inches, and we thought, He’s done. It looked like that thing was gonna come down. He’s like 15 feet off the ground, and he fuckin’ sang a verse up there.
BRUCE FAIRWEATHER Mark was up there. His head was 20 feet in the air. He was swinging and he was able to jump—he hit the stage and rolled with the microphone. It was pretty cool. I fell to my knees and split my pants open, and I didn’t have underwear on. I think I was more concerned about that. I was like, “Whoops!” That was a fun show.
JACK ENDINO I was born in Connecticut. Lived in a town called Salisbury. Moved to Bainbridge when I was 17, that was in the ’70s. I had two half-brothers who were much older than I am, because they were from my mother’s previous marriage. Effectively, I was an only child.
Ended up working at the naval shipyard in Bremerton for two and a half years. Civilian electrical engineer. It was a pretty soul-destroying job. Walked out of that job in 1983, and resolved that I was going to do something else with my life. Specifically, something with music. And that was the last day job I ever had.
I played the drums a little bit, I played a little bit of guitar. After I left the navy yard, I rented a single-wide mobile home at a place called Tiger Lake, which is out in Belfair, Washington—middle of nowhere. Set up my drums, my four-track recording machine, some amps and speakers, some guitars, and spent the winter of ’83 teaching myself how to record, using myself as the guinea pig.
The ensuing five years of my life played out just as I had imagined: moved to Seattle, joined a band, started working in a recording studio. It all came to pass. I visualized it quite strongly.
DANIEL HOUSE My first band was Death of Marat, which I affectionately refer to as the worst band in Seattle. Not too long after, there was a three-piece band called Bam Bam, and I remember being really impressed by their drummer, a guy named Matt Cameron.
MATT CAMERON (Skin Yard/Soundgarden/Temple of the Dog/Pearl Jam/Hater drummer) I grew up in San Diego, and I started drumming when I was about nine years old. I started playing in rock bands when I was about 13, 14, just with the neighborhood kids. When I was 14, my neighbor John De Bello did this low-budget film that became a cult classic, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, and he had me sing the song “Puberty Love” that killed the tomatoes