Episode 1011 - Mark Arm / The Pashman Cometh
Marc:Lock the gates!
Marc:All right, let's do this.
Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fuck nicks?
Marc:What's happening?
Marc:I'm Mark Maron.
Marc:This is my podcast.
Marc:Welcome to it.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I'm still a little jet lagged, but getting better.
Marc:I'm almost sleeping through the night.
Marc:Look, today on the show, it's sort of a doubleheader.
Marc:Haven't done that in a while.
Marc:I had a...
Marc:an interview with my pal Dan Pashman around in the can.
Marc:We're going to throw that up.
Marc:And Mark Arm, the guitar player and singer from the band Mudhoney, Seattle's own, is also here.
Marc:So kind of a little bit of a doubleheader.
Marc:I'm going to go through some emails because there seems to be, I wouldn't say any sort of theme, not a theme,
Marc:But people are a little touchy.
Marc:But first, let's do this.
Marc:Today is, what is it, Thursday?
Marc:It's Thursday the 18th.
Marc:I'm in San Diego tonight, tomorrow, Friday, and Saturday.
Marc:But I just want to make sure that I give everybody a heads up where I'm going to be playing.
Marc:Okay?
Marc:Because it's hard to get word out.
Marc:And I got an email from a woman named Carol who understands.
Marc:She says, I feel you.
Marc:Hi, Mark.
Marc:I've been listening to you for years and never wrote in, but I just wanted to let you know you are not alone.
Marc:At the beginning of today's episode, that was the other day, you were talking about how you've got to keep announcing upcoming shows or else people are like, oh, I didn't know you were coming to my town.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I told them about how I posted it on Facebook and Instagram.
Marc:My boss sent out an email about it.
Marc:We posted it on our marquee outside.
Marc:Local NPR talked about it and the local newspaper wrote about it.
Marc:After pointing out that it feels like I'm doing enough to get the word out, they all shrugged it off.
Marc:Well, I didn't hear about it.
Marc:Huh.
Marc:One said she saw it in the newspaper, but really, I need to be better at communicating with people when we have events.
Marc:So I just wanted to share my experiences so you know that you can do your darndest.
Marc:But people are going to keep claiming it's you who is not getting the word out, not their complete lack of effort to seek out information.
Marc:Keep up the good work.
Marc:I really enjoy getting to listen in on your chats.
Marc:Warm regards, Carol.
Marc:Well, yeah, man, that's I don't know.
Marc:I guess it's annoying.
Marc:It's really not about I understand some people got to listen to me talk about places that aren't near them.
Marc:But I'm just trying to I don't go out that much and I'm going to be out a lot.
Marc:You can go to WTF pod dot com slash tour to see where I'm going.
Marc:The other emails, there's, okay, the tone of this one I enjoyed because I really hope this guy is a Buddhist.
Marc:That would make me happy.
Marc:And, you know, sometimes, you guys, I don't even remember, you know, what I said.
Marc:It's usually I'm making a joke.
Marc:It's in a conversation.
Marc:I understand.
Marc:I understand things are delicate and things can be touchy.
Marc:But the tone on this one was great.
Marc:Buddhism comment.
Marc:Hey, Mark, read D'Onofrio episode.
Marc:Your summary of Buddhism based on meeting a couple of people in a basement cafe was about the most tone-fucking-deaf perspective I've ever heard.
Marc:You sounded like a smug idiot.
Marc:No, that's not correct.
Marc:You sounded like a fucking totalitarian evangelical, though sadly many I've met are a bit more intelligent on the subject, so good job there.
Marc:Didn't hear the D'Onofrio interview after that, thanks for nothing.
Marc:Wouldn't bother even writing, but I like you enough to bother.
Marc:maybe because you're the only person who drops Dirty Uncle Bill references once in a while or often displays a genuine humility.
Marc:Who knows?
Marc:On behalf of lay practitioners and your idiot listeners who now have a new definition of Buddhism courtesy of Mark, try practicing right speech once in a while, which loosely translates to, among other things, try shutting your pie hole about shit you clearly know nothing about.
Marc:I know it's hard and your pie hole is your business,
Marc:But hey, you're not alone.
Marc:We're all trying here.
Marc:Nice tone, Morgan.
Marc:And yes, my pie hole is my business.
Marc:But are you okay, man?
Marc:Maybe you should meditate or something or kind of like balance out a little bit.
Marc:I'm not sure what I said, but I don't know.
Marc:Is your chosen religion working for you?
Marc:Wow.
Marc:Nice tone.
Marc:I like the flow of it.
Marc:I did.
Marc:This is another one that I found enjoyable.
Marc:Women don't fart, question mark, question mark, question mark.
Marc:Oh, boy.
Marc:Sensitive people.
Marc:Hi, Mark.
Marc:You said a couple of podcasts ago that when an opportunity comes to teach a lesson, one should take it and teach it without sourness or anger.
Marc:So here it comes.
Marc:I found the conversation you had recently with your guest, Kyle Dunn again, about women farting funny, but disappointing, to be honest.
Marc:So it's take pause and know that that it was funny.
Marc:The disappointing part is coming, but it was funny.
Marc:I don't even remember what it was, but just for your general information, women are people and they fart just as much or as little as other people do.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:Are jokes really lost?
Marc:I mean, do people believe fucking everything?
Marc:Seriously.
Marc:Just exactly how do you think that women's farts would smell less if they did?
Marc:It still comes out of their arse, after all.
Marc:There's no biological reason that would make women evolve to have less smelly farts.
Marc:Oh, boy.
Marc:The women in your life repress a bodily function so that you are not inconvenienced.
Marc:And you, on the other hand, don't concern yourself with whether or not the fact that you don't inconveniences them.
Marc:This should pretty much be the textbook definition of patriarchy, in my opinion.
Marc:OK, I know you didn't create the conditioning, but I feel that in that conversation, you inadvertently contributed to this conditioning.
Marc:Imagine a teenage girl or young adult listening to that with all the insecurities that that phase in life brings, thinking you are the cool guy that you are.
Marc:And then, bam, she's told that her bodily function should be repressed because Marc Maron thinks women don't fart as much.
Marc:So she must be sick or something.
Marc:I know that this may seem trivial, but it's the little things that make a big difference.
Marc:All this aside, I think the podcast is great and I love your work in general.
Marc:Cheers.
Marc:Mel from Australia.
Marc:Look, you know, wow.
Marc:Look, I repress farts pretty regularly.
Marc:I'm pretty farty and I'm polite about it.
Marc:So that goes on.
Marc:And I don't ask anyone in my life to repress their farts.
Marc:But when they do fart, I mean, I might be like, wow.
Marc:Or like, what?
Marc:Or like, was that you?
Marc:Or like, what happened in here?
Marc:Or if I do it, I'll be like, oops.
Marc:That was bad.
Marc:I'm sorry.
Marc:Is it still in here?
Marc:I thought I didn't know it would follow me into the car.
Marc:There's a lot of things that happen, but I don't think this is really...
Marc:A fundamentally patriarchal problem.
Marc:And, you know, I don't mean to argue.
Marc:You know, I don't want to get into the, you know, this fight.
Marc:But and I'll just say to my teenage listeners.
Marc:Feel free to fart, but you're going to have to take a hit.
Marc:Farting, it can hang on you forever.
Marc:If you fart in the wrong situation, you're going to be the farter.
Marc:This is male or female.
Marc:This is non-gender specific fart advice.
Marc:I think we all know innately that though natural, farts can be embarrassing and intrusive and sometimes just like, holy shit.
Marc:Where did that come from?
Marc:What did you eat?
Marc:So I think on that level, impressive, but still not great socially.
Marc:Okay?
Marc:All right.
Marc:But I do enjoy the new definition of patriarchy, almost that I'd like to repeat it.
Marc:The new definition of patriarchy, according to Mel in Australia, is when a woman represses her farts so it doesn't inconvenience the man and the man...
Marc:doesn't do that in kind.
Marc:In other words, the man doesn't realize how much that is unfair because he farts freely.
Marc:That's patriarchy.
Marc:Definition one.
Marc:New stuff.
Marc:Learning new stuff.
Marc:Also, you'll notice I don't fart on the podcast.
Marc:You know, out of respect for anybody in here.
Marc:I just I don't like the whole premise.
Marc:I don't like using farting as a political or ideological launching point.
Marc:So, folks, if you listen to the thousandth episode a few weeks ago, you heard me and Brendan talk about our beginnings at Air America Radio.
Marc:And one of the guys there was Dan Pashman.
Marc:You might have heard Pashman on here a few times.
Marc:I tend to have him jump on the mic whenever he's around because we have a good time talking about bullshit.
Marc:And you may also know him from his podcast, The Sporkful, where he talks about food with people from all walks of life, including a lot of comics.
Marc:Recently, he had on Maria Bamford, Josie Long, Ron Funches.
Marc:You can go check out The Sporkful at thesporkful.com or wherever you get podcasts.
Marc:That's The Sporkful.
Marc:So this is me and Pashman doing what me and Pashman do when he's in town.
Guest:Hey!
Marc:I just created a file.
Marc:It's called Pashman for no reason.
Guest:I feel like all of our conversations could be called that.
Marc:When I saw you, when you texted me, you're like, I just want to see the house.
Marc:I thought, well, do you want to, is this to get on the show?
Guest:Well, it was to see you first and foremost, to see the new place.
Marc:Was this in the back of your head?
Guest:It was in the back of my head that it could happen, yes.
Guest:But I would have been very happy with the visit had it not happened.
Marc:But the fucking thing is, I was about to just sort of like, all right, see you later.
Marc:And then I'm like, we're standing in the garage, and I'm like, all right, well, let's just get on the mic.
Marc:and do whatever it is because i did see you in new york i i you know i don't usually do stuff like that like you know it was a live uh sporkful and uh brendan told me about it and it was down the street where i was staying and it was a live debate about pasta shapes and i thought what could be more relevant
Marc:But what could be more Pashman?
Marc:I don't know that you accomplished much that night.
Marc:Do you feel like you made any headway on the pasta-shaped thing?
Marc:I mean, I don't know if I give a shit, but I have opinions about it.
Marc:Well, that sounds like you give a shit.
Marc:Well, I mean, I hardly ever eat pasta.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:But there was a time...
Marc:Well, I remember when someone introduced me to Pappardelle, and I was like, this is pretty amazing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, with the rabbit ragu of whatever sort.
Marc:Orchette.
Marc:Orchette.
Marc:Orchette.
Guest:Orchette.
Guest:That's like the little ears.
Marc:Orchette.
Marc:It's called, yeah, with the... Well, I made it for a while.
Marc:I had a recipe from some Bon Appetit Mediterranean edition, and I made it with broccoli rabe.
Marc:That was the angle.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:And I made it a lot.
Marc:And I've also... I also mastered...
Marc:Bucatini La Michociana.
Marc:I mastered it because I dated a girl who loved it and I actually had to kind of scour LA at that time to find guanciale because it was before the big artisanal meat explosion.
Marc:So finding guanciale in LA was not easy.
Marc:I had to track down an actual, like I went to one Italian deli, they're like, what?
Marc:And then I found another one who had it because it does make a profound difference in that recipe.
Guest:This must have been a special girl.
Marc:Well, I wanted to impress her, and I also liked cooking, and it was a challenge.
Marc:And it's a very specific sauce, that Bucatini La Matriciana.
Marc:How is it?
Guest:La Matriciana.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:You know, but the guanciale, which is a pig jowl.
Marc:You can use pancetta, right?
Marc:But it's not the same flavor at all.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:It's a definitely different flavor.
Guest:What do you think about it?
Guest:And Bucatini, people should know, is like it's like a similar spaghetti.
Guest:It's like a long pasta.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's hollow down the center.
Guest:It's shaped like a drinking straw.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What's your take on Bucatini?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:You know, I don't know that I would have used it outside of the recipe.
Marc:I don't know what it's.
Marc:I heard the argument on the show about the sauce gets in there.
Marc:What?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:It's a different texture.
Marc:And, you know, it's kind of a fun texture.
Marc:I couldn't really identify whether sauce was getting in or not.
Marc:But, you know, when you chew it, it feels different than other things.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:That's really what it comes down to really with the pastas.
Marc:It's the chew.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, like it's, that's the fun of it.
Marc:It's like, it's all sort of made of the same shit.
Marc:So, you know, what does it do in your mouth?
Guest:Well, that's what, but that's what makes pasta shapes fun and exciting.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because it's all, you know, there are a couple of variations in the dough you might use, but still like it's not a huge variation.
Guest:So like the shapes are what makes the pasta different.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, I thought it was a pretty good discussion.
Marc:What's on your mind?
Guest:Well, I want to ask you, I'm curious.
Guest:Since I look up to you as a performer, you got any pointers for me?
Guest:About what?
Guest:About the live sporkful.
Guest:How could we do live sporkfuls and make them better?
Marc:Well, I wasn't sure whether anyone was going to adjust someone's mic, and I think it happened out of necessity.
Marc:For you personally, no, I thought you did good.
Marc:You felt comfortable.
Marc:You listened pretty well.
Guest:um i i don't know what it was pretty no frills yeah you know what i mean i love we had the projector projecting the sporkful logo on the curtain on the stage and the first thing you walk in you somebody like oh what you got your own curtain now classic old guy yeah i'm like no we don't have curtain money mark it's just a projection okay it looked solid it looked tight i was like wow that's impressive yeah you're taking on the road yeah
Marc:No, I thought you did a good job.
Marc:I thought you were funny off the cuff at times.
Marc:I always like when people are recording a live show where they stop and they do things over.
Marc:You did that.
Guest:Yeah, I did that a couple times.
Marc:But I thought you engaged well.
Marc:How did you feel about it?
Guest:I felt good.
Guest:I don't know if you find this.
Guest:I feel like I've realized that I'm a bad judge of how well... I can tell if the live event is good, but I can't tell if it's going to make for a good podcast when I'm up on stage.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You'll feel a strong reaction from the crowd, but then you listen back and it's just like it falls flat.
Yeah.
Marc:Well, you got to mic the audience.
Marc:I was going to tell you to do that.
Guest:We did.
Guest:We did mic the audience.
Marc:Oh, you did?
Guest:Maybe it didn't go well.
Marc:I didn't want to say anything, but it seemed like at least you had people who liked the show there.
Marc:I thought they were supportive.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:That's why I invite my family.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, I mean, but I also think like, you know, you are just arguing about pasta.
Marc:So like, how do you know if that's going to kill?
Marc:I mean, it seemed like, you know, like there were some good laughs and there were some like pretty emotional moments.
Guest:Well, in terms of your original question, what are we trying to get out of it?
Guest:Like my goal with that was really just to get people thinking about pasta shapes.
Guest:Why are some shapes better than others?
Guest:Do they have different surface area to volume ratio?
Guest:The sauce sticks to them better.
Guest:Do they feel better in your mouth?
Guest:Do they stay on the fork better?
Guest:Whatever it is.
Guest:There's not one all-knowing pasta.
Guest:Different pastas are for different purposes, but some are better than others.
Guest:And I think a lot of people have opinions about these things but don't realize they have opinions.
Guest:And I want to get people thinking because I am going to try to do this.
Guest:I want to set off on this mission to create a new pasta shape.
Guest:So this episode, this live show, will be like the beginning of that journey.
Marc:You are aware that the world is ending.
Marc:I guess this is what we need to be doing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, you know, we got to keep our interests intact.
Guest:I guess this is my coping mechanism.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I think that's what everything on television should be called.
Marc:That's what all things should be called.
Marc:The coping mechanism.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:That's what we're all doing.
Guest:I mean, I have been thinking so much lately about that bit you used to do about like maybe the people who are depressed are the ones who actually know what the fuck is going on.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Maybe the happy people are really the ones in question.
Marc:Maybe depression is a reasonable response to the shit we're going through.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Well, no, I always thought I always kind of thought that.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But it seems like now now more than ever.
Guest:I wonder if there's like a how is it not a sequel or a follow up or extension of that joke that you could bring back that could be relevant to today?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, I think I could probably bring back that joke.
Marc:I mean, the only argument about it is like is what's trauma based?
Marc:What what is biological?
Marc:Can people track?
Marc:They're bad feelings.
Marc:You know, I mean, that's what the real question is.
Marc:But I think a lot of it is obviously a reaction, if not to the world, to whatever is in your life.
Marc:Do you know what I mean?
Marc:That can trigger and stick.
Guest:Do you feel like you resent people who claim to be truly happy?
Marc:No, because I've learned that, you know, if people say that, that's a red flag.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:You know, but there are people that seem grounded and have things in perspective, have peace of mind, you know, feel good about what they're doing in life.
Marc:And you can feel that, you know, the happy thing as my new joke on it is that like, look, I'm, you know, happiness is a long shot.
Marc:If I can have relief for 10 minutes, like, you know, that's how I'm geared.
Marc:I mean, I've been doing a joke about that, like, like about how people, some people actually say that, hey, that would be fun to dot, dot, dot.
Marc:I've never said that about anything.
Right.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:If I can not think about me for 10 minutes or feel some relief, that's as close as I get to joy or happiness.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I don't know if that's completely true.
Marc:I think I stopped myself.
Guest:But I feel like when we started working together- Oh my God, that was insane.
Guest:And it was a long time ago.
Guest:It was now like 14, 15 years ago.
Guest:Is it?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We've known each other for almost 15 years.
Marc:We haven't really aged that much, I don't think.
Guest:But I feel like I was a lot more upbeat and optimistic back then.
Guest:And I feel like you always had a skepticism of my outward happiness.
Guest:Like there must be something underneath this guy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, I think it's also your disposition.
Marc:I think I don't know if it's a coping mechanism, but I think you are sort of like an excited guy.
Marc:Don't you?
Marc:Yeah, I'm- You're starting to get humbled?
Marc:You're starting to get beaten down, Dan?
Marc:Beaten down?
Marc:Yeah, the weight of life.
Marc:Yeah, eventually this Borkful is going to be like, yeah, it's not helping this soup.
Marc:It's okay.
Marc:But nothing is doing it anymore.
Marc:Yeah, that's right.
Marc:So what else?
Marc:So now you're down here, you're in Glendale for what?
Guest:I got to do some sporkful tapings.
Guest:I'm going out to have Shabbat dinner with some old Jews in Palm Desert.
Guest:They do Shabbat dinner every Friday at Wendy's.
Guest:But does Wendy's do anything different for them?
Guest:They allow them to drink wine and they bring in their wine and their challah.
Guest:And the candles?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And they do it in the Wendy's.
Marc:And then they just order a single or a double or a triple?
Guest:And then like, no, then like Lou gets a Baconator.
Marc:Oh, the baked potato?
Guest:No, the bacon burger.
Guest:It's a burger with bacon on it.
Marc:On Shabbat dinner?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:So that's what you're going to do?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Actually, I'll tell you a couple interesting things I was working on recently that I was going to tell you about.
Guest:One was about, have you ever heard of these underground tunnels in Los Angeles?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:These go back to Prohibition.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:And they were used to smuggle booze under downtown LA.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:And there's like a secret elevator near this municipal building in downtown LA, and you can go down there and go into the tunnels even though you're not supposed to.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And I did this episode where I was just kind of like wandering around LA, kind of in search for this cake eventually that I needed to eat.
Marc:But then I just was kind of- Where do you stand on Tres Leches cake?
Guest:Love it.
Guest:It's the best.
Guest:Fantastic.
Guest:The best.
Guest:You know what?
Guest:I always thought someone should make a Tres Leches cake with a Twinkie.
Hmm.
Marc:Why diminish it?
Marc:Why lowbrow the tres leches thing?
Marc:Does anyone not like tres leches?
Marc:I don't know if everyone knows about it, because I've made it before.
Marc:It's the three milks.
Marc:I think it's like sweet condensed milk, regular milk and cream or something like that.
Guest:Something like that, yeah.
Marc:And you mix them all together and you just make this cake that's essentially a sponge.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And you pour it right on it.
Marc:It's so good.
Marc:So it absorbs it.
Marc:That's one of my favorite desserts.
Marc:All right, so wait, so did you find the tunnel?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:You did?
Guest:Yes, I found the tunnels.
Guest:The entrance to the tunnels looked like the hospital in Stranger Things.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:It was super creepy.
Guest:I couldn't believe it was actually an official municipal building.
Guest:Then I followed the tunnels for a while and almost got arrested, but then I came out and walked above ground to this bar that's the oldest bar in LA.
Guest:I convinced the bartender to take me down to the basement, and it was amazing.
Guest:You would have loved it because you're interested in history.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Actually, I'm going to show you the picture.
Guest:On the wall, the basement used to be a speakeasy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:On the wall, they have a mural of a tree with all these winding branches on the tree.
Guest:And it's actually a secret map to all the underground tunnels and the prohibition bars.
Guest:It's a prohibition map.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:Does anyone know about this?
Guest:I found it on Atlas Obscura.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:I'm going to do a sporkful episode where I just wander L.A.
Guest:with no specific mission and see what happens, and I just started the episode by Googling weird L.A.
Guest:and clicking on the first link that came up and just following it.
Marc:What was the cake you had to get?
Guest:Oh, so a couple years ago, I did a sporkful taping at Patty's Diner in Burbank.
Guest:You know that place?
Guest:It's just over the hill.
Guest:It's been there since the 60s, old school diner.
Guest:And I walked in before my guest and I saw this huge coconut cake, like classic diner, three layer coconut cake.
Guest:And I love a coconut cake.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's amazing.
Guest:But it was like 11 in the morning.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I was starving, but I'm not gonna have cake.
Guest:But then we sit down for the tape.
Marc:Man, you've changed.
Guest:I know, I really lost it, yeah.
Guest:Lost my edge.
Guest:I had an omelet, and I had coffee and an English muffin, and I did the interview, and then it's like 12.30, and now I'm just full, and I'm like, ah, I don't need cake.
Marc:Oh, you did it.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Then I get back to the hotel that night and what happened?
Marc:What?
Guest:I was like, I'm a fucking idiot.
Guest:Why didn't I get that cake to go?
Guest:I should be eating it right now.
Marc:Oh, so you went back.
Guest:So two days later, I ended up back there.
Guest:I was seeing a friend in Burbank and I was like, we got to go to Patty's.
Guest:I got to get this coconut cake.
Guest:And we went back there and they were out of it.
Marc:Oh, man, you blew it.
Guest:I was crestfallen.
Guest:Oh, so, but then you went back this last- I set out to make my way from LAX to Paddy's in Burbank.
Marc:On foot.
Guest:Lift, foot, underground tunnels.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Hook or crook.
Marc:What is this?
Marc:Hookers?
Marc:Hook or crook.
Marc:Oh, what is this-
Guest:grilled fish you were telling me about oh you got to go to this place huh it's called uh coney seafood c-o-n-i apostrophe seafood it's in inglewood yeah i went there because um i it's near lax and i wasn't going to be by the airport again yeah but this is like one of these jonathan gold specialties okay uh it's not expensive it's not fancy but it's like uh latin american seafood um
Guest:Tons of shrimp dishes, like amazing, like agua chiles, like bright, fresh lime and spicy.
Guest:Oh, nice.
Guest:They do this whole grilled fish with these onions and the corn tortillas.
Guest:Oh, great.
Guest:It's ridiculous.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Marc:I'll write that down.
Marc:Now, let me just ask you before I make you leave.
Marc:The...
Marc:When you produce a segment like this where you're going to go to this Shabbat dinner at Wendy's, I mean, like, what are you thinking?
Marc:Are you going to ask them, you know, like, where the tradition started for them and why do they continue it?
Guest:Well, and also I think it's interesting, like, they're all older people.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I think, you know, we don't have that many older guests on our show.
Guest:And so these are voices you don't hear as often.
Guest:And I think it's interesting to hear, like...
Guest:You know, the role of this, like, because some of them were not religious growing up.
Guest:So it's interesting to me that food and Shabbat dinner is this way of connection for them.
Guest:A lot of them are widows or widowers.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so, you know, there's a loneliness to old age.
Guest:And this, like, sort of quirky tradition actually has started off on a whim and has now been going on for years.
Guest:And it's taken on a lot of meaning for these seniors.
Guest:So I think that's kind of cool.
Marc:Yeah, it's cool.
Guest:And then, like, you know, anytime you can just talk to, like, cantankerous old Jews, that's going to be fun.
Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, I just wonder, like, I mean, I wonder, like, why, you know, how many of them grew up with it and where they grew up with it.
Marc:You know, like, did you bring that up when I was?
Guest:When you were not paying attention?
Guest:When I was talking too long without making it about you?
Marc:No, I just saw that I had some messages.
LAUGHTER
Marc:I picked the phone up to show you a picture, and then I got lost.
Guest:Yeah, that happened at Carnegie Hall.
Guest:I know, on stage.
Guest:That was such a great show in a million ways, but that was probably my all-time favorite moment.
Marc:I had to wait for the phone, and then I wanted to read the email from my dad, and then I started checking my messages.
Guest:Yeah, you're literally on stage at Carnegie Hall.
Guest:You walked on stage, you were almost in tears.
Guest:It was such an intense moment.
Guest:Halfway through the show, you're like, I'm just going to check my text here.
Guest:Hold on a second.
Marc:Well, I wanted to read that email from my dad, and then I had to get my phone from backstage.
Guest:Right, and we were all sitting together, whatever, 3,000 people waiting.
Guest:And you're like, can someone go backstage, please bring my phone?
Guest:Is it going to happen?
Guest:Is it going to happen?
Guest:It was a while.
Marc:And then she showed up, and everyone's like, yay.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:And then I read the email from my dad, which is worth it.
Marc:And then I was just scrolling a little bit.
Guest:Right, and then you caught yourself.
Guest:You're like, oh, sorry, I'm not going to check my text right now.
That was so great.
Marc:I was very present.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:All right, well, so Sporkful, when do you drop them?
Marc:Mondays, usually.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And we'll have fun out there in Palm Desert.
Marc:Thanks, buddy.
Marc:It's good seeing you.
Marc:You too, man.
Marc:Take care.
Marc:Oh, you take care.
Marc:You want to say take care again?
Guest:You too, man.
Guest:Take care.
Marc:Yeah, because I stepped on it before.
Guest:That's cool.
Marc:No, we're going to put both of them in.
Marc:All right, Dan.
Marc:Talk to you later.
Guest:Thanks, buddy.
Marc:Dan Pashman, the podcast, his podcast, The Sporkful.
Marc:You can get it at thesporkful.com or wherever you get those podcasts.
Marc:It's always kind of nice to see Dan.
Marc:No, it's always good to see Dan.
Marc:So look, I'm pretty excited about...
Marc:I was pretty excited to talk to Mark Arm.
Marc:I've been a mud funny, mud funny?
Marc:I've been a mud funny, mud honey fan.
Marc:I've been a mud honey fan for a long time, and it was brought to my attention that a lot of times if I get...
Marc:packages from sub pop that mark is sending him because he works over there on the dock on the on the loading dock or whatever it is he's the guy in charge of sending shit i think but uh he was here he was in town so i thought it they got a new record out pretty new at this point the new one is called uh digital garbage they also put out a live album of their european tour called lie but this is me and mark arm of mud honey
Guest:What brings you down here?
Guest:Well, I came down here for this, actually.
Guest:You did?
Guest:Yeah, and I came down a day early and stayed close to my friend in Venice, and we went surfing yesterday.
Guest:You went surfing?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Look at us old men and you doing things that are healthy.
Marc:I went on a hike up the mountain.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Do you surf in Seattle?
Guest:Not in Seattle, but in the Pacific Northwest, yeah.
Marc:You do?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:With a wetsuit?
Marc:Yes, of course.
Yeah.
Marc:I don't know anything about surfing.
Marc:It's cold there.
Marc:I mean, I know that, but it's probably cold here too, right?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Not as cold?
Marc:Not nearly as cold.
Marc:Really?
Marc:So from what I can see from surfing, when I look at it, it seems to be a lot of waiting.
Guest:There's a lot of waiting.
Marc:But that's part of it, right?
Marc:You just sort of like, I'm out here, I'm floating around.
Marc:Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:And what do you get, like one wave a day?
Marc:Oh, no, no, hopefully not.
Marc:Is that a bad day?
Marc:Well, yeah, that's a bad day.
Marc:Like, okay, so you went surfing yesterday.
Marc:How many waves did you get?
Guest:Like 15 to 20, something like that.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And how long are you up on the board for?
Marc:Like seven seconds?
Guest:We were at Malibu, and so the rides were kind of long.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I didn't have a watch or a timer.
Marc:I'm just estimating.
Marc:I'm curious about the buzz of it.
Marc:For me, I go up this fucking hill.
Marc:But I'm not having a good time.
Marc:I'm happy when I get to the top.
Marc:But with surfing, it seems like the payoff is like, I'm up, it's good.
Guest:Well, I grew up skiing, and then in the 70s started skateboarding, and then as I got older, falling, skateboarding hurt way too much, and skiing got way too expensive.
Marc:Yeah, you can't skateboard now.
Guest:I have friends who are older than me who still do it.
Marc:Yeah, but how often do they break a thing?
Guest:Not that often, really.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:But at this point, they're pretty practiced.
Guest:I never just stayed in practice.
Marc:You got 50-something-year-old friends doing pools?
Marc:Yeah.
Yeah.
Marc:Oh, man.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:That's crazy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:They're not doctors or anything.
Marc:What are they doing during the day?
Marc:Some of them are in bands.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So wait, so you skied.
Guest:Where'd you grow up?
Guest:Did you grow up here?
Guest:You didn't grow up here.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:I grew up pretty much in Seattle.
Guest:My family moved to the suburbs of Seattle when I was four.
Marc:Oh yeah?
Marc:For what?
Marc:Was your dad in that Boeing guy?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He was?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you're a Boeing kid?
Marc:I guess so.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's like everybody up there.
Marc:What part of town?
Marc:Not anymore.
Guest:Now it's all tech shit, right?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:What did he do?
Guest:Yeah, Seattle used to be like a really working class town.
Guest:Yeah, what part did you grow up in?
Guest:I grew up in the suburbs outside of Kirkland.
Marc:Oh yeah, in Kirkland.
Guest:Totem Lake area.
Marc:Kirkland, wasn't there a club?
Marc:Didn't you come see me in Kirkland?
Guest:No, you saw me at the old Giggles.
Guest:Yeah, I saw you twice at Giggles.
Marc:Yeah, I think you saw me record that dark night.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:One of those dark nights of final engagement.
Guest:That was one of the most amazing sets I ever saw.
Yeah.
Guest:I was like, my jaw was on the floor.
Guest:I'm like, this must have been what it was like to watch Lenny Bruce.
Marc:It was fucking, this is dark time, man.
Guest:I kind of figured, because I saw the last of your four shows.
Guest:Oh, you did?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I kind of figured that maybe after hearing the CD that came out later after hearing the album, I figured that maybe...
Guest:Well, Mark kind of must have gotten everything down that he wanted to get down for the recording.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And at this last set, he was just.
Guest:Fucking out there.
Guest:Free forming.
Guest:It was so, it was mind blowing.
Guest:I was so happy you were there.
Marc:I was excited.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I was like, fucking Mark arms here.
Guest:Thanks to Dan.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:For bringing me out.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, I mean, like, you know, before I knew.
Marc:I'd never been to giggles before.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Ever.
Guest:You're not a comedy guy.
Guest:Not not.
Guest:I mean, you know, I saw like Stephen Wright in the 80s at the college.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Marc:It's not a thing you do.
Marc:Go to comedy.
Marc:And that club is so weird.
Marc:It was so weird.
Marc:It was totally weird.
Marc:You know, the guy who runs the place, he sells you the tickets.
Marc:He makes the drinks.
Marc:He serves the drinks.
Marc:He goes up on stage for five minutes before you go on.
Marc:And now it's gone.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:So Kirkland, yeah, there was another, there was a place, it wasn't Laffs, Laffs was over in Kirkland in that strip mall.
Marc:I don't know if he's there.
Guest:Yeah, that was kind of not too far from the neighborhood that I grew up in.
Marc:So where, okay, so you're growing up, where'd you go to high school?
Marc:Bill V. Christian.
Marc:Oh, yeah, where you brought up Christian?
Marc:What'd your dad do over at Boeing?
Guest:He was an engineer, but I never got a beat on exactly what he did.
Marc:I talked to so many people who have no fucking idea what their dads do or their parents.
Marc:What did your mom do?
Guest:She, for a while, was an Avon lady and then got a job as a receptionist for a paint company.
Marc:She did some Avon?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Had the products at home?
Marc:Yep, yep.
Marc:Used them.
Marc:Wondered why you were using them.
Marc:Are these good?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:The labels are weird, right?
Marc:Why is my son wearing lipstick?
Marc:Well, that became explained later because it was necessary.
Marc:Okay, so she's working.
Marc:She's a receptionist.
Marc:So how Christian were you brought up?
Guest:Well, that's a weird thing.
Guest:I don't think my parents really went to church until they moved into my neighborhood and I was the only kid, so I was- You were the only child?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Is that a lot of pressure?
Guest:Yeah, especially with my parents, yeah.
Marc:I always ask only children if they felt this weird pressure.
Marc:None of them say yes, but you did?
Marc:Uh, on my mom's behalf.
Guest:Oh yeah.
Guest:Like, you know, before I was born, she bought a baby grand piano, like expecting me to be a concert pianist.
Guest:Oh, that would have been good.
Marc:You kind of, you went the other way, but you picked up an instrument.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But you know, it was brutal.
Marc:Well, at least she wanted to pressure you to be in the arts.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's nice.
Marc:That's supportive.
Guest:I mean, she, she, uh,
Guest:wanted to be an opera singer, but you know, like she grew up in Germany and was born in 23 or 21.
Guest:Oh, gee.
Guest:She had to get out.
Guest:I guess she didn't.
Marc:They were the winning team for a while.
Marc:She got out after the war.
Marc:Oh, really?
Guest:My dad met her.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:Stayed for the whole thing?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, I guess if you were German before the whole shit went down, you could stay.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Was your dad German?
Marc:No, he's from Kansas.
Marc:Oh.
Marc:So what, he went to Germany?
Marc:Military?
Marc:Yeah, military.
Marc:So he liberated your mother?
Apparently.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, good.
Marc:That was good.
Marc:That worked out.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But what does that have to do with her not being able to be an opera singer?
Guest:Oh, because her career sort of...
Guest:Like by the time the war was over, she was almost too old.
Guest:Oh, but she was doing it?
Guest:She was doing it.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:She went to school for it?
Guest:She was studying it and then...
Guest:You know, the shit went down.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:A lot of shit.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:There's a real mess over there.
Marc:Did she talk about it ever?
Guest:I tried to get her to talk about it.
Guest:Is she still around?
Guest:No.
Guest:She died in 2015.
Guest:She was like 94.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:Good run, huh?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I had old folks.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, you did?
Marc:They had you when they were older?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And she didn't talk about it when you tried to get her to talk about it?
Guest:Uh...
Guest:It was weird to me that like, you know, that whole like German thing, like we didn't know what was happening to the Jews crap, you know?
Guest:But she would say like, you know,
Guest:my friend who was Jewish and her whole family, they disappeared.
Guest:It's like, what did you think happened?
Guest:Apparently after Kristallnacht, my grandmother took my mom through the Jewish neighborhood and said, I want you to pay attention, look around, and don't say a word.
Guest:Apparently my grandma was not a fan.
Guest:Of the Jews?
Guest:No, of Hitler.
Guest:Jesus Christ.
Guest:My mom was an actual Hitler youth.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Which, you know, I think you had to be if you were German at that time and going to school.
Marc:Right.
Marc:It was like their demonic Girl Scouts.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Guest:And my mom told me that when the radio announced that Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia or Poland, whichever the first one was, that my grandma exclaimed, oh good, that's the end of him.
Guest:Oh yeah.
Guest:you know, my mom who was indoctrinated was just like kind of looked at her and was like, what?
Guest:And apparently she saw her mom just turned white as a sheet and realized like she has to be afraid of her child.
Marc:Oh, wow.
Marc:That's heavy.
Marc:Now it's a, was your mom able to get it out of her system?
Marc:I would hope eventually.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Man, you know.
Guest:Germans are tough, huh?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She was always very rigid.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Did you learn how to speak German?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:She spoke in the house?
Guest:Well, like the first four years of my life were in an Air Force base in Germany.
Guest:So German was my first- You were born in Germany?
Guest:No, I was born in California on an Air Force base.
Guest:And then my dad got stationed in- Back in Germany.
Guest:In Wiesbaden, yeah.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Guest:Wow.
Marc:So do you have any memory of that?
Guest:A little bit.
Guest:Like I remember it was going to be like my first Halloween and this girl that I played with, I like bitter on the face and was allowed to do Halloween that day.
Marc:You weren't allowed for being punk rock too early.
Marc:Bitter on the face.
Marc:She all right?
Marc:I assume so.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So once you get there, so you grew up with this, I mean, an engineer dad, does that mean he was engaged or disengaged?
Marc:He was kind of disengaged.
Marc:Yeah, like a math brain, kind of quiet, your mom was on top of everything?
Guest:Yeah, it was pretty much like that.
Marc:Yeah, your mom cooked all that German food?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:Like what?
Guest:Well, it's just kind of like meat, potatoes, and vegetables.
Marc:Yeah, nothing fancy, no sausages, schnitzel, schnitzel a thing?
Guest:She didn't make schnitzel.
Guest:She would do a thing called relaten, which was like a weird, like pieces of flat beef rolled around ground beef.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:And tie it up with a string.
Guest:It's like I couldn't really ever see the point of that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Was it good, though?
Marc:It was okay.
Marc:Not great.
Marc:So were you playing piano?
Marc:Did she make you play piano?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Can you read music?
Guest:Slowly at this point.
Guest:Like, you know, once I got old enough, I kind of put my foot down.
Guest:I'm not doing this anymore.
Guest:But were you good?
Guest:I could play, like, you know, I didn't have the caliber to be like a concert pianist or anything like that.
Guest:Right, who plays the organs on the Mudhoney records?
Guest:I played the organ on Kill Yourself Live.
Guest:Oh, you did?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You didn't use any organs on some of the older instrumentals?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You did, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you do that?
Guest:Sometimes, like Johnny Sankster, who recorded the last record, did the piano on it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Guy, our bass player, did the synthesizers.
Yeah.
Marc:I guess like it doesn't require, it's funny like when you, you don't need a professional organ player to play organ.
Marc:You just need to have the instrument in the room.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:Sometimes like on our last record, we actually brought in a guy because we wanted like a Billy Preston type thing for a song and just knew like I wouldn't be able to do that.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And we brought in a guy.
Marc:For Vanishing Point?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Who was great.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's fun, right?
Marc:To bring in guys.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:I was listening to what I listened to.
Marc:Yesterday, I was into that Love You Live, the Rolling Stones record.
Marc:Oh, right.
Marc:With Billy on there.
Marc:They had that Ollie Brown on a percussion.
Marc:It's sort of weird, right?
Marc:When you listen to these bands, you guys keep going, the Stones keep going, but you kind of mix it up a little bit.
Marc:Try.
Marc:I mean, we still have our thing.
Guest:Yeah, no, exactly.
Marc:Yeah, so are the Stones, actually.
Marc:They got a few hits, those guys.
Marc:Yeah, a few.
Marc:Yeah, no, but I like... Well, the thing I like about the new record, and I was just listening to which one?
Marc:Kill Yourself Alive, that one, today.
Marc:That song is that, like, it's sort of weird to make it this far.
Marc:I don't know if we're old, but we're certainly middle-aged, and now we have to...
Guest:At this point, when does middle age start?
Guest:I was with a friend last night.
Guest:Oh, we're in it, buddy.
Guest:I know, but it used to be middle age was like 35 or something.
Guest:You know when people died at 60?
Guest:I guess.
Guest:I think middle age used to be 40-ish.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:But I think maybe it's around 50 now.
Marc:But I think a couple centuries ago, middle age might have been 15.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I don't think they looked at it the same way.
Marc:I don't think they were sort of resting on their laurels or reflecting about the youth at 15.
Marc:I think the idea of middle age was probably around that idea where you're like, whoa, I have to be a grownup now.
Guest:Or the midlife crisis, that whole thing.
Guest:Did you have one?
Guest:No, I think I had that earlier.
Marc:Yeah, I don't know.
Marc:If you live a life in rock and roll and you stay in rock and roll, it'd be hard to identify what a midlife crisis would look like.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:I never felt like there's something I really, really wanted to do that I didn't do because I got stuck in this career or something.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It would probably be the opposite.
Marc:It's like, I'm going to buy a suit.
Marc:I'm going to get a nice desk.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I need a desk that I can sit.
Marc:I can build a cubicle at the house.
Yeah.
Marc:But there is sort of the tone of Kill Yourself Live, that song, and the words of it.
Marc:I've done bits about that.
Marc:In my last special, I did a line.
Marc:It said that we will all be immortalized as content, which is sort of- Oh, yeah, yeah.
Marc:It's a similar idea.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:Yours is a little more dramatic, but it's weird to have-
Marc:A sort of point of view that we have on this this trend, this kind of like weird paradigm shift in terms of how people engage in life.
Marc:And, you know, you sort of like the satire of Kill Yourself Alive or the lyrics of that song.
Marc:It's brutal because, you know, people have done that.
Marc:They've actually killed themselves alive for the likes.
Marc:You've had that line in there for the likes.
Marc:But what do you find with these records?
Marc:I mean, how old are the people coming around?
Marc:To the shows?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:uh it seems to be like a good range um yeah yeah yeah you know there's people our age of course you know i'm probably by now some of them yeah yeah uh yeah 30 years in isn't that weird i've seen you yeah yeah yeah that dude's here again yeah yeah what's up i'm like hey how you do like every year you see him right yeah yeah yeah it's kind of cool yeah yeah it's great yeah um but you finding kids
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Rock kids.
Guest:There's always kids who are just like find out about the old shit and they're interested in it and they're also kind of maybe into some of the younger stuff like the OCs.
Marc:Oh yeah.
Marc:Those guys are good.
Marc:They're great.
Marc:When did the music start?
Marc:When did you pick up the guitar?
Marc:When did you make your mom mad?
Guest:I mean, my mom had well before that.
Guest:That's why I went to the Bellamy Christian School.
Guest:Oh, that was a sentence.
Guest:Yes, that was a sentence.
Guest:Like, what'd you do?
Guest:The final straw was when I stole a bike.
Guest:Just, you know, like for junior high school shit.
Guest:Well, you know, like BMXing was a thing.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:No, I had like a regular 10-speed bike and I wanted to get into BMXing because like a lot of my friends were doing that.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:That's pre-skateboard or after skateboard?
Guest:Kind of around the same time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, which is weird because like I...
Guest:was allowed to skateboard, but I wasn't allowed to get a BMX bike.
Marc:Oh, you were forbidden.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So my friends and I hatched a plan to get me a bike.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And it was just, we were immediately caught.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Did you know the kid who you stole it from?
Marc:No.
Marc:Oh, you just took it?
Marc:He ended up at the police station?
Guest:I don't think we ended up at the police station.
Guest:The police came to my house, and that was like the maddest I've ever seen my dad.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:You woke him up?
Guest:He was pretty reserved, generally.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:His face, I remember just being like bright red.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Me kind of like, and him going around the dining room table like,
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He's coming for you.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that was the beginning of the delinquency.
Guest:Well, no, that was kind of actually almost towards the... Well, I'd done some shoplifting before that, but that kind of put the kibosh on that.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, the thing to me, looking back on it, it just seems like really... Like, my parents must have just thought I was like...
Guest:insane and ungrateful like my mom grew up in bombed out germany my dad grew up in kansas in the depression you know yeah and they're like here we built this life for you or you just have it easy and you're complaining about being bored right
Marc:Well, that's what comes with not having to work as hard as they did.
Marc:Right, right, right.
Marc:Is the boredom.
Marc:But you didn't have jobs?
Marc:I did eventually.
Marc:Not in eighth grade.
Marc:No.
Marc:Well, no, I guess that's right.
Marc:So the Christian school, so you had to go.
Marc:Was there a uniform involved?
Marc:The year that I went, the previous year was the last year they had uniforms in high school.
Marc:Oh, got in under the wire.
Marc:Oh, man.
Marc:You dressed how you wanted.
Marc:You didn't end up indoctrinated.
Guest:No.
Guest:But when we moved into the neighborhood that we moved into, my parents looked around.
Guest:There was a church nearby.
Guest:It happened to be a Lutheran church.
Guest:And they were like, we should probably take our kid to go there so he gets...
Marc:you know right as a good influence was your mom a lutheran that's a german thing isn't it it is but i don't think she was anything she told me before that her dad not since she was a nazi yeah like her dad grew up catholic and hated the catholic church sure yeah so she was nothing but they decided they want to get you on the straight and narrow go to the church be part of the community i guess so yeah yeah but never sunk in so you didn't get you early enough
Guest:Well, like, you know, sort of half sunk in for a little while in there, you know.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You've got some Jesus.
Marc:That video for the new for Kill Yourself Alive is the walk with the cross.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Guest:I mean, you know, you get that shit pounded into your head and you're like, you know, I remember standing at the bus stop.
Guest:and looking at like a kind of terrible sky and just going like, oh, this is it.
Guest:This is the end times.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Well, it is now.
Guest:But I mean, you hear all this like... Oh, sure.
Guest:There's all this like, you know, end times crap, like late great planet Earth.
Guest:My dad was reading these books.
Guest:Oh, he was.
Guest:So he was a little obsessed with the eschatology, the apocalyptic... Trying to interpret revelations and crap like that.
Marc:Was he?
Marc:An engineer?
Guest:You know, I think that was just...
Guest:That was just, they would have Bible study at church.
Guest:They got more and more into it, and I was just kind of like, this is weird.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:So it sunk in with him, though, the revelation.
Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:So he was brought up with it, probably.
Marc:I don't think so.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Got him late in life, an engineer.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, because I don't think any of his siblings were particularly religious.
Marc:Interesting.
Marc:Interesting.
Marc:It is a little nerve-wracking when an engineer, when a math brain starts to look at the end times as a possibility and is kind of decoding revelations, that's not comforting.
Guest:I don't think he thought he was going to figure it out or anything.
Guest:But he kind of thought, well, it makes sense.
Guest:I think he was just trying to make sense of things and he was actually just following what was fed him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:When did you start playing guitar?
Guest:My friend Smitty and I, we started our first band just after high school when it became quote unquote real.
Guest:It was a fake band for a while.
Marc:Oh yeah?
Marc:What do you mean you were just playing?
Marc:Did you take lessons?
Guest:No.
Guest:No?
Guest:Just picked it up?
Guest:My first guitar was like a pawn shop guitar that had the tuning peg of the A string was broken.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So it had like a old flat wound string on there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was electric?
Guest:It was electric and eventually learned about tuning, but not at first.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So we would just like make noise.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What year was this?
Marc:What were you listening to?
Guest:Like 79, 80.
Guest:Listening to, at that point, I'd gotten pretty into punk rock.
Guest:It was happening.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, because we're like the same age.
Guest:How old are you?
Guest:I'll be 57 next month.
Marc:All right, I just turned 55.
Marc:So that was like the beginning of when punk kind of got to America-ish.
Guest:Yeah, you know, it had... It was around, but it was hard to get.
Guest:It was around, and people who were maybe a little bit older kind of were into it more, but like... But it was sort of weird.
Marc:It was kind of hard to get the records.
Marc:I guess by 80 it wasn't, but in the 70s, late 70s, they had to come up... There was a whole...
Guest:Sex Pistols were on like a major label.
Guest:Diva was on a major label.
Marc:Right, but like the actual life of punk rock, the zines and all that stuff, you kind of had to be in this little network of people, you know, like for the Minutemen or whoever or...
Marc:Black Flag and stuff to know when they were playing or to get gigs and stuff.
Marc:There was a scene from the guys I talked to, there was a network of young punk rock teenagers who kind of like grew up around there, you know, sort of champion that stuff.
Guest:Right, right, right, right.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Were you one of them?
Guest:Well, I got to be one of them.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, first I had to kind of discover things.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, I
Guest:No one out in the suburb that I grew up with, you know, had I not gone to Bellevue Christian, I probably wouldn't.
Guest:I don't know if I would have gotten into the music the same way I did.
Guest:Oh, thank God for the Christian.
Guest:Well, my friend Smitty and Darren and several other people were like, you know, who were in the very first band, Mr. Up in the Calculations that I was in.
Guest:We talked and listened to music all the time.
Guest:And it went from like, you know, listening to eight tracks of Live at Leeds and Jimi Hendrix's smash hits to like,
Guest:learning about Brian Eno and getting into Devo.
Marc:That was my first thing too, Eno.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Velvet Underground, right?
Marc:Yeah, from Jimi Hendrix smash hits with the three Jimmies on front.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Live at Leeds and then, yeah, someone's got to hip you to Eno and then you're like, oh, there's another world out there.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:What's this about?
Guest:Yeah, there was a really cool record store in Bellevue that, you know, would go to after school.
Guest:What was that called?
Guest:It was called Roboto Records.
Guest:It was a used record store.
Marc:And he was your guy?
Marc:Who was the guy over there?
Marc:Oh, there's several people.
Marc:That guided the youngsters into the world of the new music.
Guest:Like Johnny Roboto, who owned the store with his wife, Helena, and Tom Dyer.
Guest:and a couple other people, and, you know, they turned us on to, like, Ornette Coleman.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they wouldn't laugh when I, like, brought up, like, a Jean-Luc Ponty record.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, they were like, what the fuck?
Guest:No, no, because I was just, like, trying to figure things out, and they were, like, totally cool with, like, you know, find your own path or whatever.
Marc:So then, like, so what are you guys playing?
Marc:You doing covers with Mr. Epp?
Marc:Oh, no, no, no, we couldn't.
Marc:Complain.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The only thing we could do was make up stuff that we understood.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Which made sense to us.
Marc:Right.
Marc:This was the first band, Mr. Epp and the- Calculations.
Marc:And did you have a following?
Guest:Eventually, towards the end, it was sort of the nerdier kids in the local hardcore scene.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Marc:Why, because you guys were weirdos?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, we were outsiders.
Guest:There was a place in the university district, like the street called University Way, which for some reason gets called the Ave.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that's where all the cool people in other jackets hung out and stuff.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Suburban weirdos.
Marc:Yeah, doing the weird music.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:And so who was in that band that stayed with you?
Marc:Was Steve Turner was in?
Guest:Steve Turner joined that band for the last six months and then...
Guest:the band decided to like not be a band anymore.
Guest:And Steven were like, we're like, let's keep playing music.
Guest:And were you getting better?
Marc:Was he teaching you stuff?
Marc:Did he know how to play?
Marc:No, no.
Marc:He didn't know how to play either?
Guest:Yeah, no.
Guest:I mean, by the time, I think when he joined Mr. Up, I was a marginally better guitar player, but he quickly surpassed me.
Marc:Yeah, so you were just learning as you went.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:So what was the next band?
Marc:The next band was Green River.
Marc:That was a good band.
Marc:Yeah, I think so.
Marc:You guys had your shit together then.
Marc:That was with Stone Gossard and the other guy from Pearl Jam.
Marc:Jeff Heyman, yeah.
Marc:You guys still friends?
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:Yeah?
Guest:They still live up there?
Guest:Yeah, Stone does.
Guest:Jeff's got a place in Missoula and a place down in Encinitas.
Marc:As well as Seattle.
Marc:So now is the scene starting to congeal into something?
Marc:When does it start to sort of shift the Seattle music scene?
Marc:Like at that time, when you start Green River, you guys, what, did two records?
Guest:Three?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that was named after the killer?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:But that was like a straight up... Would you call that punk?
Guest:At that point...
Guest:We were kind of moving out of hardcore.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Hardcore kind of felt really restrictive.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, and like, oh, I love Minor Threat, but I don't need to hear another band that sounds exactly like them.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know?
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:Like, what's the point of that?
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:And it seemed like, you know, punk rock went from this thing that was sort of wide open.
Guest:Right.
Guest:To like getting narrowly defined.
Marc:Right.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:When it started originally, Mike Watt sort of like told me that originally punk rock was just like whatever you wanted to do.
Marc:It was just like, if it wasn't part of the mainstream, it fit under the tree.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then it was starting to just be that fast drum.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And you guys, so... And, you know, part of like getting, for me, getting into, when I got into...
Guest:like punk rock i wanted to find out where this came from and that's how i learned about like the mc5 and the stooges and you know yeah like the basics right and you were always singing uh in mr i played guitar half the time and i like smitty and i would swap uh-huh uh and what happened to smitty uh he's still around he does cool weird stuff yeah um
Guest:Musically?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You guys still friends?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't see him as much as I'd like, but I don't see so many people as much as I'd like.
Marc:So when you put the Green River together, what's the scene?
Marc:I mean, because it seems like, what was that, mid 80s?
Marc:uh 84 yeah so i guess i guess that's smack in the mid 80s so is it starting to come together you're starting to see the the cast and crew of the seattle scene congeal or happen yeah there's this uh very short-lived all-ages place called the metropolis yeah that a lot of the people that were kind of like my generation yeah went to yeah and that shut down and there were like a series of you saw punk shows there
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Like that's where they play?
Guest:Like Black Flag, Misfits?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:Black Flag was kind of too big for that place.
Guest:But like, you know, Husker Du would come through and DOA.
Marc:Husker Du early on.
Marc:That must have been a great show.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Okay, so that place closes and what happens?
Guest:There's a series of art galleries and halls and stuff that get used.
Guest:And then Seattle passes this teen dance ordinance.
Guest:Yeah, what is that?
Guest:Well, there was a club called the Monastery.
Guest:It was a dance club.
Guest:And I guess some city council members' kids were going there and getting fed MDA.
Guest:One of those things, coming home weird.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It got closed down, and they passed this draconian all-ages law.
Guest:Basically, to have any all-ages space, you have to have an insane insurance policy that no one could afford.
Guest:They basically legislated all-ages places out of existence.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, like all ages shows moved to like Bremerton across the water.
Guest:Bremerton.
Guest:Or down to Tacoma.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So that was a big shift.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:So we would actually, you know, pile into a car and go to Tacoma or Olympia or something, you know, sometimes up to Bellingham to see shows.
Guest:Around this point, I was like already like 21 and over.
Guest:So, you know, things shifted into like bars.
Guest:And there was like a couple of bars that would have us mostly in midweek.
Marc:As Green River.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And who were the other bands playing?
Guest:Well, Soundgarden was around.
Guest:Were they?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Malfunction was a really cool band.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The U-Men were around.
Guest:They were a great, great band, but they weren't like what you would consider grunge by any means.
Marc:When did Mother Love Bone happen?
Guest:Mother Love Bone happened after Green River split off.
Marc:There were some guys from Green River in Mother Love Bone?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, three.
Marc:Yeah, all of them.
Guest:All of them, except me and the drummer.
Marc:And then those guys were in Pearl Jam as well, right?
Marc:Two of them.
Marc:Two of them, Amet, Amet.
Marc:Jeff and Stone, yeah.
Marc:Were in Mother Love Bone, then went on to Pearl Jam.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:and all right so sound gardens around you're around and are you feeling like like something's happening like because like i mean everyone frames it like there's just a couple bands no yeah it was you know it was just like for in my mind anyway was we were like just entertaining ourselves and you know my friend's band is playing i'm gonna go to that yeah yeah all right so green river's happening you guys are getting a following
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then how does it break up?
Marc:Why?
Marc:Why does this happen, Mark?
Marc:I don't know exactly.
Marc:You don't know?
Marc:You're in it.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:You know, I mean, I think, you know, people started wanting to do different things.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah, and I miss playing with Steve.
Guest:Uh...
Marc:Steve who, Smitty?
Marc:No, Steve Turner.
Marc:Oh, he wasn't in Green River?
Guest:He was for the first record, and then he bailed, and then we brought in Bruce Fairweather, who had moved out from Montana with Jeff, with our hardcore band.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, got to move to the next big city if you want to get anywhere.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Pull them in from Iowa, from the Midwest, from everywhere.
Marc:They go to Seattle.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Either there in New York or L.A.
Marc:But Seattle.
Guest:Well, Seattle at that point, like no one was thinking of Seattle as like New York or L.A.
Marc:But it was a place where they could play music.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They knew that much.
Guest:But you could also play music in Missoula.
Guest:You could play music wherever.
Guest:I know.
Guest:But why'd they go to Seattle?
Guest:I think because they probably just didn't want to be like surrounded by cowboys who beat them up all the time.
Yeah.
Marc:There's some rednecks in Washington too.
Marc:Oh, there are for sure.
Marc:Yeah, buddy.
Marc:Like I imagine going down to Tacoma and stuff must've been heavy.
Marc:Tacoma's all right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:How about Olympia?
Guest:Uh, well, I mean, you know, there was a very strong Olympia independent music scene that had been going on, you know, mainly based around like Evergreen State College and, uh, a radio station, uh,
Guest:Chaos?
Guest:No.
Guest:And there was like a magazine called Op.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I think that became Option.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, there was a lot of stuff going down there.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Like people down there were like really plugged into like underground scenes.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:Around the country.
Guest:And one of those people is Bruce Pavott.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Subterranean pop fanzine.
Marc:Oh, it started as a fanzine?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Oh, wild.
Marc:I didn't know that.
Marc:All right, so Green River breaks up for whatever reason, and Turner's back, and you guys start Mudhoney.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then at that point, people are coming around looking for bands to Seattle.
Guest:Some.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, how'd you guys like, how'd you guys, where were you starting out?
Marc:Where'd you like, who was like, who was like, by the time you start mud, honey, it feels you were ahead of the curve.
Marc:You weren't really a grunge band.
Marc:You didn't get kind of put into that.
Marc:Right.
Yeah.
Guest:I don't know what we, I mean, you know, I thought of what we were was just like another part of like the, you know, the American underground.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:Like in there with like bands as diverse as like the Bottle Surfers and The Replacements.
Guest:One's like a straight up rock band and the other one's like total weirdos.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And we just felt like part of that continuum.
Marc:Right, right, exactly.
Marc:and so but you like your bass player was in the melvins yep that band like they they have a huge following and they're they're actually a band where i listen to them and i'm like i think this might be beyond me oh they're an amazing band they are right yeah but i don't i didn't lock in completely i have all their records but it's hard stuff yeah yeah how come he left the melvins
Guest:Oh, he got booted.
Marc:Oh, he did.
Marc:He picked up the Melvin's Expelled people.
Guest:He was the first.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But that first Mudhoney record, that was a sub pop record.
Marc:How did that come to be?
Marc:Because I remember getting that record.
Marc:I'm like, what the fuck is this?
Marc:And I loved it.
Marc:I loved the first record.
Marc:What year was that?
Marc:89.
Marc:So that's when things are starting to happen.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, we went to Europe right away.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And how were you received over there?
Guest:You know, it varied.
Guest:On the very first tour, we did like nine weeks.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the first couple shows were with Sonic Youth in the UK and a couple in Northern Europe.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:Then after that, we were on our own for many, many, many weeks.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:sometimes we would just play a room in front of a handful of people.
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:And I think we had maybe 12 songs.
Yeah.
Marc:But you're coming together, your style's starting to define itself.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Like, I feel like... We had, you know, by the time we started, we had a pretty good idea of, like, the kind of thing that we wanted to do.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it was informed by, like, you know, of course, like... Stooges.
Guest:Stooges and, like, stuff that was happening in Australia at the time in the 80s.
Guest:Who was that?
Guest:Oh, like, the scientists and the cosmic psychos.
Guest:Where'd you pick up on that stuff?
Yeah.
Marc:just underground fanzine world oh yeah yeah i don't know either of those bands what were they they were just sort of doing like a post-punk rock thing yeah and the feed feed time were pretty integral all right so like you put that well well the the self-titled record that was a big break right that was supposed to be the big record things were just sort of building you know the next record every good boy deserves fudge i think sold really really well out of the gate yeah i like that record and then we uh
Guest:Moved to Warner's.
Marc:Okay, so what happened at Sub Pop?
Guest:They were overextended and cash strapped and
Guest:I think if we would have realized, I mean, this is hindsight and everything, that they had points on Nirvana record and that would keep them afloat, that we wouldn't have felt the need to leave.
Marc:So at the time when did that, so every good boy deserves fudge comes out around the same time as what, Bleach?
Marc:No, never mind.
Marc:Oh, so never, okay.
Marc:So that was around the same time.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So now all of a sudden that's the biggest album in the world.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:And Sub Pop, it's a Sub Pop record.
Guest:Well, no, it was a Geffen record.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Guest:But Sub Pop, they bought out their contract from...
Guest:This is a crazy thing.
Guest:In the early days, Sub Pop did not have contracts.
Guest:And I guess the guys in Nirvana got kind of freaked out.
Guest:And they went, we want a contract.
Guest:So Bruce and Jonathan quickly scrambled and put a contract together.
Guest:And so the Nirvana guys signed that.
Guest:And had they not demanded to have a contract, Sub Pop would have not gotten shit on Nevermind.
Marc:And they would have been long gone.
Marc:Yeah, probably.
Marc:But they still made money off of Bleach after Nevermind.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:So, okay, so this is all happening, and the reason you went to Warner was because you thought Sub Pop was going under?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We first went to, like, Caroline, which was also a record label and distributed Sub Pop, and...
Marc:That's right, yeah, they did the Smashing Pumpkins first record.
Guest:Yeah, and had a meeting with the president of that company, and he told us, you know, what you really need to do is sweeten up your guitars and go on tour for nine months like the Smashing Pumpkins.
Guest:And after we'd done a nine-week tour, we're like, we're never doing that again.
Guest:And we're just like, well, this is insane.
Guest:We might as well just like check other options because you get the idea that like the major label is going to be the one like putting the hammer down.
Guest:And it's like this dumb little indie label was like putting the hammer down.
Marc:But you guys like that rawness was what you were.
Marc:I mean, they wanted to.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I mean, that was just ridiculous to us.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I mean, I remember the first time we went in to record with Jack and Dino.
Guest:He actually asked us, like, no, are you sure you want your guitars to sound like this?
Guest:Who's Jack and Dino?
Guest:He's a recording engineer.
Guest:He did, like, a lot of the early sub-pop stuff.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Marc:You sure you want your guitars to sound like that?
Marc:Which was a Stoogie sound, right?
Marc:Just raw-ass kind of like, you know.
Guest:That was, you know.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I remember one time Lee Rinaldo asking me like, what are you going for with your guitar sound?
Guest:This is in the very early days.
Guest:I'm like, well, you know, at the beginning of I Want to Be Your Dog, where like the first three chords come in and then it pauses and everything kind of breaks up.
Guest:I want that.
Marc:Right before that part.
Guest:Right before the riff starts.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Marc:That was the portal.
Marc:And you locked into it.
Marc:Tried.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that was it.
Marc:That was the main inspiration.
Marc:So did you have arguments with these guys?
Marc:I mean, what happened when you went to Warner?
Marc:Was it reprise records?
Guest:It was reprised, and we brought up the examples of Husker doing the replacements.
Guest:How come when they moved to Sire and Warner Brothers, their records started sounding slicker, and Lenny Werniker, who at the time was the president of the company, was like, we just gave them money, and they did what they wanted to do.
Guest:Is that true?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:But, you know, at that point, like, things were exploding with, like, Nirvana and Pearl Jam, and the record labels had no idea what this thing was.
Marc:Right.
Guest:You know, because it just came out of left field from, like... Two different... It was, like, two different directions, too.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:It was, you know, like...
Guest:On one hand, they had hair metal bands.
Guest:On the other hand, they had Paula Abdul or whatever.
Guest:And then here's this thing that's just kind of come organically.
Guest:The salvation of rock.
Guest:Well, I don't know about that, but definitely came from the underground.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And a lot of the people were just kind of caught off guard.
Marc:But they knew there was money there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:They were like, why aren't we mining the money there?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, I knew they knew that we had an association with all those bands and people came sniffing around and.
Guest:You know, we found a lawyer who would.
Guest:uh like the last thing we wanted to do was getting like a bidding war that kind of crap because we knew we weren't we knew we weren't going to sell you did you know we we knew there's like a limited appeal to what we're doing like by the history of the bands that we love yeah you know all right yeah you know like your heroes didn't make it yeah yeah
Marc:The best case scenario was not great.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:You know, I mean, you know, we would say at the time, like, you know, if you look at our record collections, like...
Guest:90% of the records are like bands that are also rands.
Guest:You know, sure, we got like Alice Cooper and David Bowie and Rolling Stones and Beatles in there, but like everything else is shit that no one likes except for a handful of people.
Guest:Right.
Marc:And you're like, those are our people.
Marc:Those are our people.
Marc:But you never thought at that time, like, well, what could we do to sell more records?
Marc:No.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:I mean, you know, sell more.
Guest:You can't like.
Guest:bitch about selling records, but we weren't gonna compromise what we were about.
Marc:And you weren't hung up on making a hit.
Guest:No.
Marc:I don't know if we even could.
Marc:What do you mean?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, you got some hooks.
Marc:Yeah, we got some hooks.
Marc:But this was by design, not by insecurity.
Marc:Right.
Marc:No, no, no.
Guest:I mean, you know, by the time Mudhoney started, I was 26-year-old and I had a pretty good idea.
Guest:It wasn't like a 19-year-old kid, like, easily swayed.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But, you know, like, at what point did...
Marc:Because alongside of that scene, like, a lot of guys went down, man.
Marc:The dope thing really took a lot of guys out.
Marc:I mean, did you see that happen?
Marc:Do you know when it came in?
Guest:Uh... Um...
Guest:I mean, it must have been sort of like it's here.
Guest:It was always kind of there.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:You know, like with like earlier in like the Seattle punk scene before like anybody paid attention to it, there were like people who were strung out.
Marc:But then it just got out of control.
Guest:um i don't know if it was any more out of control than what was happening in san francisco or la or portland minneapolis or portland for sure not yeah portland was like you know that that they had a major dope problem in the uh uh 80s yeah and you just saw guys dropping i guess huh well it eventually yeah you know yeah and some some some of them lived
Marc:A long time?
Guest:Like one guy lived for decades and succumbed to cancer.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's a management thing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Did you get fucked up on it?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:On and off?
Marc:How long did it take you to get off?
Guest:Um...
Guest:I did it for a total of about five years, and the first two years were just sort of recreational.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:When you were touring with it and recording with it?
Guest:Recording, not touring.
Guest:None of the other guys in my band were into it at all.
Guest:Oh, so you became like, ugh.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They were probably just like, oh, fuck.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And then-
Guest:like the last half year before I quit, I was like, quit for good.
Guest:I was just kind of chipping away at it a little bit.
Guest:And then my wife and I started going out and she was like, are you gonna do this anymore?
Guest:And my initial answer was like, you know, you never know what the future's gonna bring.
Guest:And she's like, if you do it ever again, I am out of here.
Guest:And that was all it took.
Guest:Really?
Guest:And you just got off it?
Guest:Do you have kids?
Guest:No.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:When was that?
Guest:That was the summer of 1993.
Marc:Oh, it's been that long.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Oh, well, lucky you.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:What'd you replace it with?
Guest:I don't think I replaced it with anything.
Marc:No?
Marc:You don't have that compulsive addictive mindset?
Guest:No.
Guest:Surfing?
Guest:Well, I mean, I guess that's kind of compulsive addictive because I kind of think about it way too much.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:But luckily, I feel like I managed to, you know, like for a while I stopped drinking and everything like that and then did like an interferon treatment in the early 2000s, you know, which was a brutal, brutal thing for hepatitis C, you know.
Guest:Like it was 11 months of just kind of.
Guest:You had to have.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I mean, I felt like, you know, I thought like I got away with this thing unscathed.
Guest:They didn't die.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I didn't.
Guest:pick up anything and then later on I found out I had Hep C. That's curable now.
Marc:But then if you're on, that's rough, man.
Marc:Did it work?
Marc:It was 11 months and it worked.
Marc:Oh, it worked for you.
Marc:Beat you up though, huh?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Part of the...
Guest:The warnings for it were like may cause suicidal or homicidal thoughts, ideation and tendency and action.
Guest:Was that true for you?
Guest:No.
Guest:I mean, I didn't feel like I was gonna want to kill anybody or myself, but it was during the run up to, you know, Gulf War II.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, you could see what was coming for a mile away.
Guest:And I would just like watch the news and just start bawling.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know, my nerves were just so raw.
Marc:Yeah, how are they now?
Guest:They're a little more calloused.
Marc:Yeah, oh yeah.
Marc:Yeah, that interferon beats the shit out of people.
Marc:I've known people that have seen, they're like, I'm not doing that.
Guest:I think it's worth it just to get it cleared and out of the way.
Marc:If it works, it doesn't always work for everybody.
Marc:But now they got a thing that seems to work for everybody.
Marc:Yeah, which is great.
Marc:It's expensive, but it's good.
Marc:So I guess, so Piece of Cake was the last dope record.
Guest:Yeah, we recorded in the same basement studio that we did Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge.
Guest:And that was one of the things when we signed to the major label, we're like, we're gonna put our foot down and do things the way we have done.
Guest:And we're not gonna go to a big studio and try to make a fancy record.
Guest:We're just gonna try to keep it lean and...
Guest:And also one of the benefits of our contract was that what we didn't use in the recording budget, we got to keep.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So like, you know, we had like $120,000 to record.
Guest:We used like $30,000 and the rest of it was just split up and everyone put down payments on houses.
Guest:Good.
Guest:That's a good move.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That was the first time I did anything smart with money.
Guest:So you got that house.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Nice.
Guest:It must be worth something now, huh?
Guest:Yeah, but if I sold it, then I would have to just buy something equally expensive.
Marc:No, no, you stay in it, but it's nice to be able to look back and go like, that was smart.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:So would you do four records on Reprise?
Marc:Three, four?
Marc:Yeah, there's an EP in there.
Marc:And then you went back to Sub Pop?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And they're back in the game.
Marc:They do all right.
Marc:Oh, they do great.
Marc:Yeah, they're putting out a lot of good records.
Marc:I work in the warehouse.
Marc:I know.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That was one of the weird big lessons of the rock life was when Schlissel said you were coming to the show, and then he told me, yeah, he works over in the warehouse.
Marc:If you order something from Sub Pop, he's signing that out.
Guest:You're the guy that- Well, I actually don't do mail orders so much, but I do- Did you then?
Guest:No.
Marc:I ship to stores and distributors.
Marc:Well, you sent me some records.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:those are good records yeah your record and what the spider bags record um no there's no hot snakes hot snakes that's it hot snakes record is fantastic yeah your record's good the new records your record's great oh thank you yeah i mean now do you feel how have you changed as a you know musicians over time i mean do you i mean i know you're still doing the same thing but it definitely sounds like you've gotten
Marc:more adept at uh you know at uh putting you know composing stuff and producing stuff i mean definitely it's not it doesn't sound like the early record specifically no i mean you know you get better at what you do by doing it over and over again but like how does it how has it changed i mean like in terms of how you guys work together uh well we all have jobs and stuff and uh that aren't music jobs
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:No.
Marc:Just to survive jobs.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like, what's everyone doing?
Guest:A guy is a nurse at the trauma center in Seattle.
Marc:Face player?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's more on the administrative side of things.
Guest:Steve works at a pressing plant in Portland, Oregon.
Guest:Pressing what?
Guest:Records?
Guest:Records, yeah.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Dan drives Uber and Lyft.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:So everybody okay with that?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I mean, I think in terms of making music, it's a really good place to be.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because we're not relying on the music to feed ourselves.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You're not living that life at this age.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I like touring and playing, but I don't want to be on the road as much as it would take if that was our only gig.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:And when you go out, how often do you go out?
Guest:We're doing a series of weekend shows, and then we've got to...
Guest:two-week US tour happening in October.
Guest:That's gonna be kind of it for the year.
Marc:Yeah, and what kind of venues are you playing?
Guest:We're playing the Echoplex here.
Marc:Oh, okay, yeah.
Marc:With the flesh eaters who are like one of- They're from the old days too, right?
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:That's wild.
Marc:And is it nice?
Marc:I guess like on some level there is there still like some camaraderie between like what is it like to have been because, you know, you were sort of a mainstay in a certain sound and of a certain time and you guys sort of survived and kept putting out records and you saw your peers become huge and and and in a lot of times not end well.
Marc:I mean, you know, that must have some sort of impact on you.
Marc:I mean, like, I don't know how well you, like, well, I mean, Mother Love Bone was the beginning of this sort of, like, you know, visible people, like, getting fucked up and dying.
Marc:But, like, you know, between Cobain and then the Alice in Chains guy and then a lot of those Seattle guys and then fucking Soundgarden.
Marc:I mean, like...
Marc:Do you feel that that level of success that some of those bands had had something to do with them fucking their demise?
Guest:Well, maybe.
Guest:I mean, it gave them access to a shitload of money.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Marc:So you could just like spend it carelessly on stupid shit.
Marc:I guess so, but it also insulated them.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:I think it's hard to...
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Like, what's the difference between like a Pearl Jam and a Soundgarden in terms of how they handle their, you know, their trip?
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:I guess I just don't understand.
Marc:I guess I I'm impressed with the idea that you're OK and comfortable with the way your career went, you know, as opposed to like these guys that like, you know, they go up and they come down.
Marc:They can't handle coming down.
Guest:Yeah, I don't know.
Guest:I can't get in other people's heads.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:But you don't have any bitterness?
Guest:Oh, I've got bitterness.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:But not, you know, about that, I don't know.
Guest:What do you have it about?
Guest:Oh, just like the state of the world.
Guest:I've always kind of had a chip on my shoulder.
Guest:Right, but not about how the music's been received or how you're- Like our music?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, no, it's been-
Guest:I mean, when we started, like, when I started my first band, I never even, like, conceived of anything like this.
Guest:You know?
Guest:I mean, this is crazy.
Guest:This is crazy to, like, have been... The funny thing is when Mr. Epps started, there was this one guy who was involved named Peter who...
Guest:like when we decided to like make it real and play our first show he was like you know what guys i'm out i don't want to make music my career and we were just like you were insane like how and he turned out to be right because like here i am like 35 years later
Marc:Still making music.
Marc:And have another job.
Marc:And have another job.
Marc:Well, I guess that's a certain grown-up kind of understanding of limitations and possibilities to where the heartbreak of committing your life to music can be pretty brutal.
Marc:And he just knew that, like, no, I don't want to live that.
Guest:I think he wanted to be a writer, which, you know, is like another.
Marc:Oh, that's another.
Marc:He wasn't like, I'm going to go live a regular life.
Marc:I'm going to pick something harder.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, well, I'm glad that you're OK, but you're so you're in this record.
Marc:What happens with this record?
Marc:How many did you make?
Marc:I mean, is it going to like it?
Marc:Does it get radio play?
Marc:What happens now with records?
Guest:I mean, it might get radio play on like college radio stations and whatnot.
Marc:And on the Jesus video for Kill Yourself Live, who are all those guys in there?
Marc:They seem like people you know.
Guest:Some of them are, yeah, yeah, for sure.
Marc:Like other musicians?
Guest:Yeah, some other musicians.
Guest:The guy who played Jesus I didn't know before, but the director knew him.
Guest:Who directed it?
Guest:Carlos Lopez.
Guest:He did also the I Like It small video.
Guest:I mean, he's great.
Marc:Yeah, I liked the video.
Marc:Yeah, I liked it.
Marc:And where does that, what does a music video do these days?
Marc:Where does it go?
Marc:You don't know?
Marc:YouTube.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I don't know what the point is.
Marc:Well, it was good talking to you, man.
Marc:Yeah, it was good talking to you too, Mark.
Marc:It was good to see you.
Marc:Okay, that's it.
Marc:What a full show.
Marc:All right?
Marc:And free the farts.
Marc:Free the farts.
Marc:That's what I say.
Marc:All right?
Marc:But, you know, be prudent about where you let them free.
Marc:That's all.
Marc:uh what's go oh okay you can go to wtfpod.com slash tour for all my tour dates to see if i'm going to be near you i'm in san diego tonight tomorrow and saturday um at the american comedy club those there's a link to that on the site all right so i'm going to play some guitar and uh probably not fart during it
Thank you.
Marc:Boomer lives!