Grunge trailblazers Mudhoney came roaring out of the traps with their 1988 debut single Touch Me I’m Sick, a song that so perfectly captured the amped-up thrills of early grunge that director Cameron Crowe re-appropriated it for his Seattle-set, grunge-themed romantic comedy Singles. In the film, it’s turned into Touch Me I’m Dick, a song by the Matt Dillon-led fictional band Citizen Dick.
Whilst Mudhoney could’ve had no idea of the song’s cultural impact, helping to kickstart a musical movement that would become a worldwide phenomenon, frontman Mark Arm explained that, coming out of the ashes of his former group Green River, they did have a clear musical vision in mind from the off. “We had a pretty good idea of what we wanted to do from the beginning,” he told The New Cue last year. “I wanted to do simpler, more punk rock kind of stuff. Steve [Turner, guitarist who was also in Green River] and I, in particular, were very into some of the contemporary Australian bands that were happening at the time, as well as a lot of the underground US bands, scummy scuzzy shit as well as 60s garage rock, and some blues-influenced stuff and punk rock through the ages. It was a creative time in Seattle, but there’s always been a lot of bands here… A lot of cool, weird people trying different things.”
