Everybody Loves Our Town_ An Oral History of Grunge - Mark Yarm [89]
NICK TERZO On that same visit to Seattle, I’d also met Susan Silver and Chris Cornell. I stayed in touch with everyone, and actually when Mother Love Bone did their demo, I helped shop it. Alice would send me a demo when they did a demo. I had committed to ASCAP for one year. I stayed there for one year and two weeks and got a job as director of A&R on the West Coast at Columbia Records in spring 1989. I signed Alice in Chains that summer.
BOB WHITTAKER My father, Jim Whittaker, is a bit of a Pacific Northwest icon in that he and his twin brother became famous mountaineers, and he was the first American to summit Mount Everest. My father was really good friends with the Kennedy family and with Bobby Kennedy. In fact, I’m named after Bobby. After Bobby was shot, my father was a pallbearer at his funeral. I was never allowed to have squirt guns or toy guns as a kid because of that.
When I was in high school in the ’80s, I’ll never forget my dad walking into my room, where I’m listening to Wasted Youth or whatever, and there on top of the stack was the Dead Kennedys record. I felt horrible. Here I am—Bobby Kennedy is my namesake—and I have this sacrilegious record. That was a tough one to explain away.
Stone Gossard and I hung out as very young kids. We were from the same neighborhood. My mother, Blanche, didn’t tell me about this until much later, but apparently Stone’s dad had been keen on her. She was working at the concession stand at Paradise, the lodge at Mount Rainier National Park. Stone’s dad either had taken her on a ski trip or invited her on one. He drove up there at one point with flowers and champagne, and she said, “I can’t see you anymore. I’m seeing Jim Whittaker.” And then she ended up marrying my dad. I told Stone that story, and he and I got a big yuck out of it.
MEGAN JASPER My first New Year’s Eve in Seattle, I went with J Mascis from Dinosaur Jr. to a party at Bob’s house. J had a Jim Whittaker–brand jacket and thought Jim was cool, but we didn’t know he was Bob’s dad. So we walk into Bob’s house and see pictures of Bob and his dad on the refrigerator. J looked at me and goes, “No fuckin’ way.” That was kind of a trip, but then an extra trip was that it looked like someone had OD’d on the floor, and people are just walking over this person. I just had this moment, like, Welcome to Seattle: mountain climbers and heroin addicts.
JOHN LEIGHTON BEEZER Bob Whittaker had this skin condition—I think it was a combination of growing up in a sunny climate and acne, so he had pits—which is not the kind of thing I would ordinarily mention. But when we were recording Melancholy Girl Hole, Ed told Bob, “I’m going to record the new Thrown Ups.” And Bob goes, “Well, do a song about me.” So Ed did a song about Bob’s skin condition. And just to make it clear he’s singing about Bob, at the very end, he goes, “Bob Whittaker!”
BOB WHITTAKER And thus was born “Hairy Crater Man.” He basically just slanders me in the song, wonders why girls like me.
JOHN LEIGHTON BEEZER It did cross a line for me. I thought, That needs to just go to the bottom of the ocean. But I was overruled by everybody else in the band. Three or four months later, Bob comes up to me. “Hey, I hear you didn’t want to put out that song. How come?”
I was like, “Well, gee, Bob, I don’t know, I thought it really was cruel to you.” I mean, I’m the only guy that had enough decency to say, “Maybe we shouldn’t do this,” and now he’s trying to embarrass me, putting me on the spot: “What’s your problem? This is my song!” And that’s why Bob was the ideal guy for Mudhoney. They were incredibly cruel to Bob, but he could take it, so he belonged in that club.
MARK ARM On our first tour, we just brought Bob along. I’m not even sure why. He didn’t know how to run sound. He’s much more