Cows, Shtick, Mudmen and Thyme Pt. 1
“Evolution brings human beings. Human beings, through a long and painful process, bring humanity.”― Dan Simmons
Last week marked 30 years since the release of Mudhoney’s fourth long player (second for Reprise), My Brother The Cow. With it’s Ed Fotheringham take on a Sun Ra record cover, and the band’s return to legendary grunge producer Jack Endino (who produced their first legendary recordings such as Touch Me I’m Sick and the Super Fuzz Big Muff EP), the album shines classic Mudhoney…maybe a slightly more bluesy Mudhoney…a Mudhoney holding high a torch of fuzzed out guitar mayhem, acerbic wit and slam pitting rock brashness. From opening track Judgement, Rage, Retribution and Tyme to Generation Spokesmodel to FDK to Execution Style, Mudhoney proved on this record they had not lost an ounce of blister (oh, and how about 1995, which might just be the exclamation mark for the entire grunge era).
One of my craziest Warner Bros. Records stories occurred around the release of the record…
It happened on February 21, 1995. My fellow member of the A&R team, Tim Carr, was courting a much-hyped band from England called Ash. They were NME/Melody Maker darlings, and were being heavily pursued by other labels as well, most notably Interscope Records. Warners and Interscope flew the band to Los Angeles to show them their respective labels…to take them out on the town and go through the motions a label does in order to prove that they are the right label for the band to join. Tim Carr was a former music writer coming out of New York’s No Wave movement turned in-the-know A&R man. He seemed a tarnished blue blood who spoke in a soft poetic cadence when he talked about the bands he loved, a cigarette often dancing in one hand with trust-me (can I sell you this golden goose) eyes and a warm, if not a slight-conning, smile—always ready to listen to the newest talked about sounds, and always there to talk through any issues I might have been having with the various records I was juggling at the time. He came to Warner Bros Records from Capitol where he signed The Beastie Boys as they were recording what would become Paul’s Boutique.
Tim and I were both heavily vested in the “alternative” music world, Tim having signed Lush and Babes in Toyland to Warner/Reprise. When either of us would bring a band to the building for the dog and bunny show, we made sure the other would have time to meet with them. My slot with the Ash kids included lunch, and we drove top-down in my Saab convertible through cloudless, sunny Burbank to the Smokehouse to dig into their garlic bread while reminiscing about Captain and Tennille, who had been discovered there. They were amped…loving the label attention, with a mix of interest and not-caring punk vibrato: it was a raucous lunch that included talking about the greatness of The Damned and The Who and why Warner Bros. Records had the reputation of being the most artist-friendly label of the biggies, which was true and a great dangler for a young band, as well as some of the stories my bands experienced after signing their major deal. We blasted punk rock, I do believe The Buzzcocks, and screamed the rest of our conversation as we headed back to the ski lodge for them to continue their label tour. Maybe we would have a drink later.
On that same day, Mudhoney was in the building, doing a day of press around their upcoming release My Brother The Cow. Kurt Cobain had died just less than a year prior, and along with him went the veneer of the grunge movement. Mudhoney had responded with a searing record attacking the hypocrisy and fickle nature of the music industry. The press day had fallen on singer Mark Arm’s birthday, and I had ordered a cake to celebrate, to throw a party in the A&R offices and invite Geoffrey Weiss, Jo Lenardi, Bill Bentley, Jo Janacek, David Ponak and the rest of the Mud supporters they worked with in the building (just looking at these names gives me such a warm feeling for a past time…David Ponak: STILL THERE!!!!!!).
After Mudhoney had finished doing all of their interviews…when they beleagueringly sauntered back to my office, I had my assistant light the candles while people congregated. With dimmed lights we start singing the happy birthday song. And that is when time slowed down for me, as my phone rang showing that the current Warner Bros. CEO Danny Goldberg was calling. Danny and I had a great relationship at that point…he had sat me down after Mo Ostin and Lenny Waronker had been pushed out of Warner Brothers to convince me not to follow them to Dreamworks, where I had a job offer, and to stay and oversee the bands I loved. We were in current talks of making me a Vice President (The Flaming Lips had a huge hit with She Don’t Use Jelly and job offers were coming in). Him calling me set off no alarms, until I picked up the phone. As the singing of happy birthday ended and Mark blew out his candles, I was in the corner of my office with the door slightly closed holding a phone with an angry, angry CEO on the other end. He was upset with the new Mudhoney record, didn’t want to have anything to do with it, and wanted to see me immediately in his office. He did not know the band was in the building.
As the cake was cut, I stole away and went to the office of the CEO. He sat behind his desk, Mo Ostin’s old desk, telling me that he had just heard from Courtney Love, Kurt Cobain’s widow, that there was a song on the new Mudhoney record that featured the lyric “Why don’t you blow your brains out too”…that hearing that lyric sent her immediately into a dark dark place. Back to therapy. How dare they write that about her. Prior to being at Warner Bros., Danny had co-founded Gold Mountain Entertainment, Nirvana’s management company. Courtney, he said, was like a daughter to him and while he agreed that we should still put the Mudhoney record out…hell, we paid for it, and their last release, Piece of Cake, did some business. Reprise should promote the hell out of it like we would do for any of our artists…that he personally wanted nothing to do with them. No way.
When putting out a record on a big label, you need all the support you can get. You DEFINITELY need the support of the CEO, especially if…usually when…a marketing campaign does not go as planned and needs deep strategizing and extra funding; I needed his help. Courtney’s band Hole, they were on Interscope. A rival label. There should be no issue. I explained to him that the lyric…the song that featured it, Into Yr Shtick…was NOT about Courtney but more of a statement about all the clichéd hypocrisy of the industry that drove Kurt into the ground, about the people who buy into the business side of the music industry over the artistic side. The users. The losers. The abusers. The fakes. There was no issue, we had a band making a statement.
The meeting ended in an uncomfortable sit-off. I left Danny’s office and went down the hallway David Altschul’s office, the head of Warner Bros. legal team, and explained what had happened, that I was unsure if I could stay at the label after the CEO had put personal interest above a quality label release by a proven artist. This might be my signal to seize one of the other opportunities in front of me….to work again with Lenny Waronker, Mo Ostin, and his son Michael, who had overseen the A&R Department for the length of my stay at the label.
The night was creeping in, and I had to go meet Mudhoney at Musso and Frank for a planned record celebration dinner before we headed to the Palace Theater to see Sebadoh.
But I couldn’t concentrate on anything but that conversation I had just had with the label boss…not knowing what the hell was going to happen next…
End of Part 1 of Cows, Pipes, Mudmen and Tyme
George Orwell and me: Richard Blair on life with his extraordinary father
And on his mother’s contribution to Orwell’s work: “You can tell that there’s a lot of my mother’s input in Animal Farm, because it’s a completely different book. It’s got a light touch to it. She helped him in structuring the book, I think, and putting the animals in the right context.”
British compilation relives America's 1960s folk rock boom
I always find it interesting how much the psychedelic movement was fueled by very traditional folk music. The hybrid that arose was such a singular sound from a singular period and I am very interested in digging into this comp to hear some of the less known tracks as well as contemplate this sound through the curation. Thinking about my friend Glenn Allen Howard (RIP) today who was responsible for sneaking the Dead the “blue tapes” filled with olde folk recordings that the band wove into their sound.
Richard Kern: Transgressive Art and the Raw Intimacy of Polaroids
My introduction to Richard Kern was when I was 16 years old, started working at CD Presents, a punk record label that also distributed his underground films. I was handed a handful of VHS tapes of Kern movies, and went home…and got twisted. Great article on this No New York artist…
Michael Hurley, Underground Folk Legend and Singer-Songwriter, Dies at 83
Outsider folk artist Michael Hurley had such a unique voice. And all of those records he released with beautiful cartoon covers containing melodic dreamscapes. Gorgeously reissued by Mississippi Records (thinking about Eric from Mississippi today who was one of the points of contact to Hurley, making sure his music was available to the world. Hurley was the type of music weirdo we need more of. He will be missed (the article has a great selection of his songs to listen to). Will Hermes wrote a great piece on Michael….
What were we all doing here? My 600-mile trip to hear an organ play a D natural
Such a great concept: “A John Cage recital that is set to last 639 years recently witnessed a chord change – 500 people made a pilgrimage to experience it”. John Schott—how about a 600 year version of ‘Round Midnight?
Sinners First Reactions Tease One Of The Best Horror Movies Of 2025
This looks exciting!
On The Pulse Of The Morning
by: Maya Angelou (happy birthday!)
A Rock, A River, A Tree
Hosts to species long since departed,
Mark the mastodon.
The dinosaur, who left dry tokens
Of their sojourn here
On our planet floor,
Any broad alarm of their of their hastening doom
Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.
But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully,
Come, you may stand upon my
Back and face your distant destiny,
But seek no haven in my shadow.
I will give you no hiding place down here.
You, created only a little lower than
The angels, have crouched too long in
The bruising darkness,
Have lain too long
Face down in ignorance.
Your mouths spelling words
Armed for slaughter.
The rock cries out today, you may stand on me,
But do not hide your face.
Across the wall of the world,
A river sings a beautiful song,
Come rest here by my side.
Each of you a bordered country,
Delicate and strangely made proud,
Yet thrusting perpetually under siege.
Your armed struggles for profit
Have left collars of waste upon
My shore, currents of debris upon my breast.
Yet, today I call you to my riverside,
If you will study war no more.
Come, clad in peace and I will sing the songs
The Creator gave to me when I
And the tree and stone were one.
Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your brow
And when you yet knew you still knew nothing.
The river sings and sings on.
There is a true yearning to respond to
The singing river and the wise rock.
So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew,
The African and Native American, the Sioux,
The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek,
The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheikh,
The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher,
The privileged, the homeless, the teacher.
They hear. They all hear
The speaking of the tree.
Today, the first and last of every tree
Speaks to humankind. Come to me, here beside the river.
Plant yourself beside me, here beside the river.
Each of you, descendant of some passed on
Traveller, has been paid for.
You, who gave me my first name,
You Pawnee, Apache and Seneca,
You Cherokee Nation, who rested with me,
Then forced on bloody feet,
Left me to the employment of other seekers--
Desperate for gain, starving for gold.
You, the Turk, the Swede, the German, the Scot...
You the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru,
Bought, sold, stolen, arriving on a nightmare
Praying for a dream.
Here, root yourselves beside me.
I am the tree planted by the river,
Which will not be moved.
I, the rock, I the river, I the tree
I am yours--your passages have been paid.
Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need
For this bright morning dawning for you.
History, despite its wrenching pain,
Cannot be unlived, and if faced with courage,
Need not be lived again.
Lift up your eyes upon
The day breaking for you.
Give birth again
To the dream.
Women, children, men,
Take it into the palms of your hands.
Mold it into the shape of your most
Private need. Sculpt it into
The image of your most public self.
Lift up your hearts.
Each new hour holds new chances
For new beginnings.
Do not be wedded forever
To fear, yoked eternally
To brutishness.
The horizon leans forward,
Offering you space to place new steps of change.
Here, on the pulse of this fine day
You may have the courage
To look up and out upon me,
The rock, the river, the tree, your country.
No less to Midas than the mendicant.
No less to you now than the mastodon then.
Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister's eyes,
Into your brother's face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope
Good morning.
“The most precious things in life are Freedom and Independence”-Michael Hurly, March 15, 2025
That is a great story about how major labels and ego get in the way of artists making art. Can't wait for part 2, Oakie Dog!
Really saddened to hear of Snock's passing. He was indeed special and will be much missed.