Mark Arm

Singer/Guitarist Mark Arm

Mark Arm is the vocalist for the grunge band Mudhoney. He is also credited with coining the term "grunge" to describe the musical genre (although Kurt Cobain claimed that Sub Pop exec Jonathan Poneman created the term). His former group Green River is arguably the first grunge rock band.

Early career

Mark Arm, born Mark McLaughlin on March 21, 1962, first entered the Seattle rock scene in 1980, when Arm formed a high school band called "Mr. Epp and the Calculations". The band didn't play their first show until 1981, opening for the band Student Nurse. The band was credited with being "the worst band in the world". In 1982 the band released a 7" EP. The next year they added a second guitarist Steve Turner, and released a cassette. Mr. Epp and the Calculations came to an end the following year.

After Mr. Epp and the Calculations ended, Mark Arm, and Steve Turner, who had become close friends joined the band Limp Richerds for a few weeks. Afterward, Arm and Turner took on Jeff Ament, Stone Gossard, and Alex Vincent to form the band Green River. Green River released two EPs and a full length album before splitting up. Steve Turner left the band to finish college, and Arm was forced to find a new band again. After Turner returned from schooling, they resumed their Green River side project, the Thrown Ups.

Mudhoney

Arm and Turner took on drummer Dan Peters, and bassist Matt Lukin, formerly of The Melvins. The new band renamed themselves Mudhoney. In 1988, Sub Pop released Mudhoney's first single, "Touch Me, I'm Sick". After extensive touring, and an EP album, Mudhoney released their eponymous full length debut in 1989. Their next album, Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge came out soon after, just before the explosion of grunge flanked by Nirvana's seminal Nevermind. In 1992, they signed to a major record label, Reprise and released Piece of Cake. The album didn't sell well, due to a combination of the band's uncompromising sound and an oversaturation of the genre.

Although they never achieved the fame of some of their contemporaries, Mudhoney is one of the few Grunge bands that continue to release albums. In 2002 they released Since We've Become Translucent. Their most recent album, Under a Billion Suns, has been released in March 2006 on the Sub Pop label. Arm and Mudhoney's contribution to grunge music cannot be overstated.

Solo and Side Projects

Arm released a solo single in 1990 entitled The Freewheelin' Mark Arm.

He was a singer/guitarist for the group Bloodloss and singer for the Seattle supergroup The Monkeywrench. He's also guested on several albums, most notably on Alice In Chains' 1992 EP Sap.

In 2004, he toured with MC5, standing in for the late Rob Tyner on vocals.

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.