About Green River
Green River was an American rock band formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1984. Considered one of the first grunge bands, Green River is best known for being the precursor to multiple key early 1990s rock bands, most notably Pearl Jam, Mudhoney, Mother Love Bone, Temple of the Dog, and Love Battery. Green River reunited for several live shows in 2008 and 2009.
In its first practice sessions in early 1984, Green River's members were vocalist Mark Arm, guitarist Steve Turner, drummer Alex Vincent and bassist Jeff Ament. Prior to joining Green River, they had played for a variety of rock, punk, and hardcore groups, often with overlapping lineups. Arm and Turner had played together in Mr. Epp and the Calculations and the Limp Richerds. Determined to start a new band together, they first recruited Vincent, whom Turner had briefly played with in Spluii Numa, as drummer, and then set about convincing Ament to join. He and Turner worked at the same Seattle coffeeshop, and Arm had befriended him after a DJ set by Ament at Metropolis, a local club. Ament had a low opinion of Mr. Epp, but agreed to join the new band due to Turner's persistence and Ament's frustration with Deranged Diction, his band at the time. The first Green River rehearsal was at the Turner home on Mercer Island. Stone Gossard, a high school friend of Turner and Vincent, joined as a second guitarist shortly thereafter.
The idea for the name "Green River" came to both Arm and Turner independently. Arm has cited several possible inspirations — a local community college, the 1969 Creedence Clearwater song — but the most resonant association was with the Green River Killer, an infamous Washington state serial killer who was prominent in headlines at the time. To Alice Wheeler, a band photographer, the name reflected undercurrents of depression and danger that would come to characterize grunge; Turner later came to see it as "a dumb joke."
On June 23, 1984, Green River recorded their first demos at Reciprocal Recording. They were released on vinyl in 2016. By late 1984, the band was playing shows in and around Seattle. The band began production in December 1984 on its first record, Come on Down. By the time the band finished the record in mid-1985, Turner had left the group, citing his distaste with the rest of the band's heavy metal leanings. He was replaced by former Deranged Diction guitarist Bruce Fairweather.
In late 1985, the band embarked on its first nationwide tour to promote Come on Down. Release of the record was delayed, however, thus negating the purpose of the tour. From all accounts the experience was less than positive, though it helped cement alliances with other emerging American indie rock bands. Among them was Sonic Youth, who later quoted the song "Come on Down" on its own composition "Nevermind ". After the tour, Come on Down was finally released by the New York-based Homestead Records. The record was released to little fanfare, and did not sell well. However it is often considered the first record to be released by a "grunge" band, as it predated both the Melvins debut EP and the Deep Six compilation album.
In 1986, the band continued to play in and around the Pacific Northwest to steadily larger crowds . Early in the year, the now legendary Deep Six compilation album was released on the local C/Z Records label. Alongside two Green River songs, the compilation features the music of fellow Washington bands Malfunkshun, Melvins, Skin Yard, Soundgarden, and The U-Men. Kathleen C. Fennessy of AllMusic stated that the compilation "documents a formative period in Northwest rock history".
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