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
Why 'Violent Green'?
I realized that I need to back up and talk about how we ended up with the name Violent Green. I hinted before that it came from the author Cormac McCarthy, whom Jenny was very into and influenced by. McCarthy is well known now after his books All the Pretty Horses, No Country for Old Men, and The Road have been made into films, but at the time, though he was a fairly well known author, he wasn't as widely known. His first book is called The Orchard Keeper, and this is the source of the name Violent Green.
In a passage in the book, McCarthy describes foliage in the south after a rain as 'violent green.' I liked it as a band name right away, even though I did think of the '70s sci-fi cult classic, one known well among our peers, the film 'Soylent Green' - and yeah, people brought it up - in spite of that, I thought it worked. Some people mentioned the name evoking the thought of weed. Well, yeah, people partook, a lot of people in Seattle and the Pacific Northwest did, it was plentiful, strong and cheap. And people mentioned money could be called violent green. Well, we were all pretty progressive politically and anti destructive capitalism, so, yeah, that too. It all sort of fit. Hell, the music was dark, some almost dystopian in a folk tale sort of way, but also in a kind of sci-fi and old school horror film way (Jenny did the fold out layout for our first album insert and included Frankenstein as background imagery) as the themes in those works were often about personal and psychological struggle, and about outsiders who were misunderstood and shunned. That even fit the reference that made us cringe a little, mentioned above, that of Soylent Green.
It should also be said that in my research for my archives and by extension this blog, I have come across present day bands named Violent Green. It is what it is. The band I was in hasn't been active for a long time. I am certain Jenny doesn't give a shit any more than I. And what kind of anti destructive capitalism folks would we be if we sued poor musicians or just were assholes and made them start over with a new name? (Also, do we really want to inspire a band to call themselves 'Violent Green Jr.'? ; ) We made our mark. I hesitate to say we made our mark 'in music history,' the inevitable follow up to that, but some folks would. The only point when that happened in my mind is when Greil Marcus positively reviewed our first album in Art Forum, which I will get to. Enough already about the damn name! Onward~
Doug branches out~, Scotty carries the torch
In 1992, Doug left Treepeople. He said at the time in an interview (I forget with whom, if anyone knows, let me know) that he quit because he didn't want to tour so much (Treepeople hit the road often after I quit) and maybe that was true at the time. I haven't discussed it at length with him. I did remember a time when he stopped by just after I quit the band (also covered in a previous entry) and he told me he had songs that didn't fit with what Treepeople had been doing and he told me that he might do a side project. This became the band Built to Spill, who formed for a recording right after Doug left Treepeople. At that time, it really was more of a project. Doug asked his brother in law and my future bandmate (Halo Benders) and best friend, Ralf Youtz to join he and Brett Netson of Caustic Resin to lay down some tracks in Boise, where Doug had relocated to. The result was the wonderful, quirky, groundwork laying LP 'Ultimate Alternative Wavers' released in 1993.
The first Built to Spill album, Ultimate Alternative Wavers (a name that came from a found letter written by some anonymous Boise youth) released in 1993. Probably one of the funniest and most original ideas for an album cover, they actually went to a portrait studio to get this taken. Brilliant.
As for Treepeople, Scott Schmaljohn continued on with the band, much to the anger and disappointment of many fans (a fact I was unaware of until recently, as I was not tracking things that closely, and remember this was pre-internet, word traveled slowly and mostly person to person). I never resented him for doing it, I admit I thought it was a weird idea at the time, since the band was such a two songwriter band. Doug's songs appealed more to the music nerdy, shoegazer fan set, while Scott's songs appealed to punkers and hardcore folks.
A good friend from the old days who is good friends with the whole crew of us (and incidentally my current roommate) explained his take on Scott's decision well once, he said (paraphrasing) that Scotty (as we all call him) had worked hard for the name Treepeople, had put sweat, time and money into it, and that he didn't want to just give it up. I think that's fair. I know many don't agree. But I also know many people practically worship Doug (something he of course never asked for or sought) and think that Treepeople was 'Doug's band,' but nothing could be further from the truth, and Doug would be the first to tell you that. I admit to being embarrassed to say it, but Doug has said many times that we were his music heroes when he was young, that we had inspired him to do music more seriously. Scott was writing songs, singing and playing them, fiercely, for years before we met Doug, which was when Doug himself was 16 (and yes, already brilliant.) And of course, the one who inspired all of us was Patrick Howard 'Brown' Schmaljohn (RIP). Sorry for the rant diversion, back to VG, but I will say, if you come to any upcoming Treepeople reunion shows, film some of Scott's songs, too, aye? They rule.
I will talk more of Treepeople here and there concurrently with this thread on Violent Green as I go. We were all not in touch for a time, Pat quit the band I think in '93 (stand by, will research for next time, it escapes me) and I worked with Doug a few years later in Halo Benders, Scott and I ended up being out of touch the longest, but I tracked what was going on with the band, of course. Back to Violent Green, for chrissakes! But I will say, I will diverge a lot, because as you can see, '92/93 was an exciting time for music in Seattle, and the Pacific Northwest, with lots going on.
Plodding Along
We played shows, sometimes weird ones, like a Scorpio birthday party (meaning everyone there but us were all Scorpios, unless I am mis-remembering Drew's sign) upstairs at a trippy bar, or at a little dance club. As I mentioned, we were hard to peg sound wise, so it was challenging for us to find a line-up that fit us. But we played often, and for any band, this tightens you up, right quick! And, as a songwriter, you get feedback, whether from the psychic energy of a crowd (it exists, don't care what you think and if you haven't performed, well...) or from actual commentary on the band.
Jenny could be brilliant one night, or even better, we all could, but also, we all could be not so brilliant, or outright sloppy and disjointed. It was a band very much about emotional energy, and the music live fed off the crowd in a reverse way to what normally happens, where a band comes out and draws the audience in by either blowing people away or more slowly drawing them in. I feel like Violent Green absorbed the energy from the crowd and Jenny became a shaman in a way, harnessing the energy, and releasing it back, and it wasn't always sunny energy. Mixed with her dark, hypnotizing vibe in the songs, it could have strange results, to be sure. And, it could also be wonderful, making my little skin hairs stand up, or, make me cringe because I knew we weren't bringing it, or worse, were outright butchering it. But that was who we were. I even knew people who liked our unpredictability. One time Brett Netson of Caustic Resin hadn't seen us for a while and he asked me (from memory) "When you play live do you still sometimes have songs devolve and fall apart at the end?"
"Yeah," I answered, sighing.
"Cool," he said. I should here say that Caustic Resin was a great match up for us to play with and we had great shows with them.
There were times when Jenny didn't like the flavor of the energy from people, and she would become distant, quiet. Other times she was incredibly charming and magnetic and connected with the audience. It was intense to get up there and bare your truth, after all, especially for a woman at that time (though contemporary women led or all women bands were quickly forging paths.) Jenny once described playing your songs in front of people as 'standing up there with your tits hanging out,' and she nailed it, I think (speaking from only having minimal experience performing and singing songs I have written, of course, and also not having tits, per se ; )
New musical shifts
As I have mentioned a few times on here, the music of Violent Green was entering...adolescence? Becoming its own entity (maybe creature is a more apt word) and forming for its next stage of life. Yeah, weird, right? I wouldn't talk that way about the music of any other band I have been in, but I'm telling you...I digress.
I realized that I neglected to talk about the actual music on our first 7 inch. I will do so now and call it an entry!
A song by song analysis of the first 7 inch release by Violent Green, 'You Make me Wish I Had a Gun/Waiting For June/Wine'
Back cover
Photo - Jennifer Todd
Layout - Hank Trotter
You Make Me Wish I Had a Gun
I of course have to start by saying none of us were violent people or advocated violence. I never discussed the meaning of this song with Jenny, but I can safely say it was an expression of the manifestation of anger and violence in our souls and minds when things are unfair or threatening or frustrating, those feelings we all have. In retrospect, for a band named 'Violent Green' to have their first release bearing a title like that may have been inviting a major misinterpretation of who we were. It sounds metal or punk rock rather than the deep, sad, emotional place we were coming from more and more. But luckily it seemed the music was strong enough overall on the record, and the other songs balanced it out. Also, frankly, not many people were paying attention! Certainly not the local music press. Musically it is for certain an anomaly in the whole body of work, very standard verse/chorus/verse structure, melodically, but the lyric structure that emerges as I listen to and analyze this music is that she wrote lines that were clear choruses and embedded them into the melody of the verse, and thus they became verses, but stood out like a chorus.
I have to admit I LOVED playing this song live, and generally, as it allowed me to really~dig~into the strings, something Jenny was ok with as occasional flavor. It is very funky (and also may be the song that led to early comparisons to the band Minutemen?) One interesting thing I notice listening to it all these years later is there is a hint of things to come in the odd, loping and momentarily suspended rhythm of the instrumental chorus. We would come to experiment a lot with experimental rhythms, mostly thanks to Drew, both on drums and increasingly on a sampler.
Waiting For June
A bit of a disclaimer on these and any of Jenny's songs I describe here in these VG entries: Any surface interpretations of lyrics are mine only, and I will do it sparingly, where I think necessary - That said, all I can say is that in listening to (though not reading, have misplaced them, don't see them online) lyrics to this song, June is a woman, and the narrator is describing a woman who loves her and waits for her. I could be completely wrong, of course. She may very well just be waiting for summer, for the endless gray of the NW to lift. The music is probably among the poppiest that Violent Green has ever done, (with a few cousins in the overall body of work) and one of the very few songs with a verse chorus verse structure and the chorus being clear melodically, '...She lies waiting for June..' is maybe the clearest chorus we ever had lyrically (aside from previously mentioned anomaly song, You Make Me Wish I Had a Gun) and yet, as mentioned above, the pattern was, it was in the verses. Musically, there is a perfect section for a chorus, and there are lyrics, but the lyrics do not rise to the strength of a chorus. It is simply a musical chorus with some words. The song is somewhat of a reformation of the typical pop structure in these ways. The mood of the music is melancholy in its descending chords, and even the more rocking section (the aforementioned musical chorus) merely rises to a different timbre of melancholy. The squeaky noise at the end...This was simply a recording I did with a microcassette of the dryer in the basement of a house in the Seattle Wallingford neighborhood where we practiced at the time, a band house called the 'Comb House' (named after the main band of the house, Comb). We heard this metallic, forlorn squeaking often between songs when rehearsing!
Wine
Article on Up Records:
http://www.revolutioncomeandgone.com/articles/6/up-records.php
Up Next: I keep trying to predict where I will be next entry but due to the volume of things that happened, I have no freakin' idea. Buckle up!
Artwork by Anne Marie Grgich
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