Everybody Loves Our Town_ An Oral History of Grunge - Mark Yarm [55]
MARK ARM We did one show where we all played in our boxers and the four members of the band were wearing flower heads. Apparently, the whole time Steve’s ball sac was hanging out of his boxers.
STEVE TURNER Yeah, apparently my underwear was too short.
MARK ARM The most brilliant thing was when Ed came up with the zit pants.
ED FOTHERINGHAM (the Thrown Ups singer; illustrator) It was a suit that I made out of black garbage bags turned inside out, seamed with duct tape and with about 30 Ziploc bags filled with Barbasol shaving cream on the inside. It just looked like a puffy leather suit. I had a sharpened chopstick, and at the end of the show, I would pop these things and squeeze them. And to my glee and surprise, they worked so well—this stream of white liquid went out like 30 feet into the audience and actually hit the bar. It was just a mess. We got kicked out of the Ditto Tavern for that.
TOM HAZELMYER (Amphetamine Reptile Records founder; U-Men bassist) Turner was always twistin’ my arm, like, “You gotta listen to this tape! We need someone to put the record out. It’s me, and Mark Arm on drums and Ed Fotheringham on vocals and Leighton on bass, and we just make everything up as we go.” I was like, “That sounds fucking horrible.” Somehow he got me to listen to it, and I was like, “Fuck. This actually sounds great!” I ended up putting out all their albums on AmRep.
JACK ENDINO The Thrown Ups? Probably the best band ever. Steve and Mark and Leighton and Ed would make the most ridiculous list of song titles you could think of, and pick from the list. “Okay, ‘Sloppy Pud Love.’ What would that sound like?” They’d start jamming, and they’d look at me and go, “Okay. We got it. Roll it.” And I would just roll tape, and they’d come back, listen to it, everybody’d have a good laugh, and then they’d go down the list again. “Okay, ‘Elephant Crack.’ What would that sound like?” Ed would literally make up lyrics on the spot. We’re not talking Hemingway here, but it was always funny as shit.
MIKE LARSON (Green River manager) When I became the manager for Green River, there was a little notice in the gossip column of The Rocket: “Michael Larson is now the manager of Green River, who are working with Joe Perry of Aerosmith fame in the studio.” I think Jeff actually put that in there. My sense is that he made up this rumor to create buzz.
I don’t think they ever met Joe Perry. But that rumor had a life of its own. And the funny thing is, if you look at the “Together We’ll Never”/“Ain’t Nothing to Do” single that we released, it says, “Produced by J. Perry.” For the next couple of years, every once in a while someone would go, “Hey, so have you guys been working with Aerosmith?”
BRUCE FAIRWEATHER Green River got to open for Public Image Ltd., at the Paramount Theatre in ’86. When I showed up, Andy Wood and Regan Hagar are hanging out backstage, and they’re totally out of control. I was like, “You guys seem hammered.”
They’re like, “Yeah, we’ve been going upstairs to PIL’s dressing room and stealing their beer.” So I was like, “Hell, I’m going to have some.” Grabbed a couple of beers, and kept going up and taking a couple more. Finally, we just went up there and took everything.
STEVE TURNER I snuck in the back with Andrew and Regan from Malfunkshun. We were throwing lunch meat onto the roof of PIL’s tour bus. We were yelling back and forth at their dirtbag roadies, telling each other to fuck off. And finally, this voice from the sky says, “Would you like to be silenced?!” And that was John Lydon. Yeah, it’s fucking Johnny Rotten. And this shut us all up.
MARK ARM Our room was just down the hall and we could hear John Lydon fucking raising a hissy fit about the fact that there isn’t a La-Z-Boy recliner in his room. You’re supposed to be punk rock! By the time we played, we’d worked ourselves up into a tizzy about this outrageous behavior. It fed into my anger and made me want to fuck shit up.
MIKE LARSON Here’s the founder of punk, and he’s getting pissed off and irritated, so we’ll just see how irritating