Everybody Loves Our Town_ An Oral History of Grunge - Mark Yarm [60]
BUZZ OSBORNE We played with that band Clown Alley, and their guitar player, Mark Deutrom, asked us to be on Alchemy, the label he was starting with this guy named Victor Hayden. And we said, “Sure, why not?” We had nothing else going on. So they gave us barely enough money to get down to San Francisco and record, and paid for the recording of that first record, Gluey Porch Treatments.
MARK DEUTROM (Alchemy Records cofounder; producer; later Melvins bassist/soundman) One of the things that Buzz and Dale used to joke about is the fact that they were gonna do this recording without drinking any beer. They did it stone-cold sober. That got laughed about frequently in the future, how they just white-knuckled their way through the whole experience. I think that contributed to the intensity of it.
BUZZ OSBORNE And that’s where I met Lori Black. She was always a weirdo, which is what attracted me to her. And I knew, within the next year, when she became my girlfriend, that I wanted to move to San Francisco.
MATT LUKIN When we recorded Gluey Porch Treatments, we stayed at this house in San Francisco where Lori and her boyfriend Mark Deutrom lived. I think that’s when Lori and Buzz kind of hit it off. Then she started to come visit Buzz, and then they started dating. Buzz had Dale tell me, “Buzz is moving out to San Francisco, quitting the band, going to live with Lori in San Francisco.” And I’m like, Okay, that sounds familiar, that’s exactly the same story he had me tell Dillard when we kicked him out.
I called Buzz and I go, “So you’re moving to San Francisco to be with Lori, huh? I think you’re moving to San Francisco, and Lori’s going to be your new bass player and Dale’s going to follow you.” A month later, they’re down in San Francisco playing shows, Dale’s living in the house with them—everything that I accused him of. Fucking spineless asshole.
BUZZ OSBORNE I didn’t really want to go with Matt Lukin—it wouldn’t have worked. He didn’t want to leave. I think he stayed in Montesano for a really long time after he started playing with Mudhoney. I told him, “I’m moving to San Francisco. I’m either starting a new band or I’m starting this band up again.”
MARK DEUTROM Lori and I were together for about 10 years. We split up, Lori and Buzz got together, Lori joined the band, and I moved to London at that point. Then Buzz called me up and said, “Hey, want to produce our next record?” So I came out from London, and we recorded Ozma. That was, of course, pretty much the Fleetwood Mac scenario.
FRANK KOZIK (poster artist; video director) I remember when I got ahold of the Melvins’ Ozma record, and I was like, “This band is fucking brutal!” And they came to play at this tiny club in Austin called Cave Club, and I did this little shitty black-and-white Xerox for it. I’d never even seen a picture of them. Buzz comes out, and he had his huge hairdo, and I was like, “What the fuck, who is this faggot-looking dude? What is this, the opening band?” He looks like some reject guy from the Cure or something. But it was him, and they rocked, and I was just blown away.
DALE CROVER Lori was a really solid bass player. She had really good meter and would bust me for speeding up, which helped me become a more solid player. I really liked her. She was really into spirituality and things like that. She really had a tough time because she assumed people wouldn’t accept her being in the band. One, being a female, and two, replacing Matt Lukin. People definitely liked Matt Lukin. We were like, “Don’t worry about that.”
BUZZ OSBORNE When I went to San Francisco, I moved directly into Lori’s house. Now, bear in mind, I started going out with her long before I ever knew who her mom was. Months and months later, she said, “My mom is somebody famous.” I was like, “What are you fucking talking about?” It was crazy. I couldn’t believe that her mom was Shirley Temple.
Lori’s dad was Charles Black, who