Everybody Loves Our Town: An Oral History of Grunge by Mark Yarm (review)

This review needs to be prefaced by a disclaimer: Everybody Loves Our Town is not an academic publication. Comparable to Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain (New York: Grove Press, 1996), it is probably meant for a popular readership, including, above all, fans of grunge music who already know quite a bit about the histories of the various grunge and related bands but would like to know more about them from the insider’s perspective (although Mark Yarm is not an insider in the way McNeil and McCain are). Full of backstage stories from a variety of people, including musicians, record company employees, sound engineers, managers, and friends, it may be a treat for fans of Nirvana, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, and lesser bands from Seattle and Los Angeles that were connected with the grunge scene over the years.

In terms of structure, Yarm includes as many as forty-nine chapters, which helps to break down the numerous quotations from so many people into manageable chunks. Unless the reader is already familiar with at least a number of the better-known names featured here, however, the reading can turn into a somewhat confusing experience at several points. Yarm provides interview excerpts mostly in the form of one or two paragraphs, introduced by the first and last names of the interviewee. This structure is borrowed from earlier oral history books and biographies, such as Please Kill Me and Edie: American Girl by Jean Stein (New York: Knopf, 1982), to mention just two publications thematically related to this. In order to be successful at weaving together the excerpts from interviews with many different people, one needs to be confident that the excerpts alone can carry the narrative.

When reading Yarm’s book, oftentimes I found myself lost and disinterested because many of the quotations are presented almost completely out of context, and the cohesiveness of the narrative really suffers as a result. For example, a chapter titled “Smell the Magic” is devoted to three different topics: Courtney Love’s ambitiousness, the fact that some musicians apparently had strong body odor, and the touring excesses of two little-known bands, including those who smelled bad.

By way of comparison, one could look at a chapter from Please Kill Me. “Why don’t we call it punk?” shows the change of times from pre-punk to punk from the perspective of both people who had been previously engaged in music (such as musicians, writers, and managers) and the creators of the original punk explosion. We get to hear the memories of several people, yet they all revolve around the same theme, an engaging one at that, namely a change of tide in New York and how new and exciting the sound and attitude of punk were. The reader could perhaps expect a similar story on grunge in “Smell the Magic,” yet Yarm’s narrative is not as coherent. Perhaps part of the strength of Please Kill Me, in this respect, is that the authors not only wisely grouped their interview excerpts but also enriched their flow with quotations from previously published press interviews, reviews, books, and articles.

From a chronicler’s point of view, Yarm showcases a few themes of interest to a larger readership. Several stories offer insight into the workings of the music industry before the Internet era, such as touring, recording, and image construction of the most popular bands, especially Nirvana. Also of interest is the story of the term “grunge.” Yarm was not afraid to cite unflattering opinions, such as this one from Everett True: “It’s kind of ironic that this music I absolutely despised and is anathema to everything I love about music, that is the one music I’m credited with inventing! To me, grunge is another musical form that MTV invented” (195). These and other disparaging comments aside, Yarm provides us with...