{"product_id":"everybody-loves-our-town-isbn-9780307464446","title":"Everybody Loves Our Town","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003eA \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003eTime\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003e Magazine Best Book of 2011, Featuring Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice In Chains, Mudhoney and more!\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTwenty years after the release of Nirvana’s landmark album \u003ci\u003eNevermind\u003c\/i\u003e comes \u003ci\u003eEverybody Loves Our Town: An Oral History of Grunge\u003c\/i\u003e, the definitive word on the grunge era, straight from the mouths of those at the center of it all.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eIn 1986, fledgling Seattle label C\/Z Records released \u003ci\u003eDeep Six\u003c\/i\u003e, a compilation featuring a half-dozen local bands: Soundgarden, Green River, Melvins, Malfunkshun, the U-Men and Skin Yard. Though it sold miserably, the record made music history by documenting a burgeoning regional sound, the raw fusion of heavy metal and punk rock that we now know as grunge. But it wasn’t until five years later, with the seemingly overnight success of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” that \u003ci\u003egrunge\u003c\/i\u003e became a household word and Seattle ground zero for the nineties alternative-rock explosion.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eEverybody Loves Our Town\u003c\/i\u003e captures the grunge era in the words of the musicians, producers, managers, record executives, video directors, photographers, journalists, publicists, club owners, roadies, scenesters and hangers-on who lived through it. The book tells the whole story: from the founding of the \u003ci\u003eDeep Six\u003c\/i\u003e bands to the worldwide success of grunge’s big four (Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Alice in Chains); from the rise of Seattle’s cash-poor, hype-rich indie label Sub Pop to the major-label feeding frenzy that overtook the Pacific Northwest; from the simple joys of making noise at basement parties and tiny rock clubs to the tragic, lonely deaths of superstars Kurt Cobain and Layne Staley.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eDrawn from more than 250 new interviews—with members of Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Screaming Trees, Hole, Melvins, Mudhoney, Green River, Mother Love Bone, Temple of the Dog, Mad Season, L7, Babes in Toyland, 7 Year Bitch, TAD, the U-Men, Candlebox and many more—and featuring previously untold stories and never-before-published photographs, \u003ci\u003eEverybody Loves Our Town\u003c\/i\u003e is at once a moving, funny, lurid, and hugely insightful portrait of an extraordinary musical era.\u003c\/p\u003e“Yarm’s affectionate, gossipy, detailed look at the highs and lows of the contemporary Seattle music scene is one of the most essential rock \u003cbr\u003ebooks of recent years.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eKirkus Review, *Starred Review*\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“Hardcore fans of grunge will treasure this.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“Yarm, a former editor of \u003ci\u003eBlender\u003c\/i\u003e, interviewed more than 250 musicians, scenesters, and record business types \u003cbr\u003eto deliver a personal, comprehensive history of grunge music…Highly recommended.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Mark Yarm has assembled the gospels of Grunge music. Here is a warts-and-elbows refresher course for those of us who still find our memories of the era a little hazy.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e─Chuck Palahniuk, author of \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eFight Club\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"A very noble record of the grunge scene—and an excellent addition to the growing library of oral history music books.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Legs McNeil, coauthor of \u003ci\u003ePlease Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk\u003c\/i\u003e and the forthcoming \u003ci\u003eResident Punk\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\"Great oral histories are rare. Hewing a narrative from all those chaotic and often conflicting memories with testimony alone and no guide-prose or stage direction is difficult. Making that somehow intimate \u003ci\u003eand\u003c\/i\u003e epic is nearly impossible. When a writer pulls it off, as Mark has with \u003ci\u003eEverybody Loves Our Town\u003c\/i\u003e, it's really a gift: the subject or scene finally gets its definitive record and the reader gains what feels like a room full of brand new friends. One of the best rock reads in a very long time.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e─Marc Spitz (co-author \u003ci\u003eWe Got The Neutron Bomb: The Untold Story of LA Punk\u003c\/i\u003e, music blogger VanityFair.com).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\"In \u003ci\u003eEverybody Loves Our Town\u003c\/i\u003e, Mark Yarm collects and dispenses remarkable insights about a genre no one even wants to claim as their own. As a child of grunge—who spent a humiliating chunk of the 1990s in an Alice in Chains t-shirt—I loved this book; it clarified so many things about a sound and a time I thought I already knew.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e─Amanda Petrusich, author of \u003ci\u003eIt Still Moves: Lost Songs, Lost Highways, and the Search for the Next American Music\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\"A deeply funny story, as well as a deeply sad story--the glorious Nineties moment when a bunch of punk rock bands from Seattle accidentally blew up into the world’s biggest noise. Mark Yarm gives the definitive chronicle of how it all happened, and how it ended too soon. But the book also makes you appreciate how weird it is that this moment happened at all.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e─Rob Sheffield, author of \u003ci\u003eLove Is A Mix Tape\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eTalking To Girls About Duran Duran\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A definitive, irreplaceable chronicle of one of rock-n-roll's greatest eras. It should sit tall on any rock lover's bookshelf.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e─Neal Pollack, author of \u003ci\u003eNever Mind The Pollacks\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“In an attempt to trace the real roots of grunge, journalist Mark Yarm compiled an exhaustive oral history from the people who lived it. In his book \u003ci\u003eEverybody Loves Our Town\u003c\/i\u003e, there are interviews with everyone from the early adopters to those that were late to the party, but nevertheless helped extend [grunge's] shadow of influence by turning it into a look for the world to emulate.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—The Fader\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“This massively readable tome gathers recollections from every grunge band you’ve ever heard of (Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Soundgarden, Melvins) and some you haven’t (we hardly knew ye, Skin Yard)…The genre’s first truly comprehensive insider history…It’s gossipy…and fascinating, with so much backstabbing and death it’s like Shakespeare, if Shakespeare had written about heroin addicts with bad hair.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—Revolver (4 out of 4 stars)\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“An impressive display of reportorial industriousness… It’s the feel-bad rock book of the fall.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eBloomberg\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e \u003cb\u003eBusinessweek\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Oral history is an art in itself. It’s why \u003ci\u003eEverybody Loves Our Town\u003c\/i\u003e will endure as a classic of monumental scale.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003ePaste Magazine.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e“\u003c\/b\u003eFor hardcore fans or people just curious about what the fuss was all about, Mark Yarm’s excellent new book –\u003ci\u003eEverybody Loves Our Town: An Oral History of Grunge” \u003c\/i\u003eis well worth the read. Yarm has done an admirable job of assembling an engaging, funny and ultimately sad narrative by letting the people who helped create the Jet City sound talk about what happened in their own words.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eSeattle Post-Intelligencer\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Yarm’s account captures the essential tension that made the era so compelling.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Greg Kot, \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eChicago Tribune\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"We finished all five hundred and forty-two pages of this book in two days, abandoning all responsibility (this, friends, is why we do not have children; had there been any children about us, we would have locked these unfortunate creatures in the bathroom, so as to not be distracted) and staying up until two in the morning, reading whole chunks of it out loud to poor long-suffering Support Team.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—TheRejectionist.com\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMark Yarm's superb book, \u003ci\u003eEverybody Loves Our Town: A History of Grunge\u003c\/i\u003e details the dramatic rise of the grunge movement and all of its players, including Cobain, Love and Vedder, told through the voices of the people that lived through it.\"\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003eHollywood Reporter\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I came away from this book with a big smile on my face. Lots of it is like a gray day in western Washington; you’ve been kicked out of yet another band, and your girlfriend is spending far too much time with the drummer from the Melvins or the Screaming Trees. In the end, though, “Everybody Loves Our Town\" made me want to be young, stupid and lucky again. Mainly, it made me want to be young.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—The Washington Post\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eEverybody Loves Our Town\u003c\/i\u003e should inspire new conversations about the unique culture and people that made grunge so unusual and unforgettable to so many fans. The book is timely, as 2011 marks the 20-year anniversary of  Nirvana’s “Nevermind” and Pearl Jam’s multi-platinum debut album, “Ten.” \u003ci\u003eEverybody Loves Our Town\u003c\/i\u003e is as good an excuse as any to put on an Alice in Chains CD and curl up with a good book about some great old friends with whom we haven’t spent much time in a while.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—The Washington Independent Review of Books\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e“Everybody Loves Our Town\u003c\/i\u003e is authoritatively researched and compiled, often very funny and always just a little bit sad.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eBuffalo News\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Like a very extended and entertaining all-night bulls--- session among everyone who mattered during the late-'80s\/early-'90s music scene.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003eSeattle Weekly\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The scope is encyclopaedic and the closeness to the subject unparalleled.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003eRecord Collector\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"A wild ride that is in turns uplifting and tragic.\"\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e \u003cbr\u003e—Your Flesh\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eNamed one of the top music books of 2011 by UK Telegraph\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\"Riveting, gossipy, and impossible to put down until the last quote has been read.\"\u003cb\u003e \u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003eNew York\u003c\/i\u003e magazine's Vulture blog\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“This exhaustive oral history features unknowns, cult figures, supporting players and stars; each gets the time he or she deserves as Yarm pieces together the arc of a scene that built itself from scratch, blossomed beyond most people's dreams, and then crashed. Yes, there are plenty of Kurt Cobain stories. But there's much more, too— indelible characters, weird scenes, creative chaos, laughs and tragedy and lots of cheap beer.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—NPR.org\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Gen-X music geeks: Here’s your holy grail.\" \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eTulsa World\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The best book on music I've read this year.\" \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Omaha World-Herald\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“This volume could have been a huge, snarky compendium of gossip and score settling from the inhabitants of a claustrophobically insular local music scene. And it is, but in the best possible way—and it’s also much, much more…. Yarm has culled the story of grunge from the people who created it, and their testimony is remarkable for its eloquence and its passion and its fairness and its anger.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Lev Grossman, \u003ci\u003eTime\u003c\/i\u003e (named one of the magazine's Top 10 nonfiction books of 2011)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “A Herculean work of interviewing and editing which gives everyone a voice, from the biggest stars to the lowliest foot soldiers… . Though the Seattle scene’s stew of folly, feuding, rampant drug addiction and a startling number of fatalities might have made for a voyeuristic tale, Yarm leaves the reader full of empathy for young men and women swept up in a cultural moment they couldn’t control.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003e (named a best music book of the year)\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Exhilarating … Mark Yarm’s brilliant and exhaustive oral history of grunge is full of … vivid observations. Some 250 interviews with those intimately associated with the most unlikely musical sensation of all time piece together a story that is hilarious and tragic and utterly gripping.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eSunday Times\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003e of London\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eA Gawker.com Best Thing We Read All Year selection\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “[A] lively, funny, melancholy and exhaustive oral history … For all its eventual compromise and dissolution, Seattle was briefly an exhilarating pop cultural moment to rank with the greats. Yarm’s labour of love has well and truly done it justice.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eTime Out London\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “If you loved the ’90s and you haven’t read this book, you MUST. I’m absolutely obsessed with Mark Yarm’s masterpiece right now.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—USAToday.com’s Pop Candy column\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Full of so many entertaining stories and thrilling anecdotes that we have read it cover-to-cover TWICE. You should do the same!\" \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—VH1.com\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “The definitive oral history of the Seattle music scene, period.” \u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eAlternative Press\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eMark Yarm\u003c\/b\u003e is a former senior editor at \u003ci\u003eBlender\u003c\/i\u003e magazine. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Bonnie, and is in no way related to Mudhoney frontman Mark Arm.Chapter 1\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLARRY REID (U-Men manager; co-owner of Roscoe Louie\/Graven Image galleries; Tracey Rowland's husband) This was Labor Day weekend of 1985. Here's how I remember it. The U-Men's roadie, Mike Tucker, thinks it was my idea; I think it was Charlie Ryan's idea. And it's not that I don't want to take credit for it, because it was brilliant. But I'm sure it was Charlie's idea because Charlie had a fetish for Zippo lighters.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMIKE TUCKER (U-Men roadie) The idea, I do believe, was born out of a conversation between Larry and me. I remember going with Larry and getting the lighter fluid, which someone poured into Mickey's brand malt-liquor bottles.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJIM TILLMAN (U-Men\/Love Battery bassist) I'm fairly positive it was John's idea. Suffice it to say that we all thought it was brilliant.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCHARLIE RYAN (U-Men\/Cat Butt\/the Crows drummer) It was my idea. I collected lighters. I was the firebug. I was the pyro. My idea!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLARRY REID The U-Men were the first real punk band ever booked at the Bumbershoot Festival. I managed to sell them as a performance-art combo. God bless 'em, the producers trusted me, and they shouldn't have-and never did after this!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCHARLIE RYAN Larry says, \"We're on Bumbershoot.\" And we're like, \"Oh, my God. Okay. This is going to be the ultimate showcase for us.\" I start thinking about the fact that there's the moat, this body of water in front of the stage. I wondered, Could we light it on fire?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLARRY REID Nobody was quite sure it would work, so we filled up my bathtub, poured some lighter fluid on it, and...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCHARLIE RYAN We took a match and threw it in, and it went boom! Flames.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLARRY REID There was a curtain on the window above the bathtub and it fucking went up, man. If we would've thought about it, we probably would've tried it outside using a bucket of water. The alarm went off, all hell broke loose-they had to empty the building, but it didn't catch the apartment on fire. We were all high-fiving each other, and like, \"Yes, this was a good thing. This is gonna work!\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo skip to the gig, a couple weeks later. Bumbershoot was held at an outdoor venue called the Mural Amphitheatre, which is on the grounds of this large city-owned property called the Seattle Center. There were hundreds of people in the audience because it was free.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKURT BLOCH (Fastbacks\/Young Fresh Fellows guitarist) I was right there in the front. They're setting up and everybody's like, \"Something crazy's gonna happen, something crazy's gonna happen.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKERRI HARROP (Sub Pop Records sales and retail employee) I can even remember what I was wearing, the show was that significant. First of all, Bumbershoot's this family-friendly event-it's out on the open lawn in the shadow of the Space Needle-and you have these complete weirdos out on this stage.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCHARLIE RYAN It's sunny and nice out, and we're all in black leather and top hats and dark shades and being as menacing as we could be. Our freak show only appeared at night, in dark places, but here we are, in broad daylight. My mom was there-the end of the show wasn't her proudest moment.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLARRY REID At the end of the set, the sun was just going down. Mike Tucker and myself walked out to the edge of the stage, and we're each pouring what appeared to be a gallon of vodka into the pond. And Bigley comes out-they're doing this song called \"They,\" which at that point was the standard last song.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJIM TILLMAN The last song was \"Green Trumpet,\" though I could be wrong. There were 2,000 or 3,000 people there. A couple of our friends, this guy Mike, who was sort of a roadie, and this other guy Tommy Bonehead-his real name was Tom Simpson, but he was called Bonehead because it didn't matter how hard you'd hit him, he'd always fight-are pouring lighter fluid on either side of the stage.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTOM PRICE (U-Men\/Cat Butt\/Gas Huffer guitarist) We were playing a song called \"10 After 1.\" And John ducked behind an amp, because we didn't want the authorities to see what was going on.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJOHN BIGLEY (U-Men\/the Crows singer) I had gotten a broom and cut off the bristles, so it was just a nub where the bristles joined the handle, and wrapped it in a T-shirt soaked in lighter fluid. I ran back behind the drums, lit the broom with my lighter, and waited until the song \"They\" kicked into gear.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCHARLIE RYAN And John comes out, doing this insane tribal voodoo dance with a lit broom, menacing the crowd. And then he chucks it into the water.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMIKE TUCKER When John dipped his torch into the moat, it didn't immediately ignite. It was like, \"Oh, fuck, it didn't work.\" The second time he dipped it in, suddenly this wall of fire went up.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJOHN BIGLEY I throw the broom in and there was a giant fireball, 20 to 30 feet high, easy. It was gigantic and it made a sound, this whoosh of oxygen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLARRY REID The pond fuckin' exploded, man! I mean, it made the bathroom look like child's play. It went up, oh, 10, 12, 15 feet.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJOE NEWTON (Gas Huffer drummer) My recollection was that it was over in the blink of an eye. It burned fast, it burned hugely high and bright, but it just lasted a second. I knew they were going to do it, and it was like, \"That's it?\" Other people totally remember it being this huge wall of fire.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDENNIS R. WHITE (Pravda Productions partner; Desperate Times zine cofounder) In a lot of cases, people remember things being much bigger than they were. In this case, they don't. It looked like the band was engulfed in flames.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJOHN BIGLEY And with the supercharged rock-and-roll music, that's when the vast majority of the folks started jumping around and dancing. It was a crazy primal deal.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJAMES BURDYSHAW (Cat Butt guitarist; 64 Spiders guitarist\/singer) The U-Men were into bones and skulls and black clothes and witch-doctor sort of imagery. The whole voodoo tribal thing became real 'cause the sun went down right when the flames happened. You felt like there was something dangerous going on but you couldn't look away. The crowd was screaming, but it wasn't out of fear. It was like, Yes! Yes! It was elation.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was like, Fuck the Man, we're the most dangerous voodoo band-and we're gonna do a human sacrifice next. It felt like that was gonna happen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLARRY REID It was perfect, except we'd failed to take into consideration that the stage was built out over the pond. There was creosote and tar underneath the stage, so there was just black smoke billowing long after the flames had died down. And the soundman freaked out, thinking the stage was on fire, and he's running up, trying to get his sound equipment off the stage. The audience is now going apeshit crazy. Cops being cops, they started wading into the audience and beating people with their billy clubs!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCHARLES PETERSON (photographer) The thing I remember most is that we all just went fuckin' bonkers, and started slam-dancing into each other. And there were these Seattle Center security guards who thought we were getting into fights and were trying to separate us. This 60- year-old security guard was just freaking out, and some of us were like, \"Dude, they're just dancing!\" I recall somebody grabbed a security guard's hat and danced around. It was mayhem.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJOHN BIGLEY We finished the song, definitely. Someone, it might have been Larry, grabbed me and threw me towards the drums: \"Get the fuck out! Load the shit!\" It was very chaotic-people running and screaming and kids holding their eyes and arrests and that whole thing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTRACEY ROWLAND (co-owner of Roscoe Louie\/Graven Image galleries; Larry Reid's wife) Norman Langill, who was running Bumbershoot, was yelling and screaming and freaking out and jumping up and down. He was furious.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJIM TILLMAN I'd parked our tour bus-it was a 1960s Chevy city school bus that said tacoma hillbillies on the side, though I have absolutely no idea why-in this spot next to the stage.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJOHN BIGLEY \"Load the shit, load the shit!\" We got loaded up and drove off before the police had gotten their act together to approach us.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCHARLIE RYAN I'll never forget driving our bus out of the Seattle Center grounds-all of these nice, normal people looking up at us, these freaks in a school bus who had just set the moat on fire.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKERRI HARROP I was blown away by the audacity of it. I'm sure if there was a panoramic shot of the crowd, virtually everyone who ended up in a band or who was in a band at the time was at that show. I think that if you were in a band and you saw that, it made you step up your game.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMARK ARM (né Mark McLaughlin; Mudhoney singer\/guitarist; Green River singer; Mr. Epp and the Calculations guitarist\/singer; the Thrown Ups drummer) I don't know if it was necessarily the best U-Men show I ever saw, but that was the coolest event at a U-Men show. They really made something happen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLARRY REID The U-Men were banned from Bumbershoot, and I wasn't the most popular guy around there for a while. The year after that, they started draining the pond. And now they've filled it in with cement.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe day after the show, I met the Everly Brothers at the hotel and brought them to the venue-I was working at Bumbershoot, operating as an informal chaperone for the bigger acts-and the first person I ran into was Norm Langill, the producer of the festival. He just came unglued. He said, \"What are you trying to do to me?!\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePhil Everly was really kinda sweet and came to my defense. He told this great anecdote, which was possibly apocryphal, about a show they had played with Jerry Lee Lewis. Jerry Lee was squirting lighter fluid on the 88s and pounding out \"Great Balls of Fire.\" And the next thing you know...accidents happen. Apparently Jerry Lee was dancing on the piano, which was an impromptu addition to his normal routine, and caught his pants on fire.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat story got me off the hook. That calmed everything down, because Norm held the Everly Brothers in real high regard. Phil told him, \"Leave the kid alone. That's rock and roll.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e. . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTOM PRICE The U-Men started in late '81. My family had moved to Seattle in 1965. I started playing music, believe it or not, mostly through the church. They called it \"guitar mass\"-it was the acoustic- guitar-strumming, long-haired Christians. Very Jesus Christ Superstar. In my early teens, my older brother was turning me on to all this weird music, like Captain Beefheart and Lou Reed. And so when punk came along, that was a natural jump. The U-Men was probably my first band that made any records.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMe and Charlie had both dropped out of high school together and moved into a crash pad in the University District. Charlie was a really funny character. He's an Irishman, his dad was a bookie, and he had his own apartment downtown, just this whole weird style that was pretty unfamiliar to kids like me from tree-lined residential neighborhoods.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCHARLIE RYAN I was born and raised in Seattle, and grew up pretty much downtown. Bookmaking was the family business. My father was a bartender for years, and he was given this little business by someone who was retiring. Which afforded him a lifestyle of going out and dining and drinking on a nightly basis. Later on, in the '80s, I started taking bets over the phone for him so he didn't have to do anything except go collect the money.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI met Tom at Roosevelt High School. We were all standing outside smoking pot all the time. Nobody went to class. It was a little hotbed of soon-to-become-punk activity: The Mentors went to school there, Duff McKagan was there, Chris Utting. I moved into this house in the U District with Tom Price and Rob Morgan. Rob had a lot of weird, punky bands-the Pudz, the Fishsticks-that he put together over the years. He was older and had this huge record collection. He was very influential on us.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe entire idea of the band was Tom's. We stole our name right off of this Pere Ubu bootleg called The U-Men. We weren't working-we were playing records and drinking a lot and coming up with funny ideas. Tom said, \"I think we should start a band, Charlie.\" And I said, \"Okay.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd he said, \"You'll be the drummer.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd I said, \"But we don't know how to play.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe goes, \"That's okay, we'll learn.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI go, \"Okay. We don't have any equipment.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe goes, \"Don't worry about that.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTom was very resourceful, and he would obtain things that we needed all the time. I'm not trying to imply that anything against the law happened, but things just got done, things appeared. I don't know how he did it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTOM PRICE We'd have one pair of drumsticks, and if Charlie broke a drumstick, that's it, we'd have to rummage around and see if we could find some wooden soup spoons or something. We played in the basement of this house and had cymbals hanging from the ceiling, since we didn't have enough cymbal stands, just playing through these crappy little amps on crappy little guitars.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCHARLIE RYAN Tom says, \"There's this girl I know from Alaska, and she's going to run away from home. I'm going to pick her up at the airport, and she's going to be our bass player.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eROBIN BUCHAN (U-Men bassist) I went to Roosevelt High School. My home life was not good, and as a 13- and 14-year-old, I was really withdrawn and depressed. My one outlet was music, 'cause I played the string bass in our school's chamber orchestra and the youth symphony. I got into the punk scene, which was my chance to bust out completely. My parents were scandalized by the change and were worried that I was drinking and doing drugs, which I was.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen I was 15, things in my life kind of blew up. My mom overreacted, and she asked my dad to take me away. They were divorced and my dad was remarried. He was in the Air Force and he was on his way up to Elmendorf Air Force Base outside of Anchorage. They knew I didn't want to go, so they tricked me into it: \"Oh, you're just gonna go for the summer.\" Once I got up there they were like, \"Nope. You're staying here.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI'd met Tom Price in Seattle, but I didn't know him very well. We wrote letters back and forth when I was in Alaska, and somehow it was determined that I was going to play bass for the U-Men.","brand":"Crown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46299724742885,"sku":"NP9780307464446","price":22.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780307464446.jpg?v=1767726449","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/everybody-loves-our-town-isbn-9780307464446","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}