Mr. Epp and the Calculations

Comedic adolescent rock combo of teenage Devo fans named after a math teacher at a Christian High School in Bellevue, WA. The group gained posthumous notoriety in the 1990’s as fans learned that the disbanded teen group had contained future Green River/Mudhoney members Mark Arm and Steve Turner, as well as Steelpole Bathtub drummer Darren Mor-X ( Morey) . In a letter to a Seattle zine, Desperate, Mark Arm described his band as “Pure grunge! Pure noise! Pure shit!”, thus grunge was born and ready to be exploited.

Together for roughly 3 years, and aside from some compilation appearances, a 1982 7” EP and shows at Seattle clubs opening for bands like Nina Hagen and The Dead Kennedys, they stayed relatively obscure during their mid 80’s run. One bright spot was KROQ’s Rodney Bingenheimer hyped “Mohawk Man” a lot on his LA based Rodney on the Roq show where it actually made it to #1, beating out Toni Basil’s “Mickey”.

Other less well known members over the band’s run included classmates Smitty, Dirk Kahler, Todd Morey and Dan Blossom.