Green River
‘Ugly people weren’t allowed to rock before us,’ – Mark Arm (Hyman, 2011)
Green River was an American rock band formed in Seattle, Washington in 1984. The group consisted of Jeff Ament, Mark Arm, Steve Turner, Alex Shumway, Stone Gossard and Bruce Fairweather. The bands 1985 release ‘Come on Down’ was released on Long Island, New York record label Homestead Records and is today regarded as one of the earliest representations of the sound and style which would become later known as grunge. The band would take their name from the prolific serial killer dubbed the Green River Killer, who was active in the states of Washington and Oregon through the 1980s and into the 1990s.
Mark Arm (vocalist / guitarist) was originally in the band Mr. Epp and the Calculations who were once described by Arm himself under his real name Mark McLaughlin in a letter to Desperate Times (second issue) Zine: “I hate Mr. Epp! Pure Grunge, Pure Noise! Pure Shit!”. This reference to the term ‘grunge’ is notably one of the first times the word is documented in a musical context. It is a label which derives from “grungy”, a slang word first heard in the 1960s, meaning filthy or dirty. Sub Pop also applied the word in 1988 to promote a Green River album – "gritty vocals, roaring Marshall Amps, ultra-loose grunge that destroyed the morals of a generation". The word had from time to time appeared as a description. It shows up in 1957, on the back sleeve to a Johnny Burnette rockabilly album (True, 2011).
In considering Green River and his own position in musical history, Arm stresses, “it wasn’t like we invented something that didn’t exist before” (Hyman 2011). However, as the mutating punk and rock dirges permeated throughout the Pacific North West, Green River would be top of the list on the seminal Deep Six compilation album. Released on C/Z Records in March of 1986, the compilation featured Green River and several early recordings from Seattle based bands. The album included Skin Yard, a group which featured Jack Endino who would later become a prominent producer within the Seattle and Pacific North West Scene and Sub-Pop label.
The compilation also included The U-Men, Melvins and Soundgarden. Each band had a role on the record and was important for a reason. Kim Thayil (guitarist) of Soundgarden stressed the importance to Chris Hanzek (of C/Z Records) that the inclusion of U-Men was important if the record was to garner attention (Yarm, 2011). The album would also include Malfunkshun, a band formed by Andrew Wood in 1980 with his brother Kevin and also Regan Hagar.
Chris Hanzsek (C/Z Record Label, Reciprocal Recording Studio cofounder and producer) recalls how, in producing the record they effectively tried to make Deep Six a post-hippie, communal “lets make a record we all love” compilation. The record was inspired mostly by Jeff and Mark in Green River (Yarm 2011, 77). Artists back in the late 1980s Seattle generally did not put out full length records, singles and Eps were the usual approach. Despite taking over three years to sell 2,000 original copy presses (Azerrad, 2001, 419) it is now often cited as one of the two earliest records to showcase the sound that would later gain worldwide popularity as grunge, the other being Green River’s debut EP 'Come on Down’ and the stylistic conventions it documented would last a generation.
Shortly after the Deep Six release, Green River, Malfunkshun, The Melvins, and Soundgarden would play the local clubs frequently, and the stylistic similarities would become more common, a mutual admiration society formed (Azerrad 2001, 419). Certain bands would play shows with other certain bands, and punk / rock / metal merged in the isolated germ culture of the late 1980s Pacific North West. Tim Branom recalls how “Alice in Chains played with Mother Love Bone August 1988 at the Central, and that was a really odd pairing because they weren’t the same type of bands. Yet they were growing together as friends. I think that started people meshing styles together (Yarm 2011, 178).
Green River are a fine example of how artists would move throughout musical projects within the Pacific North West music scene. Following the demise of Green River in late 1987, Gossard, Ament and Fairweather formed the short-lived covers band Lords of the Wasteland with Malfunkshun front man Andrew Wood. Mark Arm and Steve Turner would later form Mudhoney. Andrew Wood became most well-known for his time as the front man of Mother Love Bone along with former Green River members Stone Gossard, Jeff Ament and Bruce Fairweather, prior to Andrew dying of a heroin overdose in March of 1990. Band mates Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament, would go on to form one of the most prominent names in grunge, Pearl Jam.
When Sub Pop marketed the band’s 1987 EP, Dry as a Bone, the label called it “grunge that destroyed the morals of a generation”. Notably, When Mark Arm once referred to "the streets of Seattle being paved with grunge" in Everett True's Melody Maker magazine cover story, he was using the term disparagingly as though grunge is the opposite of gold, worthless. Self-deprecation is one of the endearing traits of many of the artists and people involved. Fittingly, the tagline of flagship record label Sub Pop is “Going Out of Business Since 1988” – and Green River reformed for the 20th anniversary show. The label have, of course, had their 30th anniversary since, and the label are very much still in business…
Azerrad, M. (2001). Our Band Could Be Your Life. Scenes from The American Indie Underground 1981 – 1991. Black Bay Books
Hyman, Dan (2011) https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/mudhoneys-mark-arm-on-grunges-legacy-242509/
Yarm, M. (2011). Everybody Loves Our Town: A History of Grunge. Faber and Faber.
True, E. (2011) https://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/aug/24/grunge-myths-nirvana-kurt-cobain
Grow, K (2019) https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/green-river-seattle-grunge-oral-history-pearl-jam-mudhoney-783878/