THE SIGNAL from David Katznelson
“Everytime you read, you are walking among the dead, and, if you are listening, you just might hear prophecies.”― Kathy Acker
I signed Mudhoney to Reprise Records when I was 22. I had been a fan of theirs for most of the time I was at UC Berkeley (Go Bears!) and working with them was one of those dreams-come-true that I had more than a few times during my tenure. One thing you never knew when meeting a band you loved: would they live up to the expectation you had of them as…without better words to use…as rock stars.
There are inevitable disappointments when meeting one’s heroes. Meeting Nick Cave, Sonic Youth, The Feelies…let downs (happy to discus further at another time). When I was introduced to Lou Reed, who was the leader of one of my favorite bands of all time, The Velvet Underground, I intentionally ducked out of the conversation early because of the legacy he had created for himself of being not that great of a guy. Musicians are humans at the end of the day, and humans CAN disappoint. But then there was Mudhoney.
Despite Mudhoney’s uncertainty about major labels and the people who worked for them, what I found in the musicians who made up the band were just the sort of larger than life characters you would hope for. The first person I came in contact with was not a band member, but their manager Bob Whittaker, who might just have been the craziest one in the bunch. He was assigned to show me around, which amounted to simultaneously filling me up with drinks and hitting me up about the kind of deal I was there to offer Mudhoney (deal making during crazy circumstances was definitely a skill I learned during the Warner’s years).
And then there was the band. Steve Turner, grunge’s Eric Clapton, record collector…a true individualist who both jested distain for major label practices while making sure I was continually using the company card to buy him drinks and food. He would take me record shopping in the U district of Seattle…turning me on to the Groundhogs (a great gift) along with great Seattle bands I didn’t know (The Fallouts and The Night Kings). Matt Lukin…a Melvin!…brash, uncensored, full-on West Seattle crazy who didn’t really care what I was doing there as long as the hang seemed ok and the beer was flowing. Drummer Dan Peters, the youngest member (still older than me), making sure I was doing alright amongst the chaos..a music fan who loved joining me in talking about rock history . And finally the frontman Mark Arm—the voice behind classics like If I Think and Touch Me I’m Sick—who I had met briefly at the Berkeley Square a few years previously, whose sarcasm and bite lifted when talking about Captain Beefheart and books he was reading. All still friends after all these years: they were the kind of artists you wanted to meet.
It was Halloween 1991 when I first met Mudhoney. They were readying to play with fellow grunge-sters Nirvana at the Paramount. Nirvana’s star was on the rise and the Seattle scene was abuzz. And I had a front row seat hanging with the best band of them all….
(for more Mudhoney: their documentary is running on streaming services near you).
And then there is….
Meet Mudhoney: Seattle's newest tunnel boring machine gets a name
Something to make your parents proud: Seattle residents have decided on a name for the city's newest tunnel boring machine at last: Mudhoney. The public voted on five choices for the tunnel boring machine's name, including Sir Digs-A-Lot, Molly the Mole and the winner, Mudhoney.
My friend Mike Furlotti sent me this stunner of an article. Of all the times I looked at that building…day and night…entering the building to master records or meet a friend…I never knew this morse code secret. Just incredible. Forget the Conet Project…this is better.
New Documentary Showcases Bill Traylor’s Bracing Visions of the Past and the Present
From the Smithsonian: Bill Traylor (ca. 1853–1949) is regarded today as one of the most important American artists of the twentieth century. A black man born into slavery in Alabama, he was an eyewitness to history: the Civil War, Emancipation, Reconstruction, Jim Crow segregation, the Great Migration, and the steady rise of African American urban culture in the South. Traylor would not live to see the civil rights movement, but he was among those who laid its foundation.
Remembrance: Walt Whitman’s “The Death of Lincoln” and the By the People Whitman Campaign
A great study of the 1879 speech Whitman made remembering Lincoln’s assassination. The article dives into speech, the lecture Whitman gave…and includes his poem he read that day, O Captain, My Captain.
The Problem of the Present
By: Mary Jo Bang
It was like a whip, the animated snapping
of the man lying like an overturned turtle
on the bed in the upstairs bedroom,
his henchmen and henchwomen downstairs,
gliding in the corridors, the new warmth
of the sun in the window reducing itself
to the size of a stamp on the wooden desk
in the empty office. The question is not
whether we have free will, but what choices
history offers us. The strongest force
is conformity, not passion, not even greed
for possessions because who would ever
want a diamond unless they were told to.
Here, someone must have said, you want this.
