Grunge Is Dead

by Greg Prato

  DUFF McKAGAN: Paul Solger and I started playing guitars together, and decided to explore that — we morphed Ten Minute Warning into this really heavy, experimental band. Our singer, Steve Verwolf, was this guy with long hair and tattoos, and he’d pour silver paint over himself when we played. Greg Gilmore was the drummer, and he would play with his back facing the crowd. It was a really fucking cool band. Really heavy, really slowed down. Born in this damp basement of this girl’s house — that’s where we stayed and rehearsed.

  LIBBY KNUDSON: Steve Verwolf was a little “hairy-scary” — you never knew what he was going to do.

  JEFF AMENT: We were in such awe of that band. They seemed a little less approachable.

  BLAINE COOK: Them kicking me out of the band one Sunday morning, and not paying me for the last shows we did — that was the last memory with Duff [laughs]. Wanting to get my $15 so I could go see the Damned play. I ran into Duff, and I was like, “What the fuck? Where’s my fifteen bucks from that show?” “Oh, that got used for something else.” Luckily, I ran into some other clown I knew — he had just won tickets off the radio.

  DUFF McKAGAN: I didn’t plan on leaving [Seattle]. What happened in Seattle in the early ’80s … recession hit Seattle especially hard. There was no Microsoft — there was just Boeing. Boeing was going through some problems in the ’70s, they were threatening closing down, and there were billboards around Seattle — “Would the last person who leaves Seattle please turn out the light?” Basically, Seattle was going to shut down. And it almost did in the early ’80s. You’d go downtown, and I swear, it would be, like, newspapers blowing down the street. Pretty desolate. And heroin started to creep its way into the scene. It became epidemic by ’83. There was pretty much no place to play — except for rented rehearsal places. If you were twenty-one and over I guess there was, but it wasn’t supported by the punk rock scene — because everybody was underage. That’s when I bailed — in August of ’84.

  JOE TOUTONGHI: He was going to give himself a year to become a rock star. He had an old black ’72 Maverick or something, that the brakes went out on, and he crashed into a BMW dealership down there. But he did it.

  JOHN LEIGHTON BEEZER: I have no idea what happened in Los Angeles, but based on what I do know about Guns N’ Roses, he went down there, was looking for a band, found some reasonably talented musicians, and kicked them into shape. Axl Rose was quoted in interviews as saying, “I was really influenced by Elton John.” OK, well, whatever happened with Guns N’ Roses, it wasn’t coming from him [laughs]. I see Duff as basically the guy who went down there and preached the gospel to the savages. Guns N’ Roses making it was the first indication that whatever we were onto was for real.

  Whatever became of the Fastbacks’ bill-mates?

  BLAINE COOK: I remember when Guns N’ Roses first came to play in Seattle. That was maybe 1985 — he showed up wearing some long, black and red leather trench coat.

  MARK ARM: Guns N’ Roses played one of their first shows at the Gorilla Gardens. There was a packed hardcore show in the other room, but only a few people — mostly Duff ’s friends — watched Guns N’ Roses. I went ’cause I saw a flyer that said “DUFF’S NEW BAND FROM L.A.,” and I was a huge Ten Minute Warning fan. I don’t remember much except that they butchered a couple of Stones songs. I couldn’t believe that Duff quit Ten Minute Warning and moved to L.A. for this. They did get way better — I watched them destroy the Cult a couple of years later.

  DUFF McKAGAN: [Guns N’ Roses] opened for the Fastbacks up there. That year I was down in L.A., we formed this band, and we wanted to tour right away — we didn’t have a record out or anything. I booked us a punk rock tour — down the West Coast, starting in Seattle. We had to hitchhike to Seattle — our car broke down not even 150 miles outside of L.A. — and use the Fastbacks’ gear. So we were pretty dead tired. It took us three days to make it up there. We played the gig, and we sucked. But it was fun for me to be up there — hanging out with all my old compadres.

  JOHN CONTE: Duff was going to make it. I don’t even think it was on his to-do list. It was just going to happen.

  TOM PRICE: I remember running into him when the U-Men were down there. He had clearly lost weight — hadn’t eaten in quite a while. A few months later, “Welcome to the Jungle” hits, and Duff ski is a super rock star.

  CHAPTER 6

  “Church was really in session”: Venues, The Rocket, Record Stores, Radio

  In addition to bands, other factors figured prominently into the creation of grunge and the Seattle music scene of the ’80s, including punk venues where up-and-coming bands could play, The Rocket newspaper, select record stores, and local radio.

  EMILY RIEMAN: In the early ’80s, there were a lot of all-ages clubs. Someone would rent the room at UCT, IOOF, the Polish Hall, or St. Joe’s. It was real do-it-yourself punk rock.

  TIM HAYES: There seemed to be a lot of alternative venues: the Golden Crown, Danceland, Rosco Louie, Washington Hall, Gorilla Room, Bahamas Underground, Wrex — which turned into the Vogue — Astor Park, the Meatlocker, the Funhole, the Mountaineers, Rainbow Tavern, Grey Door, Graven Image, Metropolis, the Ditto, and of course the Showbox.

  LARRY REID: There were sporadic attempts at creating venues — the Bird comes to mind.

  NICK SCOTT: The Bird was basically an Odd Fellows Hall, I believe, with the shows on the second floor, and a big staircase that I would periodically stumble down completely wasted after getting peanut butter thrown all over me by the Weirdos. The Talmud Torah would become the venue for out of town bands. The Talmud Torah — like all the punk clubs — was filthy, in a questionable area, and smelled like old beer and punk rockers’ sweat. It got hotter than hell in there with the 650 btus coming out of each person, and would just shake when some of the louder bands would play there. I think it had become the Showbox by this time.

  JOHN BIGLEY: Back then, [the Showbox] was more of a rental hall. No drinks — just $5 in, goons at the door, bad pa, and that was it. They had some really killer shows — church was really in session.

  KIM WARNICK: It’s a pretty big place. I think its capacity is 1,000 or so.

  REGAN HAGAR: The Showbox was a little oasis. Right in the downtown area, by the public market. If you go there now, it is so cleaned up — it’s hard to imagine it was ever that way. I went in with another friend, Rob Alexander, from Bainbridge High School — this guy approached us, and said, “Do you guys want to come to the show next week? Hang these flyers — I’ll let you in for free.” So we hung flyers, and then that following week, a guy who worked for Modern Enterprises — which was a couple of guys who were bringing bands to the city — were renting out the Showbox. I basically didn’t leave. I was one of the youngest there — we ranged from fourteen- to nineteen-year-old kids. We did everything — cleaned it, hung posters for the week’s shows, tore tickets, ran security. They basically paid us in cheap beer for the longest time — we were just happy to be there. We also had a room that had a lot of records, and we hung out there during the day — like a club fort.

  BLAINE COOK: Regan Hagar and I had a “black market thing” there — we were taking people’s money and letting them in at shows that were sold out. We had quite a little bank account set aside.

  KYLE NIXON: The floor — during the shows — would bounce up and down, because it was spring-loaded.

  ROD MOODY: It was always an adventure, due to the presence of a donut shop next door, which attracted the creepiest drug-pimping lowlife imaginable. As well as a bunch of brainless heavy metal kids. So when punks with two-foot-tall pink Mohawks ran into these people, it got pretty sketchy. Fights and stabbings were commonplace on the sidewalk and in the parking lot.

  REGAN HAGAR: It lasted for a few years, and then those guys tried to get bigger and branch out into renting bigger venues, and it all fell apart. The Showbox shut down for a few years, and then later reopened. I think for a while it turned into a showgirl place.

  BILL RIEFLIN: Rosco Louie was a
really great place — it was an underground art gallery down in Pioneer Square.

  LARRY REID: I graduated from art school and opened up a gallery in 1978 — Rosco Louie. It was heavily influenced by punk rock. I started incorporating punk shows into visual art aspects of my gallery. Fairly small, but we had a remarkable run of interesting national and local bands. One hundred people would really pack the place. We had a lot of groups that otherwise wouldn’t have come to Seattle — Arto Lindsay’s DNA, the Bush Tetras. I closed the gallery at the end of 1982. I went to a show in 1983 in San Francisco at a place called Tool and Die. I just fell in love with this dingy little place, and in 1983, I opened Graven Image Gallery. The focus of that was less on visual arts — it was a club and a practice space.

  ALICE WHEELER: The Graven Image was a really small art gallery down in Pioneer Square. They had a basement where bands would play — it was really claustrophobic, especially when you got like twenty-five people in there. I remember seeing the U-Men play there.

  DYLAN CARLSON: The Graven Image had a sister club that was even smaller and dingier — the Grey Door.

  ROD MOODY: The Grey Door hosted some amazing shows. One of the more memorable involved a group of skaters who built a bonfire in the middle of the street at a Suicidal Tendencies show, and skated through or over the flames.

  JONATHAN EVISON: The Grey Door used to pay us in pot.

  BRUCE FAIRWEATHER: It was like a Bopo Boys’ club. They had quarter pipe in there, so people could skateboard around, and the Bopo Boys would basically stand around and act tough. They tried to steal your beer.

  BILL RIEFLIN: The Gorilla Room I remember didn’t last very long. Places were always being opened up and closed down — by the liquor board, or the police. Anything that smacked of wildness — like a bunch of kids renting halls and playing music — was really suspect, and watched very carefully.

  DUFF McKAGAN: The owner who ran [the Gorilla Room] was pretty shady, and that was good for us — because we could go in there, drink, and play. The Liquor Board came in there, busted me, and arrested me. That place actually closed down not too long after that.

  MARK ARM: In 1983, a Frenchman named Hugo — who had saved up a bunch of money fishing in Alaska — came down to Seattle and decided that he wanted to start a youth center. He got a space in Pioneer Square and opened up the Metropolis. I don’t think his dreams of a youth center materialized, but it became an all-ages place, where punk bands could play. It was a place for touring bands and local bands alike. Mr. Epp played there — Hugo paid us $100 the first time. We were like, “Oh my God, I can’t believe we made $100! ” The Metropolis was a musical incubator for the kids who were on the cusp of becoming twenty-one. Several of those kids would end up in Soundgarden, Green River, Girl Trouble, Skin Yard, Feast, the Melvins, and Nirvana. Buzz Osborne and Matt Lukin from the Melvins would drive out from Aberdeen almost every weekend to hang out at the Metropolis. They would crash on somebody’s floor, and then go back to Aberdeen on Sunday. Sometimes they’d bring friends, like this really tall guy, who turned out to be Krist Novoselic. I’m sure Kurt [Cobain] came with them sometimes, but I didn’t meet him then. They would have assorted people — ranging from total stoner freaks to future lumberjacks. Dale Crover was one of these stoner dudes with the sheepskin-lined denim jacket and a scrub moustache [laughs].

  JEFF AMENT: The Metropolis really allowed us to grow. It was easy to get a show, no matter how crappy your band was. They had shows three, four, or five nights a week. I went up and asked Hugo, “I can’t afford to go to all these shows. Is there some work I can do?” He said I could sweep up after every show and get in for free. A really great, communal vibe there — almost hippie-like, in some regards.

  Crowd chaos at the Metropolis, 1984

  TRACY MARANDER: I remember the Metropolis being dark and black inside — it was pretty small and very sweaty. The smell of clove cigarettes.

  ROD MOODY: Susan Silver — later to become Mrs. Chris Cornell — worked the door and helped book the shows.

  SUSAN SILVER: Metropolis was physically a beautiful space. It had been an old bar — probably in the turn of the century — so it had a gorgeous wood carved bar. An old one-story brick building in the area of Seattle known as Pioneer Square — where Seattle was really built, and then built again once it burned down. This was the early 1900s. [Hugo] and my boyfriend Gordon [Doucette] put a lot of energy into the inside. It had been empty for years, and they did a lot of really creative things with color and galvanized steel, and built a stage. There was a parachute for a stage backdrop. Our posters every week said, “All ages, anyone.” It was really a place for people to come and enjoy music, but also to be creative. It was a space for people to come work on art projects, or have community meetings. We’d rent these 16mm films from the library and show foreign art films on the wall without sound during the show. I ran the Juice Bar, helped with the atmosphere, and mediating between the partners if necessary. That segued into booking shows on my own after it closed.

  ROD MOODY: It was all pretty remarkable considering the place only lasted a year — before “the man” shut it down.

  MATT DENTINO: [In the] fall of ’84 a friend had me work on an old Chinese movie theater — Gorilla Gardens. Opening night, I tended bar and all the alcohol disappeared quickly — cheap drinks to my friends. That proved to be my payment for all the backbreaking work I had done. They had rows of discarded Boeing airplanes seats used in the theater which I had to move myself after cleaning, then de-trashing that rat infested gig near Chinatown. Someone said Bruce Lee had visited there when they showed his movies in the early ’70s. He is buried in Seattle and went to UW [University of Washington] too.

  CHRIS HANZSEK: It was all red velvet chairs — red velvet carpet.

  CHARLES PETERSON: That was a rank place if there ever was one [laughs]. But a really vital venue.

  KIM THAYIL: There were two venues — Rock Theater and the Gorilla Gardens. The whole thing was called “Gorilla Gardens/Rock Theater.” Sometimes you’d have one set of acts in one hall — two different admission fees. Sometimes you’d have one admission fee and have seven bands alternating stages. That did well for a few years — they got a lot of national, international, and local bands. It was an opportunity for local bands to open up for touring acts.

  MARK ARM: Sometimes, there would be two different shows going on at once. And sometimes, there would be a pop metal show in one room and a punk rock show in the other. These two audiences would meet in the lobby and toilets. It was so funny, you’d see these punk rock dirt bags mixing with kids in pink spandex and teased hair. I’m sure everyone from each side was looking at each other saying, “You look retarded!” [Laughs.] I remember watching a security guy stop a David Lee Roth emulator at the door because he had a bottle of Jack Daniels. And the fake David Lee pleading, “You’ve got to let me in; I’m supposed to be onstage! I need this bottle! It’s not really booze — it’s filled with Coke. ” The security guard sniffed it, and let him in.

  The March of Crimes plot their next move (note a slightly afroed Buzz Osborne in the crowd)

  MICHELLE AHERN-CRANE: Andy [Wood] took me to my first punk rock show — it was his eighteenth birthday — at the Gorilla Gardens. It was a sort of infamous night — where the rockers got into a fight with the punk rockers. Andy, at the time, was a rocker, and I remember seeing somebody pick him up by his white fur coat and hurl him into a chain link fence. It is a notorious show, because it was on the news. I don’t know what caused it — it was really obvious what camp you were in back then.

  SCOTTY CRANE: The two crowds got in a fight that spilled into the streets and Molotov cocktails were being thrown — vandalism through the area. News helicopters captured it for the evening news. I remember watching it on TV with my mom — who was horrified — and said that I would not be able to go there anymore. As if either of us had a choice — the club was closed for good.

  KIM WARNICK: The Crocodile Café is another great one —
smaller, but it’s been here since the early ’80s. I know the Fastbacks played when it was a Greek restaurant — I think we may be one of the few bands that can attest to that. It was like playing your living room.

  DUFF McKAGAN: The Vogue was the Wrex before it was the Vogue — it was twenty-one and over. You had to sign your minor’s musician form to play there. In the Fastbacks, we played there opening for Joan Jett, but I would have to go in, go straight to the stage, play the gig, and leave. It wasn’t any fun for me.

  GARRETT SHAVLIK: The Vogue shows were always Tuesday and Wednesday nights — that’s not your typical party night. And there was this guy, Monty, who was the bartender, and he owns the Vogue. He dressed in drag, but was this burly guy. And Monty was super sweet, he was like, “Anything you guys need, just let me know.”

  BEN REW: You’d go up to places like the Frontier Room, and people were fucking nodded out of their skulls. That was right down the street from the Vogue.

  KRISHA AUGEROT: The Monastery was a gay disco, that for some reason or other, they started marketing to regular kids. On the weekends we would go there with Stone and Regan, and some of my friends — I hung out with a group of girls that were all very young. Fourteen years old and going out all night long — doing drugs and staying there from nine to nine in the morning.

  DAVID MEINERT: [The Monastery] was targeted by the more social conservatives. There were all sorts of rumors of drugs, teen prostitution — although I think really, it was a gay dance club. They eventually passed this law, called the Teen Dance Ordinance — if you had anyone under eighteen, you couldn’t have anyone under fifteen or over twenty-one. It basically shut down that scene.

  DYLAN CARLSON: In Tacoma, there was a place called Community World Theater, that had a lot of shows.

  ALLISON WOLFE: [The Community World Theater] is a great place — an old theater that was scraped out, and Nirvana played there all the time. Neko Case worked the door.