Issue 11 - Table of Contents | Features | Interviews | Extras | DeadAir | Reviews
|
Grunge Still Overshadows Seattle's Potent Indie Scene, But Local Bands Like Sicko Fight the Good Fight
by Josh Rubin |
|
|||
|
Alongside Denny Bartlett (guitar, bass) and Ean Hernandez (guitar, bass), Josh Rubin (drums) champions pop-punk as Seattle's beloved and prolific Sicko. Rubin grew up in Los Angeles and wrestled with the violin, guitar and ukelele before selling a dirt bike to afford his first drum set. Upon moving to Seattle under the guise of attending college, Josh was introducted to Ean and Denny, "the only ones in Seattle at the time who didn't want to play music like Soundgarden. We hit it off immediately." Sicko's tenure with eMpTy Records has proven one of Seattle's more productive and dependable. Their brand of punk-pop is fast and hard, with deliberate attention to hooks, and listenable singing. Their forthcoming album, You Are Not The Boss Of Me promises to be as dependably great as past works Laugh While You Can Monkey Boy and You Can Feel the Love in this Room. We asked Josh to report and comment on the current state of Seattle rock...
To the rest of the world, Seattle is the city of Grunge. The explosion of the Seattle Scene into the mainstream put Seattle on the musical map and made this city the temporary Mecca of many aspiring rock stars. My band, Sicko, started late in the summer of 1990, just before the height of the Grunge scene. At the time, it seemed as though we three were the only ones in the city who wanted to play pop-punk. To say we were out of fashion is a monumental understatement. Being in a band that sounded more reminiscent of East Bay bands, we were more as spectators than participants in the Grunge phenomenon. This afforded us a much more holistic understanding of what's been going on in the Seattle music community since long before Nirvana made it on "Saturday Night Live." What has been here since the '60s and before is still here now: a thriving independent music scene created by people interested in making music simply for the sake of making music. The boom and bust of Seattle Grunge clarified the distinction between "alternative" and "independent" music. Alternative music once meant "alternative to the mainstream." The only way to get alternative music into the world was through independent labels more interested in the music than the bottom line. As corporations learned how to market alternative music, it became the mainstream, and the term lost most of its meaning. Music could not be alternative and mainstream at the same time. The very qualities that made alternative music appealing had been packaged and fed to the masses via MTV, making it just another leisure industry. But despite the massive press attention and industry exploitation, the independent music scene has persisted, even thrived, in Seattle. What I know as independent music encapsulates much of what was appealing about the early forms of alternative music. Independent music is created and perpetuated by people far more concerned with music and having a scene than making money. It's done because it's fun and pure and is dominated by like-minded artists rather than by music industry executives and their lawyers. The Grunge scene started as an extension of the independent music scene in Seattle shared among pop bands, folk bands, garage bands, and so on. A fact about Seattle that's been lost is that while the Grunge and alternative phenomena may have passed, the independents are still here, chugging away, doing what they'd been doing for decades.
My closest personal example of what keeps our independent scene going is eMpTy Records; the record label Sicko has been on since the band's beginning. eMpTy has been around for ten years and during that time has lost immense amounts of money. The label is run primarily by Blake Wright; an insanely dedicated and hard working individual who has kept a full-time job to support himself and his label for most of the label's life. During a typical week, Blake puts in 40 hours at his day job, then goes home and works until all hours to keep eMpTy going strong. He goes to shows, puts up traveling bands on his floor, and constantly strives to keep what he has created going. He explained to me that his initial motivation to start the label was to become more involved in the local scene, rather than stay an observer. What keeps him going is as much a mystery to him as me. He typifies the DIY ethic in music and has existed and persisted throughout the Seattle music explosion. Another fantastic example of dedication to our music scene is Kurt Bloch. Kurt is the creative force behind the legendary Fastbacks and has played lead guitar for the Young Fresh Fellows for more than a decade. The Fastbacks and YFF have never really broke big nationally but they've continued to release records, tour, and inspire other local bands because they like doing what they do. When Sicko started out and Blake decided to release a 7" for us, we were trying to think of who could record it. Blake told us that he'd try getting Kurt to do it. Then, as much as now, he was our guitar super-hero. We all thought he walked on a small cushion of air, and it turned out to be true; much to our delight, he agreed to do it and stuck around to record our next three full-length albums. We couldn't have done it without him. During our first recording session for the Count Me Out 7", we were working hard to get a song right. Somewhere around the fifth take things still weren't working, but Kurt was very nice about it. Rather than tell us directly that we got it wrong again, he said "It sounds like there's a slight tuning discrepancy." The comment has become a valuable euphemism for "sucking." Not two weeks ago, when I dropped a beat at practice, Ean turned to me and said, "I think there's a slight tuning discrepancy in the drummer." Kurt has made very little money from our recording sessions but did it because he likes what we do, and wanted to help us out. The sixteen hour days necessary to finish our recordings with what little studio time we can afford are not for anyone who doesn't truly love the work. To this day, he plays small clubs, records local bands with no money, and invests tons of time and energy perpetuating the scene. In addition to the Fastbacks and Fellows, here are a few other bands without which Seattle wouldn't be the town it is: Given all that, it would be untrue to say that the death of Grunge hasn't affected the city's indy bands. There certainly used to be more clubs to play back when there was a lot more money to be made off of live music. As far as mainstream audiences go, the focus has definitely shifted from local bands to what has been labeled "Drum and Bass." I call it dance music. I hear echoes of my grandparents when I say it all sounds the same, but the local clubs have to concern themselves with making money, so they've shifted their attention from live music to dance music.
The single greatest loss was Moe's, once one of the best live clubs, now exclusively a danceclub. Now it's rumored that other clubs, like the Showbox, are going to cut back on the number of nights they have live music. It has become much harder to book shows; places like the Crocodile Cafe are booked months in advance. But that's as much an indication that the independent scene is still alive. Tons of bands still play the music they like, and local labels still take time to release their music. Seattle may have moved from the international music spotlight, but the independent scene is still happening, creating as much exciting, vibrant music as it has for decades. |
||||
[ Issue 11 - TOC | Features | Interviews | Extras | DeadAir | Reviews ]
[ Current Issue | Special Reports | News | Departments | Reviews | Archive ]
[ Search Webnoize | Site Map | Newsletter | Feedback | About Webnoize ]
