Grunge Is Dead

by Greg Prato

  LARRY REID: Seattle got to be a high profile stop on the punk rock circuit — the audience was really enthusiastic, fairly sophisticated, and large. I think on a national level too, punk rock started to come into its own — SST, Chuck Dukowski was touring his bands to death. There were a lot of bands that were influential in Seattle that I think had impact here beyond.

  KIM THAYIL: Touch and Go was influential — all these Seattle bands loved the Butthole Surfers, Big Black, and Scratch Acid.

  KEN STRINGFELLOW: The Wipers played in Bellingham — I got to see them at an all-ages show. That left a pretty strong impression on me.

  JACK ENDINO: There was a big influence from Joy Division on quite a few people. A big influence from the Birthday Party. Both of them were weird, angular, dissonant, strange, non-commercial bands.

  MATT VAUGHAN: The Replacements had a lot to do with influencing the Seattle scene. Their off-or-on performances, ripped up jeans and no care adolescent, backyard keggers, sittin’ on the roof behavior was an attitude we all related to. But they were also smart and wrote great songs.

  LIBBY KNUDSON: I always tell my “alternative” niece who’s sixteen, “There used to be characters. We used to see bands and you’d be scared.” Bands like Tales of Terror from San Francisco were an awesome band — I know they affected everyone. We’d never seen stuff like that before. Tex and the Horseheads — hairy-scary, fall-out-of-the-van. We would listen to Aerosmith’s Rocks, the Stooges, the MC5, Blue Cheer, the Dead Kennedys, Black Flag — it was like the revolving jukebox. My niece always asks me, “What do you think?” And I’m like, “Well, go buy the Scratch Acid record [1991’s The Greatest Gift].” It was just the community thing — somebody would get a new record and go, “Oh, you’ve got to listen to this.”

  DUFF McKAGAN: Every band was just kind of ripping off ideas, or writing ideas/songs together. It was very paternal. Every band had every other band’s back — it was like nothing I’ve ever seen since.

  CHAD CHANNING: We wouldn’t have a whole lot of money. We’d have enough — three or four bucks — to get across the ferry, and then we’d try to figure out how to get into the shows. There was one occasion, where a couple of my friends had managed to sneak on the ferryboat, sneak into the show — I think they went to see Fang — and then ended up sneaking back on the ferryboat again.

  KEVIN WOOD: There was nothing going on in Bainbridge. It was more of a hippie community. It was just easy — jump on a ferry and you’re right downtown, in the middle of the thick of it all. The music scene — right there pretty much at the end of a ferry ride.

  JONATHAN EVISON: My chief contribution to the history of Seattle music is that I introduced Stoney Gossard and Andy Wood on Bainbridge Island in 1983. Stoney used to spend the night on the island now and then and go to school with me. Andy and I had home ec class together at the time. That’s where they met. I was thirteen when I started March of Crimes. I was called Munkeyseeker back in the day — don’t ask me why. Ben Shepherd joined the band in 1982. Ben was excellent — as long as he ate his lithium. His Twin Reverb was the sweetest sounding amp ever. Stone Gossard joined the band in 1984 — he brought some Van Halen licks with him. To Stone’s credit, the first song he ever wrote had two guitar parts — one of them consisted of a single note that was bent up and down to dizzying effect, the other part had two chords. I sometimes call March of Crimes “the Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers of the Seattle punk scene,” because of the number of distinguished talents that worked their way through our ranks. We gave Jello Biafra the master tape of what was supposed to be our record, and he lost it. We were too stupid to make a copy.

  A young, pre-Soundgarden Ben Shepherd

  SLIM MOON: March of Crimes was one of the greatest hardcore bands I’d ever seen. It’s crazy how many people from all these bands came from Port Orchard or Gig Harbor. There was a whole scene over there, and Ben was one of those. You could make an argument that the story of the Seattle scene is really the story of just one or two graduation classes in Gig Harbor [laughs]. The people that invented grunge.

  KRISHA AUGEROT: We would regularly hang out at Nordstrom’s café — Stone and Regan picking out the ladies [laughs]. It was kind of the glam time — Stone had long hair and lots of hairspray, scarves. And Regan as well — a little bit of lipstick or eyeliner.

  STEVE TURNER: It was so alien to me. I remember friends trying to convince me that KISS was cool. I was like, “God, that stuff is so stupid” [laughs]. [My first band] was the Ducky Boys, and that was just Jeff Covell and Stone. We never even played a show — we just played in Jeff ’s basement. They were kind of metal kids, and I was a punk rocker. They actually turned me on to some stuff I liked, like Motörhead and early Alice Cooper. And I turned them on to more of the punk rock stuff — I remember Stone liking the more melodic/L.A. kind of hardcore stuff, like Agent Orange and Social Distortion. Before that, he’d hated all punk rock [laughs]. We cross-pollinated a bit, tried to play some songs, and never really got anywhere.

  CHAD CHANNING: We were mischief-makers. In Kingston, when we lived there, there was no “cop shop.” If someone called the police, it would take the police twenty minutes to show up — because the closest cop shop was in Poulsbo. We used to go out at night, and never stay at anybody’s place. I would say, “I’m going to stay at Andy’s house,” Andy would tell his dad, “I’m going to stay at Ben’s,” and Ben would say, “I’m going to stay at Chad’s.” And we ended up not staying anywhere — just camp out in the woods for the evening. Hang out, spray paint the town — cans at the ready. We did a fair share of getting things by “sticky fingers.”

  A lot of times, we’d stay out at Jefferson Beach, during the summer time. What we would do is me and Ben would stay at Andy’s place. We’d chop wood for Andy’s dad, and he’d give us five bucks apiece. We’d go buy eggs and bacon, steal packs of smokes, and we’d be set for the day [laughs]. We hitchhiked everywhere we went — we didn’t have cars. One time, we were heading up to Jefferson Beach — which we called JB — and we had this case of beer on us. We just broke the whole thing up and stuck it in our jackets and hitchhiked. One time, we decided we were going to jam. We got our gear — the drum set, amps, guitars — carrying all this heavy stuff down the road. We’d go about fifty feet and then take a break. All the while we’re trying to hitchhike! We finally wound up getting a ride from a guy with a van or a truck or something. Only when you’re young…

  MARK ARM: I lived close to University Way, which, for some unknown reason, has been called “The Ave” since the dawn of time. The black leather punks hung out on the Ave, usually in front of the Post Office or Roxy Music, which was a record store. Most of the people I hung out with didn’t own black leather jackets. We thought the guys who dressed like Sid Vicious or the Exploited were “punk rock Fonzies.” I drew a Flipper fish on the back of a black and white checked trench coat and wore brown boots. Stupid little things like the color and style of your footwear seemed like important signifiers at that age.

  BEN REW: I hung out on Broadway and on the Ave. They had a Baskin-Robbins and a 7-Eleven up on Broadway — that’s where everybody would hang out. Everyone — the skinheads, punk rockers, rockers — all hung out together. The only group that was really mutually exclusive was the Bopos, a bunch of mod guys that would ride around on their scooters. Half of them were from rich families and half of them were dirt poor. They’d go pick fights all the time.

  JOE TOUTONGHI: Jak’s Team and Bopo Boys were founded on skate-boards and punk rock, and just being free — living life on your own terms. Doing exactly what you wanted to do when you wanted to do it. The Bopo Boys, three of them are brothers of mine. Rob Alexander was this kid that we called “Bopo,” because he bounced around when he walked. It became a nickname for him, and they just took it from there and ran with it. Our gang had a club, the Grey Door. We got pretty notorious. I’m a Jak, I was never really a Bopo Boy, but since they were my little brothers, I was with them all the time.

>   MARK ARM: There was a group of punk rock dorks called the Bopo Boys, who would go around in a little pack carrying their skateboards. They would get the smallest guy in the group to try and pick a fight with someone, and then they would all gang up and beat the shit out of whoever took the bait.

  LIBBY KNUDSON: They were a loosely organized gang, I guess. They all looked like they were brothers — they were all skate hooligans. They were all very sweet for the most part. They were cute and dangerous.

  JOE TOUTONGHI: I wouldn’t call it a gang — it was more a brotherhood. Just a bunch of guys that really looked out for each other. We didn’t go fight other gangs, we didn’t sell drugs — on an organized level. There was no organization to it — just a bunch of guys from different walks of life that loved skateboards, punk rock, and travel around. We caused a lot of havoc — we did a lot of shitty things to people. We got in fights all the time — we didn’t fight alone. We’d go to parties and just pilfer the liquor cabinet and medicine chest. It got to the point where we would be kicked out of shows and parties before we even got there, by people that didn’t know us. A lot of what you’ve heard about the Bopo Boys is true.

  TIM HAYES: It was just like one massive party back in the day.

  JOHN LEIGHTON BEEZER: I used to call it “the small world effect” — “How do I know you? Oh yeah, your sister went to school with my drummer’s brother. And also, we both work at Starbucks.”

  MARK ARM: That’s what was cool about the Seattle punk scene, as opposed to what went on in the L.A., Boston, and New York hardcore scenes. We didn’t have a bunch of bald ex-jocks beating the shit out of hippies or each other. In Seattle, the punk, hardcore — or whatever you want to call it — scene of the early ’80s was pretty open. Anyone could come.

  CHAPTER 4

  “’79 through ’84 was hopping ”: Power Pop, New Wave, Heavy Metal

  Right around the time that the seeds were planted for grunge, Seattle experienced an explosion of power pop, new wave, and heavy metal–based bands around the region. Some were forgotten (the Allies, the Beakers), some thrived locally (Shadow, TKO), while some would go global (Queensrÿche, Metal Church).

  DAVID KINCAID: Part of the early ’80s was a revival of the ’60s. The early Beatle thing became huge again — the Kinks, Creedence. Sixties stuff played with a modern edge. It became part of the downtown club scene. That early period — ’79 through ’84 — was hopping.

  DAVE DEDERER: In ’79/’80, there were a couple of really good bands in town, that almost broke out. The Heaters, who became the Heats, had a big regional single called “I Don’t Like Your Face.” They were skinny tie power pop, like the Shoes or 20/20. And there was another band called the Cowboys. They weren’t really punk rock — either one of them could have been rock stars. They were just great rock ’n’ roll bands. They played at bars mostly, but they would play at the U Dub Ballroom or outdoors at Seattle Center at the Mural Amphitheater.

  MARK SMITH: The Visible Targets were predominantly a girl group — we always laughed about their name because the girls wore tight spandex pants and they had big asses. “Visible Targets,” get it? The Beat Pagodas were very good live. Really interesting music — lots of percussion, no guitar — a fun dance band. We played with the Neo Boys from Portland, we played with 54-40, there were other bands like Rally Go! and Little Bears from Bangkok.

  KIM THAYIL: The Beakers were pretty cool — sounded like Gang of Four, Talking Heads, Pere Ubu. Quirky, herky-jerky — that chaotic, edgy element of new wave.

  MARK SMITH: For [the Beakers’] first show, it was just really a noisy amateur trio. Oddly enough, after that show, the guys that ran Modern Productions were like, “Do you want to play at the Showbox?” We were like, “OK, we’re going to get a bass player.” We had met the guys in the Blackouts, and the singer in the Blackouts’ girlfriend, Frankie [Sundsten], played the bass pretty well — she joined us. We were on a compilation from Mr. Brown Records, which was K Records early, then a seven-inch single also from Mr. Brown Records, and then Engram Records put us on the first Seattle Syndrome. That was it. And we recorded some other stuff, but we didn’t last long enough to release it. A lot of that’s on [2004’s Four Steps Towards A Cultural Revolution].

  The Beakers

  KURT BLOCH: The Young Fresh Fellows’ first record came out [1984’s The Fabulous Sounds of the Pacific Northwest]. Got in a van, and started playing around the country.

  DAVID KINCAID: [The Allies] wrote this tune, “Emma Peel,” and ended up getting lots of local play, which was unheard of back then. We were on the air for ten years with that tune — it kept us working. By the time I left Seattle in ’85, we were pretty much the top-drawing club band. The Heats had national interest from labels — they had toured with Heart. At one point, we had a producer come up, who had produced the Bangles. At another point, another label came — the choice was between us and Queensrÿche. They signed Queensrÿche. The woman had the nerve to say to me, “Does the world need another band like the Allies?” I shot back, “Well, they sure as hell don’t need another Queensrÿche!”

  KURT BLOCH: There was a metal scene, a regional bar band scene — that was going fairly strong then. Bands playing mostly original music.

  TIM BRANOM: In 1981, when I first started playing out live, there was a pretty big scene going on, with Lake Hills and Bellevue. That’s where Myth would play a lot — with Geoff Tate — and a bunch of other bands. Geoff Tate would always put glitter in his hair. They were really good — they were actually better than Queensrÿche, but they didn’t get the record deal [laughs].

  MATT VAUGHAN: Geoff Tate was in Myth and his vocals were untouchable — he had that Euro metal thing about him. The guy was essentially an opera singer with a five-octave range. At the same time, there was a band called the Mob — named after the Black Sabbath Mob Rules record. Those two bands knew of each other, and Geoff secretly slipped in for a few days and cut a demo. My mom, Diana Vaughan, had been an independent label promoter in the ’70s. [She] heard it, got ’em a deal to EMI before they even did a show. It was kinda tricky though because Geoff never quit Myth and the demo had no band name attached to it, so he had to be lured over. As the name might suggest, Geoff was a bit of “a myth” himself — nobody saw him around much. He lived in Tacoma, was reclusive, went to Skinny Puppy shows, and took opera lessons. A month later, they received a feature story in Kerrang! That was that — they sold millions of records, toured the world. They had to come up with a name quick. The first song on the demo was “Queen of the Reich” — [Queensrÿche] was cut from that. Great band for its time and I’m sure guys like Mike McCready and other metalheads pricked up their ears. It was also a motivator for a Seattle band to make it big. This was a metal city, no matter how you slice it.

  KURDT VANDERHOOF: I left the Lewd, and stayed in San Francisco for almost a year, trying to put together Metal Church. There was a small group of us in San Francisco — we would get Iron Maiden imports, Motörhead, Saxon. All that stuff from England. I couldn’t find any good musicians that wanted to do a metal band. I wound up coming back home and starting it with people that I had grown up with.

  EMILY RIEMAN: Over there in the metal scene, the girls all flocked after guys who were in bands. It was definitely the boys were in the bands and the girls were not. Remember, we’re talking about eighteen-, nineteen-year-olds, and they’re all setting up this pseudo rock star environment, where there’s a backstage, and who’s in and who’s out. And I was like, “What the fuck is this all about?” [Laughs.] It was the antithesis of what the punk scene was in Seattle.

  MARK ARM: I remember seeing Overlord, and the singer had really long hair, an all-red jumpsuit, and Capezio dance shoes. One guitarist looked like Johnny Ramone, the other kept throwing kisses out into the audience and shaking everyone’s hands in the front row — at one point he may have thrown flowers into the crowd. The scope widened, and there was more co-mingling — not so much in terms of music, but at least in terms of pa
rties. The parties weren’t all punk rock people anymore — there would be punks and people who were in Shadow and Overlord, and their friends who were not afraid to hang out with the punks [laughs]. But I think that’s an important thing — especially in the Green River to Pearl Jam trajectory — which includes Mike McCready from Shadow. The kids in Shadow were really into Def Leppard, Hanoi Rocks, and KISS. I remember their goal was to sign to a major label at a younger age than Def Leppard.

  EMILY RIEMAN: I went to high school with [McCready] at Roosevelt. When I was in high school, my friends were basically the Fastbacks and the Silly Killers — all these people in that crowd, who were a bit older than I was. One night, Shadow was playing with Overlord somewhere in Seattle, and almost on a lark, everybody was like, “Let’s go see what these bands sound like, these metal bands — it’ll be funny.” And I said, “No! It’ll not be funny! You don’t understand, I go to high school with these people — they’re fools man! They walk around the halls of Roosevelt High School like they’re fucking rock stars, and they’re sixteen years old! ” All wearing their spandex and stupid hair. I just loathed that shit — I hated Roosevelt, I hated high school. I said, “You’re not going to make me go see these people play on my own free time on the weekend.” Of course, everyone was like, “No, let’s do it — it’ll be fun.” So we all got into the car and went. I remember Lulu [Gargiulo] was standing too close to the stage — there was a line between the band and the audience — and they actually had some security person pull her off, and that created a lot of havoc. At one point, this girl was yelling at Lulu to “Get the fuck out of the club!” I ended up grabbing her around the neck, and Lulu punched her straight in the face. It was a total clash between punk rock and metal. I remember getting in the car with everybody and going, “I told you they were stupid!”