Seattle Years Disclaimer: As I enter the Seattle years in this music blog, the above disclaimer goes double, because so much happened and there are so many details to cover in this 14 year period; so many shows, so many bands, so many friends and so much change in my life. As a result of this and the fact that the four of us who formed Treepeople found ourselves in the midst of a scene which blew up around us and attracted the eyes of the world just 2 years after our arrival, not to mention the 12 years I played music following that, I am bound to, hell, I will forget something.
This means two things: I will be coming back to entries and adding things to them over the months following publication, and, that the part of the above disclaimer where I ask for help from people in keeping me honest and in remembering things is crucial to them. I thank anyone ahead of time who was there, and, those who weren't there who have access to valid info, for helping me to correct errors in dates or chronology. Yes, I have the Internet, but many bands, scenes and things I will cover did not receive the attention I feel that they deserved and thus I will recall them mostly from memory, or rather, memories; mine and those of friends. Also, friends who were in bands which I do not happen to mention, please don't take it personally, just remind me. I have created a monster in undertaking this blog, one which I am determined to ride until the end!
Lastly, as mentioned, this scene gained national attention, and thus, needless to say and as we all know, many bands/people became famous, became rock stars, were/are admired by millions, etc and etc...This makes another part of my original disclaimer even more important. This memoir is intended to tell my story, from my perspective. I have no intention of creating a place where people can seek gossip about famous people, nor is it about 'name-dropping'. I write of my impressions of people, bands, and the Seattle scene from the '90s into the early 2000s. I protect those who are my friends fiercely because a symptom of being known is frequent intrusion into their lives beyond a level that I feel is acceptable. Thank you for indulging me this disclaimer.
A short disclaimer on the Seattle Punk entries: I am not a rock journalist (by any stretch of the imagination) and I know that others have covered the subject of Seattle Punk much more thoroughly. I am adding these sections as I thought it was important to add background to the overall history I am telling, and to give Seattle punk bands who existed during the 'grunge years' more attention. In the spirit of the rest of this blog, it is based mostly on my experiences within the Seattle scene. And before I need to change the title of this blog to 'Disclaimer'...Onward>>>
Seattle Punk?
As I have mentioned in previous entries, the Seattle punk scene in the '90s was overlooked on a national and an international level due to the attention that the 'grunge' and indie rock scenes received, and due mostly to the explosion of Nirvana and what Tad Doyle called the 'major label feeding frenzy' that followed in Seattle and in other scenes. While Nirvana's collective members came out of punk rock scenes as teens, paid homage to punk bands by mentioning them in interviews and through playing punk cover songs, and while their music was clearly influenced by punk bands, they were well within the belly of corporate rock before any of that mattered, at least in terms of shining the light on Seattle punk bands. One can wear a shirt that says, 'Corporate Rock Sucks' and then in a photo-shoot for the cover of Rolling Stone wear one that says, 'Corporate Magazines Still Suck' but that doesn't change the fact that you cash the checks, and...you are on the cover of Rolling Stone!
Nirvana on the cover of Rolling Stone Magazine, #628 on April 16, 1992, photo retrieved from: (http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/91qq4JP8zfL.jpg)
Why won't major label record companies sign punk bands? There are varying opinions, really, but since this is my blog, I will give you my take! I think it is simply because true punk rock music, with it's anti-authoritarian, anti-corporate attitude, is not attractive to corporations in control of signing and promoting bands. To put it another way; I don't know of many corporations who would want to promote the work of people with an anti-corporate message! Sometimes they will sign bands that seem punk, but aren't really (see examples of bands below). The other side of this is that for bands who claim to be 'punk' in the anti-corporate sense, being on a major label is quite hypocritical, to say the least. That said, the truth is, a band can't get well-known on a large scale very easily without the backing (and bank) of a major. This posed an ideological quandary to many a band who signed contracts, like Nirvana (as evidence, Kurt Cobain famously lamented about the things he found distasteful about it, beyond carrying out the above-mentioned strategic t-shirt choices).
Someone may point out bands like Blink 182 or Green Day as successful punk bands, but really, as far as I am concerned, those are pop bands dressed in punk clothing (used here in the literal and metaphorical sense). I would even use 'punk' in quotes in describing these bands, and others like them. Treepeople played a show with Green Day in Seattle right before they blew up. They did come out of the punk scene in Oakland, California. My Punk friends knew Billy and admired him. I don't want to take anything away from that, but speaking strictly musically, what Green Day began to play, just before and especially after they became famous, was pop rock and roll (and Nick Hornby's point made through a character in his book that became a film, 'High Fidelity', that people who like Green Day should check out their 'forefathers', The Buzzcocks, I find to be apt). Blink 182 is pretty much a pop punk band. And don't get me wrong, I love pop punk, Treepeople was a pop punk band, after all. But the point of this entry is to highlight punk bands that a major would never sign. Also, bringing things back to Seattle (as opposed to the above mentioned bands) I can't think of a Seattle punk band that got that big. And thus, my point!
However, I may be getting a little lost in the weeds here, since what I want to focus on isn't punk bands not getting signed to major labels (let alone saying anymore about Nirvana!) but a lack of attention and promotion of Seattle Punk in general (though bands not getting signed is of course part of it).
Above, 'punk' band Blink 182 and below, 'punk' band Green Day
Images retrieved, respectively, from:
http://www.altpress.com/images/uploads/blogs/blink-182.jpg, and
http://images1.laweekly.com/imager/u/745xauto/5926235/green-day-by-felisha-tolentino.jpg
Also, I don't want to get into whining about that too much here, or feeding into corporate conspiracy theories. What I can do is give my take on coming up as a punk rocker who began to play pop punk in a scene that was gaining lots of national/international attention in the '90s (be it for a form of retro '70s rock or no) which, I will get to, after a little more set up.
Punk vs New Wave
When I first identified as a punker, I was just 17 (1983) after spending a couple of years identifying as a 'New Waver'. I have discussed the difference between 'New Wave' and 'Punk' in previous entries, but basically 'New Wave' originally started in England as a music industry term, very intentionally coined by Seymour Stein, the head of Sire Records, in order to fool radio stations that would not play bands labeled as 'punk'.
After this, over time, a true difference between Punk and New Wave began to emerge, a marked one. Heather McDonald puts it this way in her article on the definition of New Wave from the site 'Love to Know', "...Essentially, [New Wave] bands...were a little less rough, a little more polished, and a little more pop, but definitely not mainstream, [and] took up the New Wave crown..." A 'little less rough' and 'a little more polished' came to mean 'radio friendly'. As an example, look up the band Siouxsie and the Banshees. If you listen to their first singles (especially their cover of the Beatles song 'Helter Skelter') from the early '80s and then the albums following through the late '80s and into the '90s (like the 1988 LP 'Peepshow') through to the present day, you can get a pretty good idea of the transition of bands from Punk to New Wave. McDonald lists bands she sees as being part of what she calls the 'golden age of New Wave' (with her own apt qualifier 'debatable as that may be') and it is a pretty good representation of the kinds of bands under this moniker:
Blondie
Elvis Costello
Adam and the Ants
Human League
The Talking Heads
The Cure
Culture Club
Depeche Mode
Eurhythmics
The Fixx
A Flock of Seagulls (also perhaps the best known
purveyors of the New Wave "look")
Duran Duran
See full article here: http://music.lovetoknow.com/New_Wave_Music_History
Above left: Duran Duran - photo retrieved from: http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YBu6_7LqkeA/maxresdefault.jpg
Bottom right, A Flock of Seagulls - photo retrieved from:
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2013/7/24/1374662551054/Flock-of-Seagulls-011.jpg
Another major facet of New Wave was fashion. Fashion was always a part of Punk (even 'anti-fashion' was still fashion). For example, the Sex Pistols were named after a clothing store called 'Sex' in England, where they all hung out. The owner of Sex became the Sex Pistols' manager, and saw in them a vehicle to promote the zany fashions his store put forth, among other things. The advent of MTV and the 'video revolution' in music accelerated this fashion-conscious aspect of New Wave. How bands looked suddenly became very important (see above photos of Duran Duran and A Flock of Seagulls). Punks would tell you they didn't give a shit about fashion, while spending hours in the bathroom spiking and coloring their hair, ripping their clothing just so, and using safety pins to hold it together.
Punk, in sharp contrast to New Wave, became a creature that cared not for being 'radio friendly' and in fact sought to become the opposite (imagine a band named 'Millions of Dead Cops' getting radio play! Nope). There were often curse words and radical political views in lyrics to the songs, as opposed to the songs about relationships and sex that dominated New Wave songs. Whilst the patrons of New Wave concerts were 'pogoing' up and down, Punks began to 'skank' and bump into each other in a violent way (this evolved into what would be called 'slamming' or 'slam dancing', which grew more and more male-dominated and violent). Much has been written/said about both Punk and New Wave, I don't want to get too far into these definitions here. But I wanted to establish the difference.
In my search for pogoing and slamming videos, I came across the above from the TV show 'Pee Wee's Playhouse' and couldn't resist posting it. While it has almost nothing to do with reality, it is hilarious, and, it's Pee Wee!
The Punk Ethos
Part of entering into the world of Punk as a musician (and as a fan) involved acting like you didn't care what anyone thought of you, and like you marched to the beat of your own (fast-paced) drum, didn't give a shit what anyone thought of your music, how you looked or any of that. It was all about being yourself and doing your own thing, man! It wasn't too long after becoming a young Punk myself that I saw the hypocrisy in this ethos. You don't care what anyone thinks? Then why are you playing shows and putting out records? Why not just play in your basement? And as for not caring how they looked, see above about time spent by Punks crafting a 'look'.
That said, there was truth to this in terms of Punk musicians not caring about, and even disdaining, virtuoso musical ability. Punk allowed people to start playing in a band right away, no matter how musically skilled they were. That had always been a factor in this new music since its beginning, and many of the bands that transitioned from Punk to New Wave, who became very proficient on their instruments over time, started out sucking, for the most part. But they got better over time, as did the Punk bands. It is a pretty safe bet that the first shows of the Ramones, Talking Heads, Dead Boys, etc., sucked. In some cases this is confirmed by many who saw early shows.
The Punk bands that did gain some national attention inspired bands to form all over the country in big and small scenes alike. As an example, if you have been following this blog, you have read about the punk scene I came up in in Boise, Idaho (if you haven't been following it, time to start! ; ). In Seattle, prior to my moving there in 1989, there was already a rich Punk history, and a major resistance to it by the mainstream. I would like to write a bit about the early history of Punk in Seattle.
Seattle Punk! A short history of early Punk in the Puget Sound (to be continued in Part II)
One could easily go back to 1960 to the Seattle garage rock band The Sonics as the beginnings of a sound that would evolve into later Punk, and a few other bands of the era, but I am not going to do that here. I felt, however, that they deserve a mention. In researching more recent early Seattle Punk roots, I came across some articles about a show in 1976 which is considered by many to be the first Seattle Punk gig. Jeff Stevens wrote an article about this show in The Seattle Star in 2013, and points out that it was not only the first official Punk show in Seattle (that is, the first that was not in a basement but an actual hall) but also one of the first in the world; "...Not only was the TMT Show [so named for the first letter of each performing band's name, see names below] an important catalyst for Seattle’s mid-1970s counterculture, it also predated by weeks the very first punk shows in Britain by the Clash, the Damned, the Buzzcocks, and Siouxsie and the Banshees, not to mention the many Los Angeles punk bands that would soon follow — including the Screamers [a former Seattle band which had changed its name from the Tupperwares]. Despite being ahead of London and Los Angeles in that respect, Seattle’s punk scene would not achieve wider fame until several years later, with the advent of the grunge explosion...[obviously I have a different opinion on that, if you have been paying attention!].' The bands that played this show were the Tupperwares, The Meyce, and the Telepaths.
See full article here:
The Meyce in 1976: Paul Hood, Jennie Skirvin, Lee Lumsden, Jim Basnight
Photo by Neil Hubbard
Photo by Neil Hubbard
Above photo and text retrieved from:
Flyer for the TMT Show - Photo retrieved from:
Stevens points out the fact that the Seattle music scene in the mid-seventies was dominated by cover bands and thus bands playing original music couldn't get shows at bars and halls (a situation mirrored in the scenes of other cities then, and still). The TMT Show marked a moment in time where the DIY (Do It Yourself) ethic of Punk began in the Seattle scene. By the time I was a New Waver in 1981, bands putting on their own shows was standard operating procedure for Punks, and had been for awhile (and in fact, as I cover in earlier entries, I helped put on shows before I was a musician, for the early Boise Punk band The Commonauts).
Heading from 1976 into 1980, there were many Punk bands springing up in Seattle, but you must keep in mind the definitions I have laid out above. This was still a period when Punk and New Wave were synonymous. Also keep in mind that I will forget some bands, just let me know! One early Punk band, The Enemy, formed after one of its founding members attended the TMT Show, and another person went on to co-found one of the most important San Francisco-based Punk bands. I will let Jeff Stevens tell it (from the aforementioned article about the show): "...Many of the people in the audience would go on to form their own bands...Case in point: among those working “security” at the event was Penelope Houston, who would later move to San Francisco and become lead singer of the Avengers, the greatly influential punk band of the late 1970s. Also in the audience was Damon Titus, guitar player for the Fruitland Famine Band, a country-rock covers-oriented act. Inspired by what he witnessed that night, Titus would soon transform his band into the Enemy, one of Seattle’s most important early punk bands..."
Penelope Houston, a former Seattle punker, singing for the seminal SF Punk band The Avengers - (image retrieved from:
Ten years after I moved to Seattle, I would end up working for the man who played drums for the Enemy, Peter Barnes. My first connection with Peter (sort of) was when Steve Fisk edited the Treepeople LP 'Guilt, Regret, Embarrassment' around 1990 at a post production studio (a studio where commercials are recorded) called The Music Source on a fancy 'digital editor' (a new thing at the time). Fisk worked at the studio years before and Peter was his boss. Peter would go on to found one of the best post production studios in Seattle, Clatter & Din (and later the video studio Flicker & Blur) where I interned before being hired at the new company he co-founded (more on that later). When I asked Peter about the early punk scene in Seattle, he responded thus: "...The Bird was our rehearsal space. We got a pop machine and someone to watch the door and we became Seattle's first original music all ages club...Cops beat us up one evening, sent in the goons to shut us down...We ended up kicking their asses in court..." Peter's favorite punk bands of the era? "...Avengers, Screamers, Ice 9, Dils, DKs, Neo Boys, X, Mentors, Blackouts, many more..."
The Enemy, Seattle punk band from the late '70s/Early '80s - Photo retrieved from:
While I don't have the space to do bios for every band here (and this entry is already well past my self-imposed, 'around 2000' word limit) here is a list of some other important New Wave/Punk bands in the Seattle scene from the late '70s to the late '80s (by no means a complete list and subject to change and which will most certainly grow, and, the only order used is alphabetical). Look some up, there are You Tube videos of many of them. I will continue next entry in Part II to touch on some shows, venues, and personal anecdotes from people playing in the scene at the time. Again, if I miss any bands, send me a message. And please note my definition of punk here, for instance, I am not including bands like Malfunkshun. Also note this is SEATTLE bands, not NW bands, I KNOW Poison Idea was an important NW punk band but they are from PORTLAND, and I have already written about them anyway!
3 Swimmers
10 Minute Warning
The Accüsed
The Beakers
The Blackouts (formed by members of the Telepaths)
The Cowboys
Christ on a Crutch
The Dehumanizers
Derelicts
The Fartz (which included Duff McKagan, who later played with Guns n' Roses)
The Enemy
False Liberty
Fastbacks
The F-Holes
Gas Huffer
The Girls
Girl Trouble
Gorilla
Last Gasp
The Lewd
The Mentors (in Seattle 76 - 79, relocated to Los Angeles)
The Meyce
Red Dress
Subvert
The Refuzors
The Rejectors
The Telepaths (who later became the LA band Screamers)
The Tupperwares
U-Men
Whipped
X-15
