a seattle radio station dj, jonathan poneman, liked soundgarden after seeing them perform. he later said, "i saw this band that was everything rock music should be". poneman offered to pay for a record to be made by the band. teaming up with bruce pavitt, poneman also contributed $20,000 to the financially struggling sub pop. this helped turn sup pop into a popular, successful record label that attracted more success with grunge bands. sub pop then released soundgarden's "screaming life" ep in 1987, and the "fopp" ep in 1988. a combination of the two was issued as "screaming life/fopp" in 1990.