Touch Me I’m Sick may very well be the most psychotic debut single ever released. First there’s the burst of terrifying fuzz, like a runaway buzz-saw tearing through a crowded city street. Then a gargly, half-mad howl, the panicky yelp of a rabid dog falling down a well. Grunting, maniacal laughter. A propulsive, sub-Stooges sex-beat. Snarl and spit and threats. A guitar solo that sounds like someone wrestling a rattlesnake – and losing. And then, the most confusing come-on ever: “Fuck Me, I’m sick!”
Mudhoney, an entirely new entity assembled from the surliest members of Seattle’s glam-dirge almost-legends Green River, sounded like they were declaring war on everybody. The single, initially a tiny, understated release on a doomed medium, quickly spread like some sort of nasty virus, infecting college radio stations across the US and beyond, spreading Mudhoney’s garage-gunk splatter-fest far and wide, sowing the sickly seeds of the burgeoning grunge-rock movement.
