Mudhoney

Seattle, 1988

Mudhoney grew out of Green River. Mark Arm and Steve Turner had met through Mr. Epp and the Calculations, a band that began as a high-school joke in Bellevue, and both played in Green River before it broke up in late 1987. Arm, Turner and drummer Dan Peters began rehearsing in November. Bassist Matt Lukin, who had recently left the Melvins, joined for a first full practice on 1 January 1988, the date the band treats as its birthday. They took their name from a Russ Meyer film and played their first show on 19 April.

Arm played Sub Pop co-founder Bruce Pavitt a poor boombox recording, and Pavitt suggested they record with Jack Endino at Reciprocal in Seattle. Pavitt said Sub Pop paid the studio $50. The result, Touch Me I'm Sick, came out in August 1988 in a first pressing of 800 copies and made Mudhoney the label's flagship band.

Superfuzz and Lamefest

Six more songs followed that October on Superfuzz Bigmuff, named for the Univox Super-Fuzz and Electro-Harmonix Big Muff pedals that Arm and Turner played. Turner called the title a bad pun. The band nicknamed songs after whoever they sounded like, so No One Has was The Wipers Song and In 'n' Out of Grace was The Blue Cheer Song. Sonic Youth took them on a West Coast and Southwest tour and then to Britain, and afterwards the EP entered the British indie charts. Pavitt wondered in 1993 what would have happened to Nirvana without that year of chart presence.

On 6 June 1989 Mudhoney, Tad and Nirvana sold out Seattle's Moore Theatre at Sub Pop's Lamefest, which Pavitt called the definitive turning point of the Seattle scene. The first album, Mudhoney, arrived that November and reached number one on the UK Indie Chart.

Fudge

By 1991 the band was thinking of signing to a major label but stayed put for Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge. Five songs recorded with Endino were dropped because, Turner said, they sounded a little too fancy, too clean. He booked the band into Conrad Uno's Egg studio instead, and they cut the album on an eight-track. The title is the mnemonic for the notes on the treble clef. Turner calls it his favorite Mudhoney album as a whole, and said it changed their direction a little with Farfisa organ and a more garage sound.

Pitchfork's Stuart Berman wrote that the band were Sub Pop's top-selling band, and that the album stepped back from sludge toward 1960s garage. The single Let It Slide charted in Britain, the album reached 34 in the UK, and PopMatters reported that sales were good enough to help keep the label alive.

Reprise and after

Reprise signed Mudhoney in 1992. Piece of Cake was recorded at Egg for $15,000 with full artistic freedom, and reached 189 on the Billboard 200. My Brother the Cow followed in 1995, produced by Endino and ending with a hidden track of more than half an hour, most of the album played backwards. Turner said it came out as grunge was falling out of fashion, especially with the British press. After Tomorrow Hit Today (1998), made with Jim Dickinson, Reprise cut ties. Lukin left, the compilation March to Fuzz appeared in 2000, and Guy Maddison took over on bass.

Back on Sub Pop, the band made Since We've Become Translucent (2002), then Under a Billion Suns, The Lucky Ones, Vanishing Point and Digital Garbage. Sub Pop issued a deluxe Superfuzz Bigmuff in 2008, and at ATP New York in 2010 Mudhoney played the EP in full. Plastic Eternity (2023) was made in nine days at Crackle & Pop! in Seattle with producer Johnny Sangster.

Reviewing the 2008 reissue, Pitchfork's Marc Masters wrote that in grunge's rise the best band got left behind, and that the mark of those first records on indie rock should not be obscured.