It is, for better or worse...
Seattle-based bands
have topped the world charts
for the past few years. Nirvana, Pearl Jam,
and Soundgarden have sold millions of records.
...releases to a major label debut...
...musical movements centered around Seattle
in a sound and style that became known as grunge.
A month before that album came out,
they were...
...the basis of the generation
of... X societies.
How does the grunge movement,
as I understand it, is the fact that these kids
have the ability to say anything they want to say,
express anything they want to express,
any anger, any pain, any anguish, any torment,
and they feel a kinship, a oneness,
that this young man has been through, tragedy...
Thanks a lot. This is gonna be the last song.
♪ Enough of your doctrines ♪
♪ Your manifestos ♪
♪ I'm a simple man ♪
♪ I speak with simple words ♪
.1' Talk about inclusion Not exclusion ♪
♪ I sing my song ♪
♪ Across these rivers, Valleys, mountains, seas ♪
♪ Fields, oceans ♪
♪ I'm a teacher ♪
♪ You're a teacher too ♪
♪ I'm a pencil-pusher ♪
♪ I'm a ditch digger I'm a loser ♪
♪ Let's start a riot ♪
♪ Under the night air ♪
Remember those big bubbles
that used to float through the middle of town?
Yeah.
- These big bubbles, man. - Yeah, they still do.
Yeah, you see them once in a while.
They've got this big pit out in the bay,
and it's like all, like this weird shit
and it comes out of the process, and the way...
the bubbles they're like this big and they'd float around
and they were bad toxic things. So, the way they get rid of it
is they got these big water sprinklers
and they just like run sprinklers over it to pop them...
But a bubble still gets out once in a while.
They're huge, they're like...
Like bubble of death.
I went to Bothell High School which was a suburban hell-hole.
Um, there's a sign as you enter town that says,
'Welcome to Bothell for a day or a lifetime'
and someone...
Someone, I wish I had done it,
but someone erased the B-O-T at one time
so it was 'Welcome to hell for a day or a lifetime'.
The Northwest is where flying saucers,
the term "flying saucers" was coined.
And the Northwest is where Louie Louie's from,
the Northwest is where...
it's the serial killer capital of the world.
I mean, we have more unsolved serial killings up here
than any other place in the United States.
I mean, the Manson family used to vacation up this way.
This place is weird. A lot of occult stuff.
All this stuff is a factor in what happened in the music.
I mean, when the weather's crappy,
you don't wanna go outside.
You know, you basically feel like staying in the house
and, uh...
it's a very logical thing to wanna go down into your basement
and, you know, make noise to take out your frustrations
because you can't go outside
and do anything when it's raining all the time.
♪ Don't get off the bus ♪
♪ Cause there ain't Nothing for you here ♪
♪ Singin' my hometown... ♪
Is Seattle a nice place to live?
It's the best place to live.
And I've traveled all over the place
and I honestly wouldn't live anywhere else.
It has all the amenities of a big city, but...
you know, there's nothing you're missing out on
by being in Seattle as opposed to another city.
And it's pretty, you know,
there's hills and mountains and trees and water.
So, all these people come here
and then there's all this publicity
and Northern Exposure
and Twin Peaks and all this stuff
and everyone wants to come up here
and live the good yuppie lifestyle
but all the time there's all these people
that are underneath that were here first
and they're just starving and they're all crazy.
I mean, it's like one of those end of the world places
you can't go no further and still be in the US.
In 1980...
I think bands stopped coming to Seattle.
Bands never used to come here.
They'd go as far as San Francisco and then not...
not come all the way up to Seattle
because it wasn't worth it to play one show.
There were two, maybe two and a half clubs
where you could play if you were playing your own music.
Some people used to rent halls,
just put their whole show on themselves,
take tickets, run up do the music
and at the end pick up the broom and clean it up.
♪ Let me call you about it ♪
♪ Woke up this morning... ♪
Well, Seattle was really lame,
you know, specifically, in the early '80s,
I mean, Seattle was like a million second cities.
It had a fake Talking Heads, it had a fake Pere Ubu,
it had a fake Killing Joke,
it had all the fake Ramones you could shake a stick at,
you know, and people from Bellevue
singing with English accents.
There was this big poodle metal scene.
Bands with, um, big fancy guitars and...
just tons and tons of hairspray, eyeliner...
See, all the extra sleazy punk rockers
used to hang out on First Avenue.
There was a donut shop right there
which was right next to The Showbox
which is right there. It's a comedy club now.
And that was like the big punk rock venue.
Opening night,
the very first punk club in Seattle.
This is probably worth,
you know, three, four hundred bucks.
Nobody was too worried about success
because we knew we were living in Seattle,
you know, it wasn't LA,
nobody was gonna come and sign us...
You played a show in some small club...
the audience consisted of members
of the other dozen or so bands that were playing
similar bills and similar clubs...
The bands that stuck it out
did it because they really, really, really enjoyed
playing their music
and that was really the only
positive reinforcement that anybody got.
We really started playing music cause it's fun
which probably most people say
but with us, it's true.
- Yeah, everybody else is lying. - Everybody else is lying.
♪ After all the Trouble's come and gone ♪
♪ It was here for so long ♪
♪ Now I've got This sinking feeling ♪
♪ Everyone seems to be leaving ♪
♪ Oh, whoa, oh ♪
♪ And I can't believe how Lonely it is here on K Street ♪
♪ There's no one like me Here on K Street ♪
♪ How lonely it is Here on K Street today ♪
♪ Today, today, today ♪
I've never been in any other spot in the country
where so many people played, you know?
You know, there's tons of shitty bands and there's...
but there's, like, tons of great bands too and...
The most interesting music around here
is definitely coming from places where people are
just playing in their garage, they're playing to themselves
or playing to their friends.
Across the street, lives these guys
who are in a band called Sisters Sidekick,
then there's another brand who practices there
and they're all friends and then Her Fault,
my little brother's band...
and they're all friends.
They go to the show, it's just friends playing music.
♪ I can't believe how lonely It is here on K Street ♪
♪ There's no one like me Here on K Street ♪
♪ How lonely it is Here on K Street today ♪
♪ Today, today, today ♪
♪ Today, today, today, today ♪
We're all so fucking bored out of our heads
that it was get drunk, fall down,
and, uh, you know, throw your body around
and all the bands that came through Seattle at that time
Scratch Acid and Big Black
said that Seattle had the most exciting, potent scene
going on in the US, they all loved to play here
because everyone would just like go nuts
and drink themselves into a frenzy
and throw themselves on stage
and it was very flattering for these bands, you know,
whereas you go to Los Angeles and New York
and people stood there and went,
"Hmm, I don't know. He missed a note there."
Best bands in Seattle were like
Malfunction, The U-Men, who else?
Skin Yard, My High, Feast, 64 Spiders, Bundle of Hiss...
Nobody ever remembers Psycho Pop, man.
We could make a long list
if you wanna talk about all Tom's bands.
We were a good band, man.
We had a band called The Fartz.
Red Dress, Blackouts...
The Blackouts were an excellent band,
you know, Free Swimmers, Beakers,
Little Bears from Bangkok, Max Band, Quack Quack Quack.
Nobody knows these names, this is ancient history!
One generation out from a band is every band that shared
a member directly with that band.
For instance, you know Stone Gossard was in Green River
and then he went to Mother Love Bone,
like that's one generation out.
So, for instance, you could take like an early band
like The Blunt Objects
and it asks you how many generations.
Let's go four generations out.
Um, so you sort of have these three columns;
the mainstream, heavy metal, hard rock thing that, you know,
Mother Love Bone and Pearl Jam have done.
Then there's the Fast Backs, the Posies and, uh,
The Young Fresh Fellows, which were probably
the first band to really make it out of Seattle
all by themselves without moving out of town.
And they were just, you know, sort of a pop sound.
And then the third branch is the noise/grunge rock.
That was closely related to Green River and Mudhoney
and The Thrown Ups,
all sort of Sub Pop, you know, grunge sound
and it's pretty incestuous
but you keep bumping into the same old people.
Green River.
This was the genesis right here,
Steve and Mark from Mudhoney
and Stone and Jeff from Pearl Jam
and Alex who's now studying to be a lawyer.
Room Nine became Love Battery,
Bundle of Hiss became TAD,
Pure Joy became Flop,
Skin Yard, among other things, became, uh, Gruntruck,
Jesse Bernstein who's dead.
Watch folks, hundreds of dollars.
Don was in Butt Sweat
and, uh, they played at one skate contest.
And you were too, Tom, don't leave that out.
And,uh".
And he was also in the Kings of Rock...
so was Jim Tillman from... ex of Love Battery
What? Jim Tillman wasn't in Butt Sweat?
He played rhythm guitar.
- Did he? - Yeah.
Oh.
Remember friends, this is only a movie,
you're free to leave the theater at any time.
Someone said to me once that there was
the aesthetic of dumb about the Seattle music scene
that the music wasn't stupid but it was dumb,
you know, Mudhoney's not stupid but they're a little bit dumb.
My mom has always told me that I'm not a loser,
so the whole loser thing, I never believed in
'cause clearly, I'm not a loser
and Mark, I think your mom has told you the same thing?
We're not losers.
I guess it's really easy to think of yourself as a loser
'cause then you don't care if people like you or not.
You know, that's sort of the idea,
and then you can do whatever you want.
And it's funny.
We were the guy in high school who people used to beat up.
And we couldn't even talk to the pretty girl.
I mean, we couldn't... we're nerds, goddammit!
Well, I think ever since Spinal Tap came out,
I mean, they were like pointing the finger at bloated,
overly commercialized, deluded bands,
and, uh, we just looked at ourselves,
said well we don't have to point at somebody else, we can...
When you've been through periods where you've had
keyboard players with 50,000 pounds worth of kit onstage
and 82 keyboards and 95 samplers
you know, uh, after a while you just go,
"Hang on, this is like eating too much food at one sitting,
it's too much sounds, it's too many colors,
it's... it's all got poncy and posy,
um, let's go and see some bands where they just bash it out."
♪ Eat my dump ♪
♪ Tell me that you love me ♪
♪ Eat my dump ♪
♪ Help me smell my pie ♪
Some bands get on stage
and they're, they're basically entertainers,
they have, you know, they have a shtick,
they are giving you a show.
Some bands get up there and they rock,
and you can tell the difference.
That's why Seattle bands tend to be a little bit
inconsistent live, I think,
is because most of them aren't really up there
to be entertainers, they're up there to rock out,
And their best shows are when they're having the most fun.
Not when they necessarily have their act down
because maybe they don't have an act.
If it's connecting with the audience right, I get chills.
- I mean, I can just, - Yeah.
I finish a song and it feels right
and I can just tell it's just gonna start going fine,
man, I get chills and they're rocking
and fuck yeah, let's go!
There's a million people out there that can do what I'm doing
as far as producing, recording, anything like that,
a lot better than I'm doing, have better equipment,
but still, it's like the only way you get good at anything
is to be doing it all the time,
so, this is a lifetime chore for me.
Basically, it's just to have
complete control over everything,
to be able to do it the way you want to do it,
have it come out the right way
and then not really have anybody that can tell you...
what the hell to do. Where you can play,
how you can look, how you can dress,
what songs to record, which ones not to.
It keeps it on a personal level,
it keeps it where rock and roll type things really should be.
It's very much just happening right there,
it's not happening in somebody's big offices
or in somebody's big bank accounts or anything.
It's...
it's really exciting for the people that are doing it.
♪ Some say to just forget her ♪
♪ It'll worry you well If you let it ♪
♪ Make every day pathetic ♪
♪ You're in need of a cure And she is one I
♪ You'll survive a vegetable ♪
♪ The meat's diseased And she said so ♪
♪ I won't try To persuade you anymore ♪
♪ Along time ago ♪
♪ I went and lost my way ♪
FAVE
PopLlama was a big influence,
Conrad can do it, so Sub Pop can do it.
We wanted to do our own record so we will, hell!
If these guys can do it,
we've seen these guys so drunk they can't stand up, you know.
They can't drive a car, so,
and they can do this, so we can do that.
That's just a given.
I think with people here they don't sit around going,
"Oh, nothing ever happens here. Nothing ever goes on here."
You know, by the time the kid's out of high school,
he's already been in a band, put out a couple fanzines,
recorded a few records, started a label, did a radio show.
That was the whole lesson we learned when we moved up here.
Like, you just do it.
We moved up here and we saw other bands,
you know, no different than us just putting out records.
All you really need to do that
is some magnetic tape and a microphone,
and that's really all you need,
and then, you know, maybe, just maybe, some bad reverb.
And they smell good, records just smell good.
They, you know, there's nothing like cracking that cellophane
and pulling that record out, it just smells great.
When Deep Six first came out,
it was chronicling something that was suddenly going on,
I guess it was by a fluke of providence,
kind of... a initial document of
what later turned into be a pretty big scene.
I think we all became aware
that there was a certain regional sound developing
and nobody had a name for it.
That's punk rock and...
one day they just sort of started going, um...
and that was grunge.
The most noisy,
The most absurd,
The heaviest thing that was going.
Yeah, we know this is heavy rock and heavy rock
is kind of stupid but it's fun anyways.
It's where you had a band like The Melvins doing Kiss covers.
It was all in fun, it was like we know
that this is the cheesiest thing we could possibly do,
we gotta do it.
It's just ridiculousness, complete ridiculousness.
What can we get away with next, you know.
Bands like Green River, basically,
they were sort of the definitive grunge band.
It was a euphemism for just extremes, extremes of anything,
and a lot of people say that it's a throwback to metal.
Heavy metal's part of it, it was one influence,
punk rock was one influence,
basically anything loud and crushing
and extreme was an influence.
We'd all been in bands that were more controlled
and more dynamic,
you know, more... better,
better bands actually and we just, well,
our whole thing was we just wanted to
get away from all structure and just be chaotic
and not worry about that. It was kind of joyful release.
It's taken rock right back to its basics
which is go up there and make a hell of a noise
and make sure you play music that your parents don't like.
First thing, actually,
was when we were doing the first Soundgarden single,
and we were doing a song called "Nothing To Say,"
which was just...
at the time just seemed amazingly heavy.
I thought this, you know,
these guys can't possibly be really playing this song,
this sounds like, you know, this sounds insane,
it sounds way too good for 8-track
and it sounds way too good for a, you know,
crappy little Seattle band.
Bruce Pavitt originally had the name Sub Pop
when he was living in Olympia, I think.
He had a sort of cassette fanzine network
where he put out these little compilation cassettes
of local bands.
He was interested in making it a vinyl mix.
The bands he was interested in at the time
were Green River and us.
And John, also, was a huge fan of ours.
He wanted to make a record, start a record label,
so we kinda talked him into working together
to put out our record.
Up to that time, everyone played it really safe,
of all the small labels,
"Well, we'll put out a single every three months
and, you know, we'll sell a thousand copies of it
and that's cool because I've got my day job,"
and John and Bruce were having none of that,
they said, you know, we don't want to work day jobs,
we don't want our bands to work day jobs,
we want them out there on the road,
we want them in the big magazines,
we want their records everywhere.
It is punk rock, but we don't care.
We want to make it bigger than punk rock
and that's why these two gentlemen are...
the Kings of the scene, as you might say.
There was a real Indie ethic in the 80s
that you weren't supposed to be proud of having hit records
or being a hit machine.
And John and I, as fans of,
you know, the history of pop music in this...
this, uh, this country,
really admired labels like Motown and their hit factory...
- Mentality. - Yeah.
They definitely picked a certain kind of band for their label,
which makes everybody think that's the only thing
that was the only thing that was going on in Seattle.
Um, they...
by default, I ended up engineering all of them and...
they had Charles doing all the photography.
So there was definitely a package
an image and a sound.
I think every community has their pools of talent
it's just a matter of being able to take on
the responsibility of marketing.
You know, I'm a failed pop musician myself, so...
you know, I kinda decided,
"Well, I'm gonna play in crummy band after crummy band,
I may as well wrap some of these bands
who might have a chance at doing something.
Basically he said, "Hey, you sing about dogs,
you sing about being sick,
you got a shtick, it'll take you to the top."
And he basically gave us like five chords
but he said, "Don't use more than three within one song."
♪ I feel bad ♪
♪ And I've felt worse ♪
♪ I'm a creep, yeah ♪
♪ I'm a jerk ♪
♪ Touch me, I'm sick ♪
♪ I won't live long ♪
♪ And I'm full of rot ♪
♪ Gonna give you girl Everything I got ♪
♪ Touch me I'm sick ♪
When Sub Pop finally got their act together and they started
somehow getting this underground hype thing going
which started very small.
They flew an English journalist into Seattle,
took him to see a Mudhoney show
and gave him some singles and had him meet everybody
and he went back and wrote a big article
in one of the English music papers
and that sort of started this big frenzy in England.
It just seemed like it was a worthwhile business move,
- so we... - Yeah.
And fortunately, Everett was a brilliant enough guy
that he could piece together a story
that essentially sold the world on Seattle.
♪ Love me I'm rich ♪
♪ Come on baby Now come with me ♪
♪ If you don't come If you don't come ♪
♪ If you don't come You'll die alone ♪
Sub Pop, the hype machine, and we went along with it.
It seemed pretty funny at the time.
They didn't really hype their bands, they hyped their label,
which is a much different thing
and a much, a much more original thing...
It gave a record this desirability,
this perhaps fictional desirability,
but, nonetheless, it made the collectors
try and get a hold of these things
and made people talk about them
so, a lot of people talked about Sub Pop
and how cool their records were
and how cool the packaging and the bands were cool
and "Oh, you can't get the record,
it's worth a lot of money already.
People started looking for the Seattle sound,
the same way that D.C., Boston, New York and LA,
and all those places
had this crazy little identity all of their own.
Seattle started getting its own identity
and Sub Pop decided to exploit that.
♪ Well alright Yeah, alright ♪
♪ Saw you lookin' For something simple on beyond ♪
♪ We are, Yeah, alright ♪
♪ You wouldn't know it ♪
♪ If it hit you Right between the eyes ♪
♪ Yeah, alright ♪
♪ Gonna lift you up, Gonna bring you down ♪
♪ Gonna let you walk Through this life alone ♪
♪ Gonna let you Follow your own dream ♪
♪ It'll turn your head around ♪
J" For the first time In your life you might find ♪
♪ For the second time In a year ♪
♪ I don't mind ♪
♪ For the last time I think it's time to fly ♪
♪ Freedom's Right between the eyes ♪
Suddenly there were three times as many people
that had been here all along,
going out, seeing bands and supporting those bands
and allowing this scene to be far more viable.
What you actually see happening in Seattle
is this kind of explosion of sub culture.
I think it's a very important thing
and a very healthy thing to have happen anywhere,
particularly in a place like Seattle,
it's so conservative and so reserved
to have something like this happen here's been
nothing short of, like, major electrical shock.
Everything was suddenly just buzzing with activity.
I mean, singles were being put out,
but there was no point earlier in history
that you could have a magazine devote
an entire record review section just to local record reviews.
Um, people from underground fan 'zines across the country
were already starting to snipe about Seattle
and how much hype it was receiving.
When things started to become spotlighted,
more venues opened up
and more opportunities opened up for people to play
but there was never a lack of great musical talent
and it was always really diverse
and there was always an unspoken sense of community about it.
♪ I'm so happy ♪
♪ It's sunny outside ♪
♪ I'm so happy ♪
♪ It's snowing today ♪
♪ I'm so ♪
♪ I'm so happy ♪
♪ The world's gonna explode ♪
They won't let us in 'cause we're not 18.
What does age have anything to do with music?
♪...wanna burn the house down ♪
♪ Burn the house down ♪
♪ Ooh ♪
The Seattle music scene right now is really vital.
I mean, it is so alive,
it's better than London in the 1960s,
it's better than New York in the 70s, I mean...
Margaret, I was in it. I was in London in the 1960s,
it was awful! I mean...
If you say the word 'scene'
everybody rolls their eyes and laughs at you.
"Scene." you know, "there's no scene!"
So, a lot of people thought that
it has reached its peak and by next year,
we are all gonna go back to doing what we were doing
and we are all gonna go back to our little small town Utopia
and, uh, about 1990 we all sort of went,
"Oh, good, it's over."
Nirvana kinda came out of left field,
uh, namely Aberdeen,
which is a town sort of out in the middle of nowhere.
And, uh, you know, we just got a phone call
at the studio one day from this guy, you know, Kurt,
says his name was Kurt,
he said he was a friend of the Melvins
and he wanted to come up and just record some songs
and I said okay,
friend of the Melvins, friend of mine, come on up.
You know, I didn't know who the hell he was
and nobody else did either. He just came up,
blew out ten songs in five hours, we recorded them
and mixed them in one afternoon and, uh, blew me away.
I thought "Oh, my God, this is amazing," you know?
I said, "Guys, can I please keep a copy of this for myself
before you go back to Aberdeen?
That was the tape I gave to Jonathan.
This is my penultimate grunge photo...
Kurt Cobain spinning on his back.
Everyone asks "How in the hell is he doing that?" I don't know.
♪ I'm a negative creep ♪
♪ I'm a negative creep I'm a negative creep ♪
♪ And I'm stoned ♪
♪ I'm a negative creep I'm a negative creep ♪
♪ I'm a negative creep ♪
At that point, I think Soundgarden had put out
their first major label record, it was doing okay.
I think that Screaming Trees had put out their first
major label record and I think it was doing okay.
Alice in Chains was...
had put out their first major label record, it was doing okay.
But, Nirvana was kind of the little brother, you know,
the runt of the litter, so to speak.
And I remember Jonathan telling me in 1990, he said,
"This band is going to be huge."
He said it exactly like that, he said,
"Jack, this band is going to be huge."
The record came out in fall, September.
The video came...
I remember the first time I saw the video,
I thought "This is so cool,"
that there's no way MTV will play this, just no way.
And then when that started going
it reached millions of kids instantly.
Ben would go off and call up people back home in Seattle,
he'd come back and say,
you know, the latest sales figures.
He'd go, "Nevermind has done 300,000."
"Nevermind has done 400,000."
"Nevermind just went gold."
♪...hello, hello ♪
♪ With the lights out ♪
♪ It's less dangerous ♪
♪ Here we are now ♪
♪ Entertain us ♪
♪ I feel stupid ♪
♪ And contagious ♪
♪ Here we are now, Entertain us ♪
♪ A denial, a denial ♪
♪ A denial ♪
There was an old, uh, Brain song called
"Money Changes Everything"...
I think we adapted that to "Nirvana changes everything".
It's probably why
you create in the first place, because of the freedom.
Do whatever you want...
whatever you want on tape.
But again, commerce is involved
and as soon as it starts going through those channels
those money-making channels, everything changes, you know?
When these bands started to get popular,
all of a sudden everyone wanted to find the next Nirvana,
everyone wanted to sign the next Pearl Jam.
All of a sudden,
bands who'd never played live before, practically,
were getting huge advances.
The labels start
bidding for bands to get bands signed,
so that they could then sell them to a major,
the bands get all worked up
and basically break verbal contracts you make with them
because, well, you don't have a contract.
I mean, when I first started
I didn't need contracts, I didn't think I did, you know?
"Here's my friend", you know,
but someone throws, you know, 500,000 in their face
and they're like, "Oh, we didn't have a contract."
If the major labels are like a big, dumb Baby Huey,
you know, that "Oh, what's going on in Athens?"
And waddle over to Athens and you sit down on Athens
and you start buying lunches
and you crush three bands by accident and, you know,
"Wow, the party's in Athens, you know?
And then you kinda look over your shoulder and go, "Oh...
Minneapolis and then Baby Huey gets up and goes and sits
on Minneapolis and kills three bands by accident
and buys a bunch of lunches and, you know,
kind of plays that party out and then, you know,
so, the idea that they were moving in, you know,
sort of dedicated clumps,
I mean Seattle was just like part of that process.
♪ Say good bye To your friends and family ♪
♪ Welcome to the menagerie ♪
♪ Funny how They forget to tell you ♪
♪ This is all you will ever be ♪
.1' This is all you will Ever be now ♪
♪ This is all you will ever be ♪
.1' This is all you will Ever be now ♪
♪ This is all you will ever be ♪
The effect of this whole thing of like hyping a label,
or hyping a sound, or hyping a place,
is it starts to take a lot of the attention away from
the individual artists that are making music.
Everyone doesn't sound the same, everyone isn't grunge,
everyone doesn't have long hair, you know, um...
They made a big mistake.
They didn't go further and find more of the bands
that were already here and had been here
even before the bands that were exploited were, you know?
That's what makes me feel guilty of the success of our band
because it should've been, uh,
spread out to the success of like a number of bands here.
They focused on this one scene
or one type of music when really that's pretty inaccurate
'cause there's all kinds of bands here, you know?
There's, like, weird, funky jazz bands
and weird, you know, hip-hop bands,
or punk rock bands, or metal bands or whatever,
it's like there's a whole bunch of stuff, so...
...and cowpunk bands, there's like
a shit load of different bands here, there always has been.
In Europe, they just started to put
stickers on things that just said "Seattle,"
that's all the sticker said.
It was like the stamp, you know,
it's like the USDA, it's like Seattle stamping.
♪ Yeah ♪
♪ Low beat ♪
Great band.
I like the best.
♪ Low beat ♪
♪ Hey ♪
♪ Low beat ♪
♪ Low beat Whoa ♪
I hate the category of grunge.
Grunge categorizes, "Oh, I only like loud, loud music."
I don't need grunge.
♪ How many times Have I said I'm sorry ♪
♪ To only trash you Within the day ♪
♪ I think out one of Every statement ♪
♪ That my body displays ♪
♪ Beware of what I bring you ♪
♪ Baggage from far That just gets thrown onto you ♪
♪ I bite my tongue And slip through ♪
♪ Slip through to you ♪
Nirvana happening or Pearl Jam happening,
someway seems like kind of a...
some kind of like weird natural occurrence
that got rolling in 1979,
like it's that energy, whatever that energy started as,
I think ultimately, you know, landed with what we got now
and it's not like it's punk rock paying off,
it's more like you push the pimple hard enough
and it pops up someplace else.
...but then it becomes homogenized, manipulated,
and marketed, and it's not intense anymore.
So, there's a constant cycle of rebellion.
I think punk's gonna be there forever, man...
- Punk is... Yeah. - As long as there's kids that...
Kids are the most important part of punk.
They wanna get wild, yeah.
There'll be no shortage
of disaffected American youth over the next 50 years.
Well, even more.
Some great rock and roll coming down the line.
There's over a thousand bands
in Seattle right now
and I think a lot of that is people moving here,
bands moving here in hopes of becoming famous...
Because of all the hype and attention on Seattle
people know that if they do something here
they're gonna get recognized to some extent,
they won't be totally overlooked, even if it's bad.
In fact, there were musicians who moved to California
in the early 80s, from Seattle, to try and get signed.
Who started moving back.
There's got to be at least a thousand,
if not more than that in Seattle,
and so I came up with an idea
to package boxsets of Northwest bands,
so what I try and do is I try and find ways to exploit,
and I like the word 'exploit',
exploit through propaganda and television
the Northwest music community as a whole.
Volume three is probably my favorite set,
it's got... it's got some of the most well-known bands.
You got your Hammerbox, and your Hungry Crocodiles,
Pond, Sara Debell, Peace, Love and Guitars.
It's just got, I mean it's got so many great bands in it,
that if you wanna know anything about the Northwest music,
there's my card. If you wanna know anything
about the Northwest music scene,
this is a great place to start because all the cards
have the contact information of the band on the back
and also, if you take these cards,
turn them face down, put them together,
it's a jigsaw puzzle of a traffic jam on I5.
♪ I say fuck ♪
♪ I say fuck and you say yeah ♪
♪ I say fuck you say yeah I say fuck you say yeah ♪
♪ I say fuck, yeah ♪
♪ Oh, I say let's, And you say go ♪
♪ I say let's, You say let's go, man ♪
♪ I say let's and you say go I say let's and you say go ♪
♪ I say let's go ♪
♪ Oh, yeah ♪
Today I was in a music shop and I saw some people
and it was like, "You moved from LA, probably yesterday!"
Like, I feel sorry for the up and coming bands,
they can't even get gigs,
you know, it takes them years sometimes to get a gig.
We were together, like, three weeks, we played a show.
You say it's a ton of bands? The Trees way more than a ton.
We're a ton of band.
So, fuck 'em!
We got bands all over this place, here.
We got...
The band in here, Inflatable Soule
Manotypical. Rap band in this room.
I hear a lone drummer practicing here.
Industrial nonsense comes out of that flat.
It's all hallways and dark rooms.
Bands in the rafters,
Bands to the left, bands to the right.
If you like being a kid setting up a lemonade stand
and have a really successful lemonade stand,
and all of a sudden ten of them open up right next to you,
in your yard, on your block
all competing for the same lemonade nickel.
Only they're obviously selling lower quality lemonade.
Right now, Seattle is quarter until six
on Christmas Eve at a shopping mall
when the mall closes at six 0' clock,
when it's too crazy
and it's loaded with sub-moronic idiots, prancing around,
buying anything they can get their hands on.
...by universal acclaim,
the nation's media have declared Seattle
the coolest place in the known universe.
The music of Seattle is as progressive as the people
Listen to Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Nirvana.
Where else can you get the Seattle sound? Best Buy.
Once there was this grunge singer,
who did all the things grunge singers would do.
♪ Puking on the carpet ♪
♪ I couldn't help it ♪
♪ I'm drinking from the toilet ♪
♪ It's just a habit ♪
♪ I swear that smell you smell Is not from me ♪
It's loud music with heavy vocals.
Is it mutant rock and roll?
Have we ever used chainsaws and axes?
Are they contributing anything to the world
they're taking so much from?
Mudhoney is sort of like watching the market right now.
In October 1993,
this group's "VS." album debuted at number one,
with sales of 950,000 copies.
Jeremy.
- Who is Pearl Jam? - Yeah.
Pop music for 400.
Does this look like we're unhappy or cynical?
Okay, our next guests are a Seattle band,
this right here is their newest album.
- ...playing the Posies - "Weird Al" Yankovic.
Pearl Jam!
Hey Butt-Head, where's Seattle?
- Seattle. - Seattle.
Seattle. Thanks, phone dude!
I think now is the time that I should be
announcing my candidacy for mayor of Seattle.
When the whole thing was just out of control
and press people were visiting our office
at the rate of two or three a week,
it seemed like very few of them had even the most remote clue
of what was really going on in Seattle.
Glossy print ad with a fancy red car
and a background and they're saying something about grunge
They think people are gonna go out and buy this car?
They're gonna look at this ad and go, "Fuck you!"
When you're close to something,
you feel you know the truth about it
and when People Magazine's writing about it
you know they're not gonna have the truth,
they have a very distorted view of it.
And you realize that that's what the entire world sees
and that's what the entire world thinks about, and they're wrong.
("Second Skin" by The Gits plays]
Maybe there's like a bunch of photographers
and they wanna put you with this other person
from another band that you don't even know
and they want you to put your arm around them and smile and...
"You play in band, don't you?" "Yeah, yeah, I play in a band."
"Pearl Jam, right?" II No-II
"Aren't you the drummer from Pearl Jam?"
"No, I'm not the drummer from Pearl Jam."
They didn't even say anything about the music.
They talked about what we wore
and whether or not the girl in the band before
shaved her armpits or not.
The newest thing I heard was that
we're really bad at interviews.
Where could they possibly get that?
♪ Just to wake up Tells me I must be brave ♪
♪ It hits me like a drug Shot into my vein ♪
♪ It's not as delightful Delightful of a pain ♪
♪ Immobilizing me Almost makes me think I'm dead ♪
♪ I need a second skin Something to hold me tough ♪
♪ Can't do it on my own ♪
♪ Sometimes I need Just a little more help ♪
♪ I want that chance to give ♪
♪ Every drop That's left in me ♪
.1' I need a second skin ♪
♪ Something I cannot break free of ♪
♪ I just tell myself, Girl, just let it breathe ♪
♪ It's a calmness I'm always searching for ♪
♪ The dirt it gets so heavy It falls above my head ♪
♪ Seeping from under my feet ♪
♪ It just keeps on Getting deeper ♪
.1' I need a second skin ♪
♪ Something to help me tough ♪
♪ Can't do it on my own ♪
♪ Sometimes I need Just a little more help ♪
♪ I want that chance to give ♪
♪ Every drop that's left in me ♪
.1' I need a second skin ♪
♪ Something I cannot Break free of ♪
You just didn't wanna answer any more stupid questions.
They were all the same.
What's Seattle like? What are the bands like?
Do you know this band? Do you know that band?
Everyone had it.
We put a moratorium at one point
on people calling and asking for the Seattle story.
There was nothing to do except just start poking fun
at the entire thing and so, instead of saying,
"No, I really don't know that person",
it would turn into, "Oh, sure, every Monday morning
we eat banana splits at breakfast time,"
"Shoo-be-doo used to be my roommate",
or, you know, "I'll tell ya, he has a horrible case
of the squirts after he has Indian food."
And, like, you just start making up
every single lie you can
and then try to... the goal is to
just get crazy rumors circulating all the time.
There's a big element of put on involved with all Seattle music,
I mean, Kurt Cobain's goofy name spelling's, uh,
a lot of Sub Pop's world domination kind of attitude,
I mean, the whole thing's ridiculous.
Seventy-five percent of what Bruce and Jon say is a lie.
Um, but it serves them well.
It's essentially been one big prank.
We've always pretended we were something we weren't,
now that we're huge and have a lot of money,
we're trying to pretend that we're small and Indie
and have street cred.
That's one of the great things about a lot of the bands here
that, you know, great humor,
you know?
It's why I'm obviously not from here.
One of my favorite hoaxes
was the lexicon of grunge.
The New York Times called Sub Pop records
and talked to a woman there who just started making up words,
they were trying to find out what the inside secret dope was.
"What was the, uh, the hip language?"
...and I was like, "Uh, why don't you give me a word
and I'll give you the grunge slang for it?"
She just started making stuff up.
A lot of it was kind of stuff that she used for herself,
just for laughs, and next thing you know,
it's on the cover of the New York Times
and everybody around here was just giggling and snorting...
If they're lame enough to try to scrutinize
this totally stupid thing, why not fuck with them?
♪ I try to speak my mind Why'd you leave me? ♪
♪ I could have taken you so far, But one bad movie ♪
♪ Been across this fucking world To find my barista ♪
♪ I put my love into the rig, So I could forget her ♪
♪ Hello, It's me again, baby ♪
As you can see...
I am basically...
a trendsetter in the fashion scene
and Rolling Stone called
and they were doing a fashion spread on
"What the Indies are wearing".
I had to tell them that, uh,
I didn't think they'd be interested in me
but that we had a fella here,
Scott McCaughey from The Young Fresh Fellows,
who probably was just what they were looking for, so, uh,
they came and they interviewed Scott briefly,
and then got out this pile of clothes and made him, like,
take off his Converse and put on their tennis shoes,
and take off his flannel shirt, wear their flannel shirt.
And then put, you know, in the caption below:
"Flannel shirt 85 dollars."
Who didn't get a flannel shirt for Christmas
from their relatives?
And you tie it around your waist
and you run off and do a stage dive,
all across America.
But up here, because it's logger territory,
all these goon balls just wear flannel anyways
and then that's what became the stereotype here.
I mean, you go around, you know, cities everywhere
you see some real stereotypical grungies,
you know, the Pearl Jam shirt,
you know, with the stocking cap and the...
you know, the really long johns with the shorts
and then, and you just say "I spit on you!"
Mannequins in stores with, like, long johns and shorts
for like 300 bucks and...
- It's like... - We got them fooled.
We wear long johns up here because it's fucking cold.
When Seventh Avenue decided
that grunge-wear was something they put on the runways
and that they thought it would be an absolute knock-over.
Yes, that any of my clients would be in their fashion shows
and be in their fashion layouts
and when Vanity Fair did a spread with people
like Joan Rivers wearing grunge-wear...
that was the only moment for me, so far,
That came close to unbearable.
It was our thing
and then all of a sudden belonged to people who...
You never thought you were sharing your music with.
Like mainstream periodicals and fashion magazines
and I started realizing
"Well, there's a whole lot of people out there
making money by selling the idea of the Seattle scene
or grunge or whatever.
It's so profitable.
It's so profitable, and they'll just keep taking
and taking and taking and they're...
they just don't know how to restrain themselves,
you know, they're frothing at the mouth over this.
And the bands aren't, I mean,
the bands aren't really in it for dough,
I mean, they just aren't. That would, if they were,
that would... That would tip over the music.
It's like it already, it's obvious to see
the Seattle scene has become a marketed commodity.
...but that's what makes pop culture
so significant to all the little consumers out there.
They have no interest in history or economics or science or art.
They're kinda interested more in gossip,
the nature of celebrity
and that's not at all encouraging to find out that...
You participate in that society. One way or the other.
♪ I wonder why I do The things I do ♪
♪ One plus one has Always meant more than two ♪
♪ Happy and then content ♪
♪ Change the channel And now I'm bent ♪
♪ On leaving you Yeah ♪
♪ On leaving you ♪
Bands get all big and then everybody starts to like 'em
and then they just become so overplayed and kinda sold out
and I just, I get out of them.
That really pisses me off. Well, I liked them first!
When you hear a song that's a great song,
played a million times, you never want to hear it again.
"If I hear that song one more time..."
"If I see that guy's face one more time..."
I wanna fuckin' find out his address
and kill that motherfucker."
I don't blame 'em. I've said it myself.
There definitely is the idea that success is bad
and that's part of the rebellion,
that's part of the rebellion against...
against the '80s, you know, um, our peers and our parents,
that didn't really wanna become successful
because with that comes the trappings of responsibility.
Its seemed for a while that, like, that "celebrity"
was not really what you wanted once you got it
and yet, you look at any of these people,
that are now complaining about
being too much in the spotlight
or always, you know, scrutinized by everyone.
What did you expect, you know?
I think a lot of people whine about it
but secretly they kind of are excited about it too.
I don't think that people ever can imagine
what is gonna go along with being popular,
I mean, I don't think no matter what somebody tells you,
it's gonna be like,
I think it's a lot different once you get there.
I think so too, maybe we should try to find out.
♪ Painted blue across my eyes ♪
♪ And tie the linen on ♪
♪ And I'm on my way ♪
♪ Looking for the paradigm So I can pass it off J"
♪ Is it on my side ♪
♪ Is it to the sky ♪
♪ Is to the sky ♪
♪ Painted blue across my eyes And tie the linen on ♪
♪ And I'm on my way ♪
♪ On my way a'
♪ Looking for the paradigm So I can pass it off J"
♪ Is it on my side ♪
♪ On my side ♪
♪ Is it to the sky ♪
♪ To the sky ♪
♪ Is it to the sky ♪
♪ And down ♪
♪ Searching for the ground ♪
♪ With my good eye closed ♪
I kinda figured you play guitar or drums or whatever,
say, make a record, play a show,
if people like your record, they like your show.
Couldn't really anticipate it becoming interviews
and videos and photo sessions.
In sort of the forefront of our mind,
we knew that these were things that went along with the job.
We never really, really can anticipate it 'til you're there.
It's like, fuck.
Do without the fame stuff and just give me the money.
♪ Is it to the sky ♪
♪ To the sky ♪
You have a favorite band, right,
and you think "Why isn't this band enormous",
you know, the world is just not a very,
you know, it's just an unjust place,
and then you have a band you know is amazing,
and suddenly everybody else in the world
knows that they're amazing and wants to get at them
and write about them, and you know...
You start wondering if success is really a good thing
because it, it sort of makes people psycho.
It's nothing to strive for.
It's actually like... this kind of success
or trying to fulfill this kind of hype,
it can destroy everything.
It can destroy what's real, which is like music to you,
or what's real, which is your life,
you know, it can destroy it...
You know, it can make it a commodity.
At who's cost? At yours.
At your life and you know, your music.
They'll, you know...
take it all away from you.
And you're supposed to be happy about it
because you're successful.
♪ You kissed me once And you kissed me twice ♪
♪ With your mess Of slobbering lips ♪
♪ With dribble in my brow I wait until you turned ♪
♪ And I wiped it On my pant leg ♪
♪ Well now I'll sign a paper For everyone to see ♪
♪ Now I'm up here singing For everyone to hear ♪
♪ Now I'll sign a paper For everyone to see ♪
♪ Now I'm up here singing For everyone to hear ♪
♪ You ♪
♪ Especially you ♪
♪ It's all for you ♪
♪ It's because of you ♪
♪ My lungs are filled With smoke ♪
♪ Eyes wide and hazy From too many tears ♪
♪ Red and glossy From too many beers ♪
♪ And my stomach shapes Into one big knot ♪
♪ My stomach shapes Into one big knot J"
When you're in a band and it progresses
from being in the basement, learning how to play,
and then you go on to more and more steps
and that's a natural progression of a band
and you can see that that's a good thing,
it's all fine,
but then you get to this point where you're looking backwards
and you're like, well, maybe it was better back then.
Well imagine,
you're a band, you're making music for fun...
because you like writing your own songs,
you like playing your own songs,
you like playing to your friends and having them clap
and, you know, having a good time,
and getting up and jumping around on stage
and, you know, crashing into people,
and um, suddenly, every publication
and all the media in the world wants to get at you,
suddenly, people everywhere you go
recognize you, they want your autograph,
suddenly your life as a private individual is over with.
And that's probably a pretty heavy thing to deal with.
What it looks like is,
wow, if you wanna be really successful, do heroin
but what I see is,
I saw people who were making really good music,
suddenly have like this overwhelming need for money.
It's fucking heartbreaking to see
how disillusioned...
People get to where they...
that escape is so... sought after.
I think the first hint of it
was when Andy Wood died.
We started thinking, "This is really sad
because this guy had a great future in front of him,
he was a really wonderful guy, funniest guy.
The only rock and roll stand-up comic in Seattle
was Andy Wood, and, uh...
we thought, man, you know,
they haven't even become stars yet,
and already he's a casualty.
Kurt, on New Year's Day, '93.
Um, this was the shoot for the cover of The Advocate
and, uh, I really like this photo of Kurt,
we were just, we were just talking and...
and I was just picking the camera up occasionally
and photographing him.
It's rare to see a picture where he's,
he's emoting or doing something with his hands
other than in his pocket and I really like this one.
Symbolically, perhaps,
it represented the death of something.
I mean, I know when, I was...
it affected me in such a way that I was seriously tempted
to give up everything and go be a farmer or something.
It was just, it was so disillusioning to me.
It was hard, I didn't take it well.
If all this influence
that this part of the country has
and this musical scene has,
if it doesn't do anything with it,
that would be the tragedy.
If it doesn't do something with it
like make some kind of change
and make some kind of difference,
this group of people who feels this certain way
this group of people who, like, thinks these things
that the underdogs we've all met and lived with think...
if they'd finally get to the forefront
and nothing comes of it,
that would be the tragedy.
♪ Restless soul ♪
♪ Enjoy your youth ♪
♪ Like Muhammad ♪
♪ Hits the truth ♪
♪ Can't escape from ♪
♪ The common rule ♪
♪ If you hate something ♪
♪ Don't you do it too ♪
♪ Too ♪
♪ This is not for you ♪
♪ Oh, never was for you ♪
♪ You ♪
To actually be this close
to a pop culture explosion has been really fascinating.
I mean also, when you can understand what happened
in San Francisco in '66 and '67, you can understand what happened
in England during the punk thing
and in during the Mersey Beat era
and the subsequent stuff that happened in London,
I mean, all of a sudden,
you can see how ridiculous the whole God damn thing is,
I mean, it's utterly absurd, I mean...
It's so funny that they call it
the Seattle scene, because it all grew out of the region.
Everybody doing what they love because they love it.
It doesn't matter if they're from Bellingham,
Portland, Olympia,
you have people who are in bands
because they want to be in bands,
who started record labels cause they like their friends' bands
and they want to put out a rack of fanzines
because no one was covering the kind of music that they heard
and all this was allowed to grow
without any other force coming in and disturbing that.
♪ All that's sacred ♪
♪ Comes from you ♪
♪ Dedications naive and true ♪
♪ With no power ♪
♪ Nothing to do ♪
♪ I still remember ♪
♪ Why don't you? ♪
♪ Don't you ♪
♪ This is not for you ♪
♪ Oh, never was for you ♪
♪ Fuck you ♪
♪ This is not for you ♪
♪ Oh, never was for you ♪
♪ You ♪
I didn't think I would be
making a living at doing this.
I mean, I had no idea that these bands were going to become so,
so popular, so famous.
I would have taken a lot more photographs of them
if I'd have known.
Our first year's tour was a total failure, you know,
we didn't make more than 90 bucks
at any show in the whole US.
And I'm just like, they hated us everywhere we went.
We're doing basically the same thing we were doing in '85
and now people like us. I don't know why.
Let me put things in perspective for you.
Five years ago,
this was a sleepy little coastal fishing village,
now, could we have the camera pan out to the skyline here,
this kind of economic development is directly related
to what Jon and I have done to promote Seattle.
That's what's become of the great punk rock party house
of the mid '80s.
It's so harsh.
It used to be this tiny little shack, like, set way back
and these terrible, like, big weeds
in the middle of this, these beautiful homes.
And now look, it is a beautiful home.
I would love to, in about 20 years from now,
be playing in, like, uh, some kind of super-lounge-y soul band
with a horn section or something like that, you know?
Yeah, probably all be playing in R&B bands
in Pioneer Square.
Probably the same...
Probably the same R&B band on Pioneer Square.
♪ This is the... ♪
Wow, what did I do right in a past life, or whatever,
that I get to do this
with my three really good friends?
I get to be in a band,
and make music with these people,
it's a really incredible experience.
We just play music when we can and do shows
and record them. We have songs...
Every now and then we find out Seattle got really famous.
And we didn't
It's not too bad, it's okay.
What was the question?