Seattle Music News

(The Rathouse's front porch circa 1992- L to R: TV Kenly, Scott Marquardt, Julian Gibson, Adrian Garver, Steve 'Hoagie' Gero, Astrella Norell, Carla Sindle, the 'author', Brad Stevens...picture courtesy of Dan Halligan from 10 Things Zine)

PART TWO: "Happily Ever After Means Eternal Hell" (1990-1996)

"...And I-hi, hoe-whoa, I'm still alive, yarrrrll!" ("Alive" by Pearl Jam; from 'Ten')

When Seattle turned the page from the 80s to the 90s. I remember feeling like everything changed completely. The change was so abrupt and shocking to me that I had to ignore the significance of living in one of the most popular cities in America...by getting completely shitfaced almost everyday. Starbucks Coffee was getting really big, Microsoft was gaining power to unleash worldwide insanity upon us all, and Soundgarden had just signed with A&M Records. This news was exciting to some of the glamorous booty-swirling chicks and chicksters in this town, especially those who bought anything/everything that SubPop put out...but for those of us who wanted to continue to play loud, abrasive and fast punk fused with speed metal, we ignored this new Seattle yarl rock, and continued to punish ours and others' eardrums and braincells with our unpolished, immature brand of insanity, while exclaiming "FUCK SUB POP !!!"

This is not to say that everything that came out on SubPop was bad, or that most of us didn't like Soundgarden (one of my top ten desert island discs is defintely "BadMotorFinger"). I would rather have listened to Mudhoney or The Fastbacks than Alice In Chains at the time. We also realized that that a phemonenon was beginning in Seattle that would change the face of popular music forever. Time has proven, as with all fads, that it was a brief shining moment that still has a minty aftertaste. Seattle contributed an overwhelming mass of radioactive sludge that contaminated the airwaves. As I am hopefully correctly representing all my peers' past and present, we did our best to ignore this pest called 'grunge', and listened to bands like Celtic Frost, Slayer, Poison Idea, Napalm Death, Christ On Parade, Deicide, Morbid Angel, and...<gulp>...Neurosis (more on them later).

Maybe you've noticed that a lot of the forementioned bands are of the metal ilk. you are correct! See, most of us punkers here in Seattle were really heshers at heart. Mix shitty generic beer in with some of the most potent mind-numbing marijuana in the United States, add louder-than-fuck metal durge...and you've got a recipie for one of the heaviest mind fogs you could ever achieve. Wanna make a sunny day cloudy? It's easy...Hang out with a bunch of heshers.

Bands like Aspirin Feast, Fitz Of Depression, NMF, Model Citizens, The Derelicts, Three Legged Dog, Christ On A Crutch, Dumt, Date Rape, Whipped, T.F.L., Positive Greed, Morphius, and North American Bison were slogging it out at all ages halls all over the region. My band Last Gasp were kind of known as the young local nutballs of the scene. In the middle of it all, you had characters like Orin (mentioned in Part One), who was like a sometimes-compulsive-lying Godfather to most of us young punks. If you had Orin on your side, things were ok and skinheads would probably not fuck with you. There was a sweet side to Orin...a big baby type of deal...and a really scary side to Orin too. Only those who had to deal with this bad side know. To those who did...my heart goes out to you.

1991: By this time, the Jesters of Chaos had broken up, and Aspirin Feast just imploded like a toxic punk rock zit. All ages punk shows were getting harder to put on, because kids didn't want to behave, and alcohol is not exactly a mellow psychedelic. Last Gasp was ending it's patience with one another, and we too, by the end of 1991 had broken up in sad circumstances. Our lead singer Ajax had lost the will to be creative with us. Our bass player John started playing drums in a band called Sick And Wrong, known for their frontwoman Mr. Wendy, who wore a strap-on flatulent penis. Chris the drummer of Last Gasp and I joined up with Robert Jenkins (Hells Smells), TV Kenly, Scott Marquardt, Brad Stevens, and Astrella Norell, our ages ranging from '19' to '50', in what could possibly be my least favorite band of all time: Officer Down. Maybe it was the fact that I was still only twenty, and a little immature at the time...but that band just might have packed one hundred years of continuous drug and alcohol abuse for one person, into two years among seven people.

Meeting the people mentioned above introduced me to a much wider social circle than before. This scene combined the upper echelon of Seattle rock royalty (Kim Thayil and Soundgarden), Jesse Bernstein (who sadly commited suicide two months after Officer Down was formed, halting the ongoing production of TV and Robert's never-released cinematic masterpiece "Gorefest"), Richard Peterson (yes, Richard Peterson, the notable Seattle musician and Johnny Mathis superfan), and people from new bands like Seven Year Bitch, DC Beggars, Alcohol Funnycar, and of course The Gits. A whole flux of people, many in their mid to late twenties, had flocked to Seattle from the midwest. Two notable areas of interest were Chicago, and Antioch University in Ohio. Also, many Evergreen College alumni were involved in this scene. A lot of these people that I met were artists of a higher caliber than just playing in punk bands. For a brief moment, most of the newer bands sounded more sophisticated than the hardcore bands. Even Officer Down had it's moments. Hands down, I considered The Gits to be the best out of us all back then.

Now, this is the point when everything seemed to get the most negative, at least for me. The fast, fun speed and energy of punk rock dwindled until it sat like a pile of shit in the middle of a rendering plant. Sure, some bands continued on playing with the same energy...bands like The Gits and the DC Beggars played fast and made it sound fun and soulful. Seven Year Bitch took Selene Vigil's poetry and set it to mid tempo polyrhythmic punk in a fully-realized original form that only sounded like them and no one else. It was good to finally see local bands that sounded very different from one another.

Officer Down went the other way- a way that I detested from the beginning. Chris added sheet metal alongside his normal drumkit and started wearing bone necklaces. Our band was so off-key at times, and possibly this could have been because everyone was always really fucked up. Sometimes, we practiced on acid, and things would get really weird...discordant, flat, and bitter. However, there were times when we played and things would just snap right into place. Smiles all around. During those times, we sort of sounded like Romeo Void on heroin. Other friends of ours from other bands that broke up were doing the same thing: playing slow industrial bottom-heavy, sawtooth-grinding metal and utilizing multimedia presentations similtaneously, like Eric from Subvert, who formed Christdriver after Subvert broke up.

One half of Aspirin Feast went on to form Laceration, a band that followed suit when all of the Napalm Death bands slowed down too. Bands like TCHKUNG! kickstarted the whole new Northwest industrial mud dance. This, in my opinion, was a step backwards into territory being previously explored and maybe continuously explored way too long, because everyone was too fucking STONED to pick their feet up out of the mud puddle.

If I sound obnoxiously bitter, it's because I am. Everyone's favorite band at the time, Neurosis, took most of my friends down into the dirt, rather than up in the sky to find a way to escape from the planet Earth. These were the gardeners of the punk scene, in my opinion, even though they are mighty talented at what they do, and have gone through hell like the rest of us to get to that point. I'm not knocking them...my tastes are not for everybody and to each their own...but I would say that almost everyone in my band and a lot of people that I knew wanted to get on this band's jock at the time. Our practice space became a noise club, where ten hour-plus industrial jams became the norm (and two members of Neurosis once participated in one of these jams). No songs were ever written from these jams...but you would have people beating on anything they could find; four or five guitarists, all playing completely seperate things, maybe three tone-deaf bass players, three or four people screaming incoherently into rusty microphones. Truly this was music of the mentally tortured. I took part in maybe two of these jams, but ceased very quickly to be a part of these ear-splitting fuck-off fests. If only the Nazis would have allowed drum circles in their concentration camps...

All in all, I would say that we got to play some pretty cool shows, went on tour, met some great people. Other great bands, like Zulu Chainsaw, formed around this time. 1991 zoomed into 1992 like a blackout drinking binge. 1992 was the year that Jeffro from the Jesters died in a motorcycle crash, which hit very close to home for all of us who knew him, and I was in Arizona and couldn't go to the service. I can't say enough about how cool that guy was. Stephanie Sargeant of Seven Year Bitch died that year too. Officer Down heard the news while we were on tour. This kind of dampened our already dark souls even more.

Our band consisted of five guys and two women...WHOOPS...sorry, I meant 'girls'. In my life so far up until then, I had only played music with guys. Here I was, in a band with two very feminist human beings at the height of the whole Bikini Kill riot girl era. I felt a very strong competitive force from all of the women around me. It was sort of a "Fuck you, I'm equal if not better than you no matter what you say or do" vibe. It was very intimidating for me to be around, and I am proud to say that I have since done musical collaborations with other women who are stronger, nicer and a lot more mature than some of these angry punk rock women that I had to deal with...but hey- this could have actually been very good for a young dimwit like me...and this is not to say that I was that much more mature at the time anyway. In fact, I was probably so immature, that I just simply couldn't handle the normal dynamics of very creative women who were a bit older than me. I was constantly blacking out drunk and pissing everyone off. I did some very "punk rock" things not worth mentioning here...they were mostly things, like accidentally projectile vomiting in some punk rock feminist woman's kitchen at a party I was never invited to, and things like that. Harmless stuff really.

Tacoma had bands like Portrait of Poverty kicking ass up here and down there and cross-country. Millions of other scenes were going on all over the world. Nirvana had cracked the punk code wide open, and nothing was left to the imagination anymore. Our little community was being rocked in a good way by bands like Pregasm at the Lake Union Pub. Tim from Aspirin Feast formed Chicken, and started a label called Pot Pie Records. Other places to play were The Off Ramp, RockCandy, The Weathered Wall, and The Crocodile Cafe. SubPop was still putting out pretty good local music by bands like The Fastbacks, Dickless, and The Supersuckers. Empty Records put out good vinyl by bands like Gas Huffer.

Many people from the Ohio contingent (The Gits etc.) all lived on Capitol Hill in Seattle. Some of those folks, like Mia Zapata and Julian Gibson of the DC Beggars lived in a house on 19th that they christened "The Rathouse". The Gits and The Beggars started Rathouse Records to put out music made by their mutual friends' bands. Officer Down's only 7 inch came out on that label. Out of the bands, The Gits were the powerhouse that was gaining momentum everytime someone in this town blinked their eyes. With all of the other popular Seattle hoohaa drizzling in one ear, out the other and into the gutter, it was nice to see one of our favorite bands start doing well. The Gits were one of the most popular bands and live acts in Seattle in 1992 going into 1993.

Everything changed for the worst on July 7, 1993.

Mia Zapata was found raped and murdered on Capitol Hill. TV Kenly, one of our lead singers, was the last one of our friends to see her alive, and did all she could to try and talk Mia into staying the night at her apartment or catching a cab the night before. Immediately, anyone connected or close to Mia was interviewed at least once or twice by detectives. I was one of the people interviewed, along with everyone in Officer Down.

Mia was definitely one of a kind. She could also get crazy when she was drunk. We all had some good times that revolved around Mia. What a talented force to be reckoned with. She inspired all of us to be better than we were musically. One of the last conversations that I had with her was at a party two days before she died. The pep talk that she gave me was based on telling me that she felt that I was more talented than the music that I was playing at the time, and that I should follow my heart more. I will never forget her for saying that, and how much pride it gave me to go on, when I really didn't have much at the time.

They found Mia's killer in 2003 and sentenced him to 36 years in prison. Hopefully this is long enough, that if he ever gets out, he'll be too old to ever kill again.

During that whole time, our leader and mentor Robert Jenkins was accused as a main suspect due to his relationship with Mia. All of this really made our band a real bummer to be in at the time. Everyone seemed guilty for no reason. I even caught myself wondering if I was responsible just because I was a man. Robert thought up some plan where all of us were going to sell mushrooms grown in horseshit to fund the recording of our new album. The other plan was to dress up in army fatigue uniforms with all of us holding guns so as to avenge Mia's murder. This image was supposed to go on the cover. If this was a joke or not, I wanted no part of it regardless. We were going to call the album "Purveyors Of Justice" or some bullshit like that. I had reached my limit, and was the first to quit the band by the end of the summer. Chris followed suit a week later.

After that experience, I went back to listening to plain old rock and roll. I eventually played in a band called My Name from Tacoma for a while, and went onto other things. The Seattle hardcore punk scene was still kicking ass and taking names by 1994-95, even after the terrible sadness surrounding Kurt Cobain's suicide. The Lake Union Pub closed down sometime around then. Bands like Bristle, Monster Truck Driver, Shug, Bone Cellar, The Piss Drunks, Inhumane, Patchouli Sewer, 66 Saints, The Kent 3, and the faster-meaner-than-shit ZEKE were doing very well in both D.I.Y. terms and talent.

Some people got older, like we all do, and just disapeared, or you would see them at the punk rock baseball league games that people starting organizing in the early 90s. Lots of people that I knew got into heroin. Many musicians get into music to get into heroin, so I'm not sure what to think about that. My first real girlfriend from high school, later Ajax's girlfriend Jennifer Justus, became addicted, along with our friend Shannon McNamara, who I met when she was John from Last Gasp's girlfriend. Jennifer was eventually murdered in the late 90s by a serial killer who picked up prostitutes, and she was found in the woods along I-90 near North Bend WA. Shannon cleaned up for a while and became Legs McNeil's girlfriend in New York. We learned that tragedy struck when she relapsed and caught a fatal flesh-eating bacterial infection from a using a bad needle.

By 1996, I stopped keeping track of a lot of the old people, since the past was so painful. That year ushered in the newer Seatttle bands making it worldwide, like The Presidents of The U.S.A.'s popularity peak that same year, along with the Foo Fighters gaining massive attention. My Name auditioned for Capitol Records in 1995 and Interscope in 1996, with muscle backing us up, but the stars were not aligned enough to sail the cosmic battleship to stardom. Needless to say, I gained a newfound respect for bands like Pearl Jam. In many ways, they had it much tougher than us. It's not easy to be rich and famous from what I hear.

Someone someday will write part three and part four of this series, with all of the bands that rocked the Storeroom Tavern, Uncle Rocky's, the Rebar, Chicago's next to the Key Arena, the China Club, etc...but the real future of Seattle's hardcore punk scene is a little place next to the Space Needle called The Funhouse. This might be the only place left in town where you can intimately see the new and old crustcore bands on reunion tours, and of course the pushing, shoving and circle dancing part of punk that was so fun and funny in the first place. You'll find all the hillbilly punks hanging out at Last Chance Chili, and the Nu Metal crowd (all ages or 21+) down at El Corazon. As for most all ages hardcore punk rock shows, it's not looking too good around here. Maybe this will change. The Misfits logo will always look cool on a hoodie...and so our future generations will always latch onto classic punk with spike-gloved hands. Hey kids...keep forming bands!!

After getting back from a tour in 2001, I was walking through the Greenlake area, and I ran into Orin...the Seattle punk rock king...twelve years after I met him originally. He always talked like a toothless pirate, which was always endearing. "HEY FREDDIE, WHA'S UP? HOW YOU DOIN' BUDDY?", "Doing good...just got back from a tour.", "AH YEAH? HEY MAN, SO DID I. I'VE BEEN ROADYING FOR TINA TURNER...". I knew that Orin was lying out of the few teeth he had left...OR WAS HE?

Three days later, Orin and Pete of Seismic Sound died in a van crash. They both were coming back from an out-of-town show when whoever was driving (most likely Orin) fell asleep and and crashed into an enbankment. The equipment in the back crushed Pete to death on contact. Bleeding from massive internal injuries, Orin climbed out to the highway to flag down help, and then died on the scene. I feel like the all-but-forgotten Seattle hardcore punk rock scene died along with him that night...but there are surely existing contenders for that challenge.

SEATTLE'S NOT DEAD!