Beneath The Valley Of The Ultra-Mudmen
“Live all you can: it's a mistake not to. It doesn't matter what you do in particular, so long as you have had your life. If you haven't had that, what have you had?”― Henry James
It has been a few weeks since the last record store day…another come and gone. And with it, a dearth of new, unneeded releases aimed at pedestrian record enthusiasts filled with regurgitated recordings from the pilfered catalogs of known artists. Or maybe just overly priced reissues of records whose original pressings were just recently in the cut-out bins of a wax museum near you.
OK…so that is a harsh overly simplistic, cynical, and occasionally wrong summation of what Record Store Day has become. And in truth, while most every record store owner might grumble about the policies of Record Store Day…the unobtainable most desired releases, and the fact that the stock cannot be returned and thus sits in the store for as long as it takes to sell it (go to Mill Valley Music anytime and wade through their years of Record Store Day “keepsakes”)…most owners will also speak the gospel: Record Store Day brings in the buyers…brings in the cash. For that reason alone, it is a complete and utter success
And in between the non-essential Big Star colored vinyl or Creed Greatest Hits 2LP set or the new Bon Jovi Forever LP, which the only thing that makes it exclusive is the color of its vinyl, there are always a few gems released every year. Last year, the Gong Live In Lyon December 14th, 1972 3 LP set (which I found recently at Mill Valley Music) showcases the band in powerful classic mode and is a crucial addition to their overall catalog, as was the 2022 Record Store Day offering of an extended 2 LP set of Captain Beefheart’s Clear Spot, superbly produced by Ted Templeman, with tremendous unreleased alternative takes and vinyl that was cut perfectly, sounds fantastic. The 2020 offering of The Pogues early BBC sessions also was a revelation, as well as all of the Hawkwind releases over the years, a band that has figured out a strategy around RSD by using it as a platform to regularly create wonderful live LPs and unreleased bits of needed beauty. A great release from this just-past RSD was the LP of Ramones demos from 1975. Raw and rocking providing a powerful insight on what is to come (and what Seymour Stein first heard before signing the band).
With the plethora of RSD releases…all landing on the same day and in limited pressings…often the best of the best get overlooked by the press and pass through uncelebrated. The recent Mudhoney boxset is a prime example: Suck You Dry, a 5 LP set that showcases their time on Reprise Records, including the 3 records they released, an LP of previously unreleased live recordings and and LP featuring a previously released EP and a slew of previously unreleased demos from the Tomorrow Hit Today era. To me, there are three distinct chapters in the Mudhoney story. The first, and most known, encapsulates the initial Sup Pop years, where they helped jump-start the grunge movement with their iconic single, Touch Me Im Sick, and their subsequent also-genre-defining Super Fuzz Big Muff EP and their next two full-lengths. The second, the “sell-out years” if you will, is their time at Reprise Records where I was lucky enough to sign them and be their A&R person. The third, and current era, is the post-Reprise Guy-Maddison-on-bass era, which found them back on Sub Pop sporadically continuing to release great records, amazingly evolving with each one (their latest, Plastic Eternity, is a highlight) followed up by selective touring (more selective now that Guy has moved back to Australia).
The Reprise years of Mudhoney are interesting and so very crucial, finding the band fiercely attempting to remain independent while saddled onto one of the biggest record labels of all time—albeit a record label that prided itself on being top-line artist friendly. As the liner notes reminded me, as little as possible of the big advances the band got went into the record production (instead, they all bought houses!); they did not need big money to create big Mudhoney recordings. The first two records, Piece of Cake and My Brother The Cow, were made as cheaply as the Sub Pop records that preceded them.
And yet the story that Suck You Dry showcases is a band that nevertheless does change and does react to a changing world: Mark Arm cleans his act up (and it was touch and go there for a moment), Matt Lukin becomes more distant from the band (leaving the band after the final Reprise record) and popular tastes continue to ever shift. The band releases their first record, Piece Of Cake, during the height of the grunge revolution; it sold hundreds of thousands of records worldwide, even though the band did everything it could to deliver an un-major-label offering, which included strange snippets each member recorded, like micro-Kiss solo projects (the record opens with Mark Arm’s bird flip to techno music). By the time the second record came out, Kurt Cobain had killed himself and grunge once again went back to referring to that crap in between the gears of a warn car; My Brother The Cow was the final chapter in the grunge era, Mudhoney as angry narrators—scathing—to a musical scene that had gotten overblown and exploited. I love that record, and it was the first where the band truly leaned into their more bluesy selves. And of course, there is that story of what happened when the top brass at Warner Bros. heard the song Into Yr Schtick—the song that calls out scene member hypocrisy—and the moment I almost quit my job— another story for another time.
By the time Tomorrow Hit Today was released, the label I worked for was under new management (and I was miserable) and the grunge kids had found Green Day, Blink 182 and the next generation of punk (ish) rock. It felt like a time of change. And despite all the challenges around them—including the label demanding they spend their advance on the record instead of on themselves to best insure “a hit,” the new head of A&R not liking them in lock step with not liking me (and me not liking him), and Matt Lukin enjoying carpentry and reclusiveness in his home in West Seattle more than playing in a band—Mudhoney, along with legendary producer Jim Dickinson, produced a whale of a record…a dark, heavy, gut-shaking record that is a high water mark in a career of great releases.
Listening to the demo of the record’s penultimate track, Beneath The Valley Of The Underdog, that is available for the first time on LP in the boxset, with its evil in-the-red fuzzed-out guitar opening lead into Mark Arm’s hypnotizing horror-movie-intro vocal, reminded me of what I felt when they first sent it to me: fuck: Mudhoney was and is the best band to come out of the grunge era…one of the best rock bands beyond typecast. They were the best live band. They made the best rock n roll records. Their time on Reprise Records was a turning, changing moment for them in so many ways. Their music really does tell the story and Suck You Dry the boxset is the perfect story-telling vessel. For those not familiar with this Mudhoney chapter, a great journey is ahead.
I was 21 when I signed them. 21 when I signed one of my favorite bands on the planet (you can even get a glimpse of my young self in the video for Suck You Dry). Sometimes I wonder if I had been more seasoned in my job if I could have helped them out more. But then I remember who I was dealing with. Maybe if I had been more seasoned, I would have just fucked everything up in the worst of ways. Mudhoney is amazing because they are allowed to be Mudhoney. Instead, those guys are still friends…and they even sent me a copy of the box set before it hit the market. And for a person who got into the music industry mess at 15 years of age to get free concert tickets and free records, getting that package in the mail was teenage-dream-awesome and has led me down an incredible musical memory trip over the past weeks.
Here is a mix I put together of some of my favorite Mud trax from the Reprise years….
Why Do Humans Sing? Traditional Music in 55 Languages Reveals Patterns and Telling Similarities
Lead author Yuto Ozaki, a musicologist from Keio University in Japan, tells the New York Times’ Carl Zimmer that singing in large groups could have been a way to encourage social cohesion—for community engagement or preparation for conflict—and it may have evolved separately from speech in that regard.
“There is something distinctive about song all around the world as an acoustic signal that perhaps our brains have become attuned to over evolutionary time…”
This is a fantastic article (one of the best I have rad this year). Of course, it centers around the novel I focused my honors thesis on (a novel that changed my life)…and uses it to strengthen an argument that everyone should have access to a good education…including an education in arts and humanities. Maybe just maybe I will have to read Martin Eden again (and definitely listen today to the Twilight Singers’ song of the same name).
Neu Klang — ‘krautrock’ in the bands’ own words
My favorite music history books are the ones where the musicians and other hangers are the ones who tell it through their oral histories strung together. This new book looks excellent…and includes Irmin Schmidt from CAN, who has an incredible story to tell about how he founded the band. If you cannot access this article because of a pay wall, you can also read about the book here from the Telegraph.
Frozen human brain tissue was successfully revived for the first time
While the article does not explicitly talk about this, we all are probably thinking the same thing: maybe just maybe we will get to see Ted Williams…or some computer body containing his brain…swing the bat again in our lifetime. Cryonics freezers will be the next densely populated frontier. Mortality? What say thus mortality?
California’s Famed Wayfarers Chapel, Designed by Lloyd Wright, to Be Dismantled
I am saddened to have never made it to this chapel…on my list of incredible structures to see along with Omar Khayyám’s mausoleum (being in Iran…not sure if I will make it). The goal is to find a new space for this chapel. I hope that happens soon (and by the way, today is Khayyám’s birthday!).
Incredible Found Footage of The Mamas and The Papas In The Studio
This was just posted a few days ago…showing the prep done with the band and producer Lou Adler as well as an amazing look into the recording process which included members of the Wrecking Crew and Eric Hord on banjo.
Minnesota music legend Spider John Koerner, who influenced Dylan and Raitt, dies at 85
"Koerner was an exciting singer, and we began playing a lot together," Dylan's book continued. "I learned a lot of songs off Koerner by singing harmony with him and he had folk records of performers I'd never heard."
Excerpt From Seamarks
By: Saint-John Perse
. . . Laid at your side, like the oar in the bottom of the boat; rolled at your side, like the sail with the yard, lashed at the foot of the mast ... A million bubbles more than happy in the wake and beneath the keel . . . And the sea itself, our dream, like a single vast umbel . . . And its million of flowcrheads and florets in course of dissemination . . .
Survival, O wisdom! Coolness of receding storm, bruised eyelids, with the blue of the storm . . . Open your palm, happiness of being . . . And who was there, of whom nothing remained but goodness? In me a step recedes which is not of a mortal. Far away voyage travelers whom we have not hailed. Pitch the tent impregnated with gold, O pure shadow of afterglow. . .
And the great silent wing which was thus for so long a time, at our stern, stiil directs in the dream, still directs on the waters, our bodies which have so greatly loved each other, our hearts which have been so deeply moved . . . Afar, the course of the one last wave, tossing higher the offering of its bridle bit . . . I love you — you are here — and all the immense joy of being which here was consummated.
Go more gently, O course of things to their end. Death sails in death and has no care for the living. The salty night bears us in its flanks. And we loosen the clasp of our arms to listen to the sea without shores or reefs reigning in us. Passion very strong and very docile. A thousand favorable eyelids . . .
And the Woman who loves fans her eyelashes in all this very great calm. The level sea surrounds me and opens for me the fronds of its palms. I hear beating in the blood the steady, nourishing sap — O dream again that I nurse! And my lip is salty with the salt of your birth, and your body is salty with the salt of my birth . . . You are here, my love, and I have no place save in you.
Ah you’re the label dude in the Mudhoney movie! I was a teenager when the reprise stuff was coming out, my brother the cow is still my favourite 🔥
I always look forward to these, David. And thanks for the reminder about Neu Klang, and about the greatness of Mudhoney; I feel like they've always been an easy band to take for granted, like so many great bands from that period. Keep up the great work!