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 kind of disclaimer on Violent Green entries...In writing about the band Violent Green, at this time I am not in contact with Jenny O'lay, so I am not directly getting input from her, and, one member is no longer alive. In the case of the former, out of respect to O'lay, I am compelled to keep personal details at a high level, and in terms of Drew Quinlan (RIP, Brother), I am not in touch with any of his family to get approval of what I write about concerning him, as I did with my previously passed bandmate, Pat Schmaljohn (and thus felt better in writing about Pat) but I do not have the same access to family in Drew's case, so for that reason, out of respect for Drew and his family, I will also keep details at a high level. I won't make it cold and unpersonal, don't misunderstand me. Our dynamic as people was a huge part of the band. I guess what I am getting at is there are details that will remain private, to meet with high standards I strive to meet on this blog, even more so in light of this lack of input from the former bandmates of which I write. I hope I have achieved these standards. This also brings up the point I always make, but it is important to reiterate; this is all from my perspective only, and of anyone whom I get input from.
Our odd relationships and their tensions were one with the music, and I think, actually I know, that was a good thing, a necessary ingredient of this band, a band that forever reshaped how I thought about music, both listening to it and making it. I owe that to Drew and Jenny's brilliance and imperfectness, which made me feel okay about my own imperfections, (only to a degree, as my inner, self-critical voice was still in full effect) and it helped me realize that even I held brilliance, in my own way, when I played with them, warts and all. One thing I can confidently say is; we gave a fuck about the music. And that was because this was a highly musical band (most of the people who got what we were doing were musicians themselves) and thus I will focus much of my energy in terms of the VG entries talking about that; the music, it's influences and forms, and how the three of us and what we brought to the band from previous projects and the music we each loved, created, eventually, a rich tapestry. It is worth digging into this world O'lay spun with this bizarre, dark, poppy, goth, folksy punk music from Mars ~ *
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My other blogs: Short Story Long - (Top of mind, conversational, formal essays, photo essays, etc.) Artwork, Poetry
Chris Takino to the Rescue (again)
I had remained in touch with Chris Takino after leaving Treepeople. He heard Violent Green demos and liked them a lot and enjoyed the live shows, even in their raw, incubating form. I am not sure if he met Jenny through me or not, but they hit it off instantly and had much in common, including the aforementioned hyper-intelligence, an intense interest in film, and very common tastes in music, especially in jazz, as I remember it (both were Charles Mingus lovers and fans of John Cassavetes films, for instance.)
First Violent Green demo cassette - Design by Wayne R. Flower
Up! Records logo (I always found it appealing) - Design by Hank Trotter
Steve Fisk was another friend from my days in Treepeople who liked what he heard in the raw elements of what Violent Green was doing, so he was a natural fit to produce us. We were finally recording somewhere other than inside a cube of carpet in a basement straight to cassette! We went to the same studio that Treepeople had recorded at, Avast! Recording Avast! owner Stewart Hallerman (I guess it was a Seattle thing at the time to have an exclamation point in the name of your music related business?) being also a friend who became involved in the life of Violent Green after my time working with him in Treepeople. We were playing some challenging music, and I was, we were, encouraged to have people we respected so highly actually getting what we were doing, and recognizing it as unique and worth working on. It encouraged us to keep at it.
Producer, composer and musician, Steve Fisk
Fisk was a great fit to record Violent Green, as he was a musician who employed weird samples and created dense soundscapes in his solo work (as previously mentioned, he was doing what DJ Shadow became known for far earlier), and he eventually became, in recordings at least, like a 4th member of the band. I will discuss this more later, but I feel that it was the best marriage of a producer and a band than any that has happened in my career (and hell, maybe even one of the best in the Seattle music scene?). It wasn't easy and often got complicated, but it worked. He let us do our thing while gracefully keeping us on task. It can't be overstated how important he was to what we did. Also, I am not sure how he did it, playing part time counselor (ok with us maybe more than part time!) part time studio musician on top of full time producer. We have never discussed it in these terms, but I am certain it wasn't easy. I feel like what we put down was a good representation of where we were at the time, every time we worked together, even during the more in-studio creative process stuff that we couldn't always pull off live. I am jumping ahead, as I do.
First release of Violent Green and Up! Records
Photography by Jennifer Todd - Layout, design, Hank Trotter
Photography by Jennifer Todd - Layout, design, Hank Trotter
The 7 inch, released in 1993, generated a bit of excitement, not because it was, 'ex Some Velvet Sidewalk/Treepeople members' new band...' as that was never a marketing approach we or Chris took (and one neither Jenny or I would have agreed to, anyway.) In my mind, this was a good thing. What we were doing demanded that it be measured exclusively by the musical content, whether the opinion was favorable or that of a reaction to noisy garbage. Either reaction was a success in our eyes. I of course speak more for myself here than for Jenny or Drew. After all, it was Jenny's songs being put out there. But I don't think it was our former 'noteriety' that created the bit of excitement, rather, it was that it was the first release from the first label of Chris Takino, this transplant from LA, a former employee of SST Records, Sub Pop Records and the Seattle music mag, The Rocket, who so quickly became integral to the Seattle music scene, and who was loved by many, and got along famously with most all the local musicians he loved (for the ones he didn't love, he never bothered, and was always honest about his feelings, to some a little cruel, but never 'in-your-face', 'fuck you,' style, always more of a sneer with class, coming from at least, a place of true knowledge.)
Seattle shows, the rise of women musicians...
Seattle band 7 Year Bitch on the cover of the local music mag The Rocket
We were playing shows pretty regularly right out of the gate, sometimes within an unlikely line up of hardcore punk bands, whose fans just scratched their heads and nodded because it was so weird and crazy. Most didn't really get it.
Whether consciously or not, Takino was a large contributor toward promoting local women musicians (my opinion is that he just promoted good bands, period, as it should be), like Juned, whose sophomore 7 inch was the second release on Up! after our first and the label's first mentioned above, and we played a couple shows with Adickdid, angst-driven, angular punk influenced rock, as I remember it. Both bands were pretty great live.
First 7 inch and 2nd Up! Records release by the Seattle band Juned
Juned was one of my favorite bands at the time, their style was melancholy rock, kind of indie but with its own driving rhythm. It was indeed a time of Seattle's women musicians rising to be recognized, and as with the male bands, there was endless talent and many different styles of music. There were bands like 7 Year Bitch, who played in your face hard rock that kicked ass live, our friend and former Treepeople benefactor Paula Sen played bass and sang in Shug, a band that pulled indie rock and hardcore together in a way Treepeople never did, also fantastic live. By this time in my music career, having lived in Seattle 4 years playing music actively among so many different kinds of bands, I began to shed my programmed sexism and understand fully that music was not by any means just a man's game (programming that had already been somewhat dismantled by having women music heroes in the Boise band Dirt Fishermen.) I witnessed women all the time who were seasoned, skilled, often professional musicians. They inspired me, and pushed me towards being a feminist. Not a 'feminist male;' A feminist. And they weren't 'women musicians' or 'girl bands'. They were musicians. Bands. Period. This was a time in my life where my maturity, in this area, at least, made leaps. And Violent Green, a band fronted by a small and outspoken lesbian woman, found a niche home in this scene.
Being in this band also challenged my perceptions of homosexuality and bisexuality and exposed me to people who viewed the world entirely differently than I. We played a few lesbian bars, such as The Easy, which were numerous at the time. Not as numerous as gay male bars, but still formidable, as there is a large lesbian and bisexual community in Seattle, and it was the beginning of a time when people's overall sexual orientation and gender identity was becoming more and more fluid and dynamic. Seattle, in this regard, was years ahead of the nation.
Sexuality was also a part of what Violent Green was about, though not consciously. The 3 of us were fairly young and attractive, and our fans, identity wise, ranged through every sexual orientation, gender identity and in between. Takino once referred to us as the 'sexy band' in Seattle, which of course made us laugh. But there was sexual tension, as there is in everything, in what we did and how it was received. Need I say anymore that this is my opinion? Let's leave that aside for good, right here. You KNOW this is ALL my opinion. I become too self-conscious at times...
Left to right: Wayne Flower, Jenny O'lay, Drew Quinlan (RIP, Brother), AKA, Violent Green (Note: This photo is a bit ahead of the current blog timeline, it was taken probably in 1994)
The 'major label feeding frenzy' was in full effect at this time in Seattle (and by extension, other metropolitan music scenes.) By this time Pearl Jam had been around for a couple years and were the most well-known band, with the seminal band Soundgarden right behind them, building fame in their way, while the first band to really break, Alice in Chains, was still selling out stadiums. There were some decent bands and there were some, to put it frankly, fucking awful bands, many of whom were getting signed right and left. Violent Green even got a glance from MCA Records (which of course nothing came of.) But labels got what we were doing even less than the listeners! We were fortunate to have Takino in our corner. I am not sure we would have made the light of day without him (as far as I know, to this day, the records haven't even paid their own costs off at this writing, 2018!)
The music climate of 1992/93
Nationally, bands like Guns n' Roses were still selling out concerts and played regularly on the radio, hip hop had representation on the charts in Seattle, with Sir Mix-a-Lot, who had achieved fame that year with his song 'Baby Got Back' (a tune I don't think would fly today!) and Madonna, Michael Jackson, and Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston still had hit songs while bands once known as 'New Wave' outliers like U2 were selling out stadiums. It was a time when music was trying to figure itself out, it seemed. Violent Green could exist here, not everyone got it as mentioned, and as mentioned, we did our own thing, like a challenging jazz band hovering on the edges of traditional jazz. Jenny's songwriting became even more prolific, and even more honed into a specific sound, one less playful than the previous country and folk influenced songs tinged with goth. The goth took more of a place in the driver's seat, with maybe a dash of early, punky Nirvana, inevitably the comparison was made as Jenny was almost a female Kurt Cobain; small, crafting songs and letting out a primal scream of a voice that seemed to come from the very spirit of human pain and suffering itself.
While indie rock was primarily still played on college radio, some bands were starting to crossover to mainstream radio, like Smashing Pumpkins, who started the same year as Treepeople, paving the way for many bands, even short-lived ones like Presidents of the United States of America (a Seattle band) but of course, their way had been paved by more accessible bands like The Smiths, The Cure, and so on. The 'grunge' thing and successful Seattle bands like Pearl Jam also unfortunately gave rise to bands like Creed. They can't all be great. Stone Temple Pilots ain't half bad (who formed the year after Treepeople.) It was hit and miss, like I said, music was trying to figure itself out again, post Nirvana and post 'Grunge.' This is all off the top of my head cross-referencing here, with a little research of the music at the time thrown in, and admittedly there are gaps.
Trying to pin Jello to the wall, or, Trying to categorize Violent Green
A debt was also owed to bands like the seminal NYC band Television, who were still putting out great music just under the radar in 1992, like the song making the rounds on college radio then, 'Call Mr. Lee'. Television was a big influence on Jenny's songwriting and people often compared Violent Green to them. I don't completely hear it, but obviously I am too close to the music to properly judge. Some people also said we sounded like Minutemen, and if you have been reading this blog, you know that should have made me proud, but again, I don't hear it, except in my bass playing style, which was inevitably influenced by Minutemen's Mike Watt. Hell, people said we sounded like the band Come, a band I loved and saw live a couple times, but that was really just because they were also fronted by a strong little woman with a big, androgynous voice. I think it is safe to say that we were hard to peg!
Television, undoubtedly an influence on Violent Green
I do believe I have reached the end of this entry. Next up over the next couple entries, Violent Green plays shows wherever they are welcome, checking in on where Treepeople was at the time, recording Eros, the album that altered the direction of Violent Green forever, recorded during romantic transitions for every member and the producer. We cut a dark slice of heartache and anger, incorporating a musical element that would, eventually, take over much of the music of Violent Green, that of digital sampling.