Andrei Mihai
Mudhoney
The band
Following the demise of what was perhaps the first grunge band, Green River, the void that they left had to be filled, not to mention all the very talented members that were now out of work. Mudhoney were very influential in the Seattle scene, their highly distorted, dirty, raw sound helped inspire and also define what we call today grunge. Did I mention they had a big influence on Nirvana?? Well, I really should. But at first, they started as a joke; the joke turned into something more serious, but they still had a lot of humour.
Legacy
They were the first grunge band to achieve some success, thus clearing the way for the likes of Soundgarde, Alice in Chains, and of course, Nirvana; but when grunge hit mainstream, they drifted away from it, leaning more towards garage rock, thus putting them in the shadow for a while. After Kurt Cobain killed himself, the whole world turned against the few bands still existing that sounded like Nirvana, and Mudhoney got smashed without any real reason. So the album sales were going very bad, but ironically, their live audiences were getting bigger and bigger. Steve Turner explains in a recent article in Mojo,
“There was a backlash after Kurt [Cobain] killed himself. The English press were so angry that we were still around. Those were some of the worst reviews we’d ever gotten. We were mocked for still existing.”
Songs
Mudhoney – “Touch Me, I’m Sick”
Mudhoney with Kurt Cobain @ live
Mudhoney – “Here Comes Sickness”
