Falling forward, looking back.

Fall’s rounding the curve here in Seattle and I couldn’t be happier. The light’s already different. Softer. Rounder and more colorful. And not just because we’ve had a few weeks of depressing wildfire smoke wafting in from the Cascades and beyond. It won’t be long and the sun will rise after 7 am. Soon enough we’ll be changing our clocks and bemoaning the short days up here in the northern latitudes. The typical gorgeousness of August and September in the Pacific Northwest held pretty much true to form this year. Which has me taking stock and offering up an overdue blog post for those of you still hungrily Googling for such musings from one of America’s most special cultural outposts.

I’m about to finish up a validating run of Friday Happy Hour tours. I was honored to tell stories to visitors from at least six countries (Canada, England, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and Mexico…although I did also have a group hailing from all over the globe in town for a Microsoft conference). I also had American visitors from a dozen-plus states. The codifying interest in finding a connection with Seattle’s music brings some truly fascinating people my way, even decades after peak commercial grunge. This seems an especially timely nod in the direction of the past as true grunge nerds celebrate the 30th anniversaries of the release of “Singles” (September 18, 1992) and Pearl Jam’s legendary “Drop in the Park” show (today in 1992). That rescheduled PJ show drew 30,000 fans to my namesake, concert-ill-equipped, nonetheless-favorite Seattle park (Northeast’s under-used Magnuson Park along the shore of Lake Washington) after a months earlier plan was scuttled by the City in Gas Works Park (on the north shore of Lake Union). As I often try to emphasize, however, being a nostalgia merchant is just part of this gig. I aim to loop in earlier Seattle chapters while emphasizing that Seattle’s a thriving place where music’s still made with real passion. Look no further than the Bikini Kill show I saw last week at McMenamin’s Elks Temple in Tacoma. That crowd of hundreds was equal parts Gen Z and those of us still staying out somewhat late for Gen X’ers, along with music fans somewhere in between or on the margins (kudos to the parents taking their tweens out…although Kathleen Hannah getting pissed at a noisy cohort up front probably required a fuller discussion on the car ride home).

Rather than forget to mention all of the amazing individuals who came my way over the past few months, I’ll just finish the summary by saying that I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to make new connections. This version of my semi-annual mic drop really only applies to my regularly scheduled tours. I’ve got other irons in the fire and those of you who know me understand this move. So if you’re coming through Seattle and want to see if a tour is possible, just give me a holler. I’ll also be typically vague in saying that I’ve got a few new collaborations bubbling up and various evolutions underway. Want to explore something I’m calling Seattle Sports Redux? I got you. Need recommendations for how to better understand what’s happening in the PNW? Look no further. There are plenty of skilled storytellers and principled historians working in Seattle, but I think my flexibility sets what I offer apart. Just sayin’.

Much like Seattle continues to change like a living organism, so does what I’m doing with this side gig. For each vanishing hunk of Seattle (see the long-expected demolition of the block of Belltown north of the Crocodile Cafe’s former home) there’s an occasional welcome patched-up retrieval (see the reopening of the West Seattle Bridge over the weekend which makes it much easier to direct visitors over yonder for worthwhile pursuits).

Before I sign off again, I’ll offer a few random nuggets o’ note that very recently caught my eye. For those who’ve taken one of my tours, you’ll likely see the connections with the material I typically cover while out on the streets of Seattle.

• KEXP’s new Executive Director, Ethan Raup, recently put up a very thoughtful note in connection with the station’s Annual Report to Donors. If you’re not yet a KEXP supporter, you should get on that.

• Pitchfork’s regular Sunday feature of revisiting a previously unreviewed classic this weekend gave credit where it was due to the Melvins’ 1993 album “Houdini” - details abound that highlight the backstory of a band that deserves a continuing look.

• Bust Magazine did a deeper dive into the story of Tina Bell and her band BAM BAM (an early influence on what for some became a defining musical category rooted in Seattle). Bell’s son T. J. Martin has said previously that he’s working on a documentary about her. I can’t wait to see it.

I could go on with the details. But my purpose here was mainly to check in before shifting away from my regular schedule. Once again, I encourage you to reach out with questions about scheduling a special stop amidst your Seattle explorations. No guarantees that I’ll be free, of course. I always respond, regardless. I do what I do, as best I can as a one-man band. Rock on.

Seattle vs. London vs. San Francisco - historical comparisons come to mind

I mentioned in my last post a recent visit to London. It was part of a longer decidedly awesome family trip. London’s obscenely expensive. But I think it’s valuable to music fans that I recap some of what found by way of obsessively searching for music history there (and everywhere…).

I arrived with my casually curated list of sites worth finding. Given the recent phenomenon of The Beatles documentary “Get Back” and my interest in the bespoke tailoring history along Saville Row (for my other work), we set out to find the former home of Apple Records. It had most recently been an Abercrombie and Fitch showroom - not exactly a tribute worthy of the building where The Beatles last performed live. We stayed in Camden Town, mainly to be close to Regent’s Park. There was a theatre now named Koko around the corner from our flat that had been a punk venue where everyone played back in the 1970s. North London’s musical history more broadly isn’t hard to find. Amy Winehouse fans know about her statue up yonder. I sought out the exterior steps in Camden Market where The Clash shot the cover photo of their debut album. I’d hoped to venture further afield to see the former church (St. Augustine) where the iconic Wessex Sound Studios operated for 40 years. Former Beatles’ manager George Martin bought that studio in 1965. That’s where The Clash recorded “London Calling” and the Sex Pistols did the same with their debut album. Queen recorded “Bohemian Rhapsody” there. Everyone from the UK seemingly recorded there, including the Rolling Stones, XTC, and Pete Townsend. Then it was sold in 2003 and eventually converted into posh apartments collectively named “The Recording Studio.” Wessex’s advanced (for the time…) 40-channel console lives on in a studio in South Wales as of 2011. Music nerds surely make the trek there to this day in hopes of feeling a karmic echo.

In many ways, that’s some of what I do with my tour of Seattle’s cultural geography. Seek out places worth knowing and dig deeper for what’s beneath the obvious. Connect those places with stories and you’ve got yourself a time machine worth hopping aboard in hopes of better understanding why the music made there still matters. As I continue to learn from people on their own treks through Seattle, cultural history lives on. I sometimes make the unpopular point of saying that “grunge is dead.” Because it is as a musical genre rooted in a time and a place (the Pacific Northwest more broadly, although so many still associate it with Seattle in the ‘90s). One of my larger points, however, is that by better understanding where things happened you can make your own judgments about why it might’ve mattered in the present and (hopefully) future. Or at least, it’s fun to imagine things with the benefit of hindsight as you wander through what often times only exist as ruins.

Back to London - Soho as a part of the City of Winchester in the West End offers a target-rich environment for such exploration. Even just reading the engraved plaques on buildings scratches that itch. The English far better than us in Seattle put up historical markers. There are official circular blue-colored plaques about the size of a medium pizza pan bolted to buildings all over the place. Soho’s seemingly covered with them, especially in the areas around Denmark Street. Not everything gets a blue plaque - Paul McCartney’s offices and former squats used by David (Jones) Bowie or the Sex Pistols give just a few harder-to-find examples. But if you search for places like The Marquee Club or No. Tom Guitars, you’ll be pleased to see that over time there’s been a broad focus on marking those locations with a good starting point in the narrative. We here in Seattle can learn a great deal from what’s been put up all over London. I’ve been saying for the past few years that we desperately need to start putting up the sort of markers that London uses to remind people what happened all around them maybe not so long ago. When a City with only 170-ish years of history is so busy booming and occasionally busting, there’s only so much energy put into pointing people toward what was there previously.

If you want to go deeper into London’s history, I recommend starting with a walking tour we found through Airbnb that covered Soho. Evren runs it with real heart and soul, as a musician who’s looking to share what he knows. Followed by sitting with you in the pub to talk more about his own journey through the London scene. I was glad I connected with him as a fellow music fan and nostalgia merchant. His wife and brother-in-law were even along for the ride the day my wife, daughter, and I booked that experience. Good peeps, half a world away.

I feel a kinship with people seeking out cultural understanding from the places where music is made. Let me know if you have your own favorite cities with musical histories worth exploring. I’m reminded of a tour I led here in Seattle for a German chocolate company’s very hip executives who chose their corporate retreats based on the music history they wanted to explore. Their visit prior to Seattle was San Francisco. Where I also lived for a few years and loved the history found all over the map. Although I never saw blue plaques or their American equivalent there either. Although those hip chocolate titans did pay Phil Lesh from The Grateful Dead to sit down with them and give a guitar workshop. They didn’t get that sort of craft instruction from me. But I like to think I bring other talents to the stage. What those talents are, I’ll leave open for debate. Rock on.

Summer 2022 Dates Added!

Hello Seattle music fans (and all the ships at sea). It’s been a minute. I’ll get to my recent visit to London in a jif. But I want to lead off with an update on what’s happening with my Grunge Redux tour in Seattle. I’m adding tours. My ever-popular Happy Hour Tours will drop onto the calendar for every Friday starting July 22nd and will continue through September 23rd. Check your itineraries and see if those dates sync up with the next 10 weeks of Seattle’s glorious summertime. Also, I’m still very much open to VIP/Private Tour requests that as always are not limited to Fridays. I make no promises that I’ll be able to honor all requests. But due to an exciting new partnership in the works with Kimpton Hotels here in Seattle, I’m getting back out there with new energy and ongoing research into the history worth seeing around the City.

Bear in mind that plans for my lit’l passion project have often shifted due to up-to-date pandemic concerns and my multitude of interests. Case in point - I’m adding a new sports tour to my repertoire. It’s a driving tour and limited to special requests. Expect much more detail to come in the very near future. If you or your crew love Seattle’s sporty history (baseball, basketball, football, soccer and rowing - oh my!), my new Seattle Sports Redux will be three-hours of bliss for y’all.

Bottom line - I’m excited to get back out there. Join me, won’t you? Rock on, regardless.

Losing Lanegan

I was driving through the freezing slop between Milwaukee and Green Bay yesterday when I heard the news of Mark Lanegan’s passing. Like so many music fans spread across the world, I paused a moment when this karmic uppercut hit. Lanegan seemed to be constantly reinventing something in himself. His origins in Screaming Trees were bound to float to the top of all the obits and tributes, as were tales of his complex reputation as “Dark Mark” who famously battled addiction and his original bandmates among others. Lanegan also gave the world a granular explanation of what ailed him, drawing not only on his amazing voice but the depths backing that sound. The latter stages of his career as a writer and most recently as a human suffering through a rough bout of COVID-19 added layers of complexity that I appreciated with newfound respect. I’m in a weird, fortunate position as someone who occasionally served up big helpings of nostalgia to music fans visiting Seattle because many people would offer back to me personal stories of why they still give a rip about the grunge era’s music and the people who made it. Obviously, the more time that passes since the period of Seattle’s peak grunginess, the more often artists like Lanegan will leave us behind. In my experience, anyone who cares about music and musicians has a supply of stories in the karmic hopper ready to serve up. I find constantly refreshed examples amidst the daily postings of the eight-plus-thousand no-bullshit fans on a simply brilliant Facebook group (Pacific Northwest Music Archives). Those folks again rose to the challenge of having something smart and funny to offer in the wake of yesterday’s news. Many somethings, actually. For anyone who ends up here randomly, you should bounce over yonder to the PNWA group on Facebook, too. Of the few things I currently check on the socials, that group of lovely randomness essentially gets my eyeballs most often.

I will offer one quick story as a tribute to Lanegan, since that’s the point of returning to this blog after such a long time away from regular-ish posting. On the third grunge tour I ever gave way almost five years ago, I was showing around the Danish Ambassador to America and a six-pack of cool-as-ice Nordic chefs visiting Seattle for a culinary conference. One of the coolest (although it wasn’t a competition) was an Icelandic chef named Gunnar who mentioned in passing how Lanegan was his favorite musician from these here parts. I think Lanegan had visited his restaurant in Reyjavik at some point. Oh to have the life of a rock star or Michelin-star worthy chef, with all the travel benefits that sometimes includes. Anyhoo, I didn’t have much of a mental script at that time other than a sincere appreciation for the Screaming Trees who never broke through broadly amidst all their break-ups and the other forgettable drama that characterized Lanegan during the early to mid 1990s.

That day Gunnar and I connected the dots between the roots of the Trees in Ellensburg, Seattle, leading to Reyjavik and plenty of other places. Add various parts of Wisconsin to that list as I think this all through while visiting family and doing some interviews for my other book project. The point being that music more often than not connects us with a past but hopefully also updated version of ourselves. Or maybe nostalgia is a trap door that springs open on occasion, through which we tumble whether by choice or because tragedy throws us a curveball. Or maybe we go down the nostalgia path because we like the ride. Or maybe I’m just inspired by the sheer madness of Lanegan having done enough for a few lifetimes in just 57 years on this planet that I just had to offer my condolences today to all those who knew him as a friend. We all should be so lucky as to have the world pause and reflect on our passing. Then shuffle through some of our work to flex the memory circuits and maybe shake free some fresh nuggets of wisdom. A small part of me wishes my rental car had a cassette deck to do so. Well, not really. I’m not planning to track down 30-year-old cassettes on this trip. And I’ll be driving in the snow as I head up to the Northwoods tomorrow. There was a time when a 1980s-era Buick would seem like a safe sled to be steering through whatever Wisconsin’s planning to throw at me. Those days have passed. As has Mark Lanegan. May he find the peace he so richly sought while among us.

###—-

For those expecting an update on new tour scheduling, sorry to disappoint. I’m only doing those for people who reach out and give me a good reason for doing so. Meaning the door’s not shut entirely. New stories still come up and I’m encouraged by the post-Omicron variant stage we’re entering. But I wouldn’t expect a regular tour schedule any day soon. That band isn’t getting back together.

For those waiting on my promises from 2021, my “Seattle Redux” podcast is still coming soon-ish. It’ll drop at some point in 2022. Admittedly, the collective brouhaha around Joe Rogan and Spotify caused me to reconsider my chosen channel for distribution. So I’m weighing options and will update when I have news to spill. My first season will focus on the grunge era and the physical map of Seattle neighborhoods. One of those episodes focuses on 1992 or what I’ve come to script as the “Year that Grunge Broke…and Seattle, too.” Whether you lived through the mid-80s to later-90s or just care to get a new view of what happened then in Seattle, it’ll be a hoot.

Good luck untangling the knot of emotions conjured up by daily life, wherever you may rock. And thanks for checking in. Stay safe and be well.

A recent partial gallery of good people (posing nonplussed in a trashy alley).

I’m down to the last handful of dates covering my last month of tours. I’ve met some great folks who’ve made the trek to Seattle for a variety of reasons. A few curious locals, too. I’ll do a fuller recap after I drop the mic on the streets at long last on Friday, September 24th. Until then, expect a few pics like the following - same pose, done nearly a hundred times with groups since I kicked this off back in March 2017. If you’ve been waiting to join the fun, the window is closing. I mean it this time. Holler back if you have questions. Thanks for checking in. Stay safe, be well, and rock on.

A "hip" check, watching the dumpster fire that was "Woodstock '99" and keeping an eye on the Delta variant.

I played a small part in a Seattle Times magazine story that ran on Sunday. The reporter reached out a few months back, asking for input to aid a story on how Seattle’s loosely-defined “hipness” has been a big draw to the City for decades. Given that my beat is more in line with nostalgia and cultural geography, I was skeptical about someone loosely aiming to dissect the history of hipness in Seattle. Now that it’s out there, I’m still not sure what his journalistic origami looks like for other readers. It’s a pretty big grab bag of historical sub-references. But I can dig the occasional story melange of random shiny bits. Plus the front-cover photoshoot with Anthony “Sir Mix-a-Lot” Ray at Dick’s Drive-In and a fuller-than-most profile of the Blue Moon Tavern (where I met my wife, with whom I’m celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary this coming week) make this piece worth checking out. My conversations with the reporter only flashed back a link to this website and an unquoted sliver of one meta-story (how a few years back the Danish Ambassador to America requested my tour and we were joined by a very hip handful of museum pros and Michelin-Star-winning Scandinavian chefs). In the end, it didn’t tumble off the rails and I’m glad it ran.

If you’ve not heard about the horror documentary on HBO that recently tipped into the mainstream like an overfilled Porta-potty, consider yourself about to be warned. “Woodstock ‘99: Peace, Love, and Rage” unfolds like the poorly-planned disaster it most certainly was live. Grunge sentimentality factors in as a counterpoint with thoughtful shots of Nirvana fading into the mid-90s background. The metal-rap headliners (Limp Bizkit, Korn, and Kid Rock) egged on the hot, angry, drunken crowd. I’m not sure if I actually recommend watching this doc. Maybe hate-watch it in disbelief. While it’s surely an overly simplified take on that period of nothingness in rock, “Woodstock ‘99” serves as a cautionary tale. I’m not sure what it’s cautioning us to take to heart. Other than to say we should all be wary of over-simplified analysis. Grunge sentimentality neglects many of the useful lessons to be taken from that era. If anything, I’m more assured that a cultural look back needs to be honest about the good as well as the bad from any scene. It’s just hard to see anything good that came from that era of festival cluelessness with the likes of Fred Durst and promoter John Scher leading the charge. Aside from Moby’s commentary. He’s a voice of reason that runs counter to the exploding septic tank that was the festival at the core of this documentary.

Bringing it back home briefly - I’m definitely not stoked about the rise of Delta variant even here in well-vaxxed Seattle. So it’s with a measure of caution that I get back into gear later today with my first August tour. In July, I led 7 of the 20 tours planned through a final blowout on September 24th. For those interested in joining the fun, I’m doing three near-term tours (Wed., Fri., and Sat.) before heading to California with family. But if public safety concerns mount, I may need to cancel this finally final run of regularly scheduled tours. I’ve already had a corporate group with new travel restrictions postpone until at least October. I’ll update as need be in the weeks ahead. If you’re thinking about joining me for a tour, do us all a favor first and get the jab(s).

Here’s hoping I see you soon out there on Seattle’s streets.

Grunge Redux Returns - Fully Vax'ed and Ready to Rock

After so long locked down and kept away from the things we all love, Seattle’s opening up again. We all need to stay vigilant, my fellow travelers. But now that I’m testing new material and thankfully fully vax’ed against COVID, the time has come for an official announcement.

Grunge Redux tours start up again this week and will continue through September.

If you click through, you’ll see the specifics of twenty Grunge Redux tour dates scheduled from this Thursday (July 1st) through September 24th. This new tour calendar coincides with some special grunge-era anniversaries. Many keen-eyed observers will recognize the 30th-anniversary release dates for Pearl Jam’s first album (Ten debuted on August 24, 1991) and Nirvana’s single Smells Like Teen Spirit (September 10, 1991). I’ll finish up this limited run of dates 30 years to the day both Nirvana’s second album (Nevermind) and Soundgarden’s arguably best album (Badmotorfinger) hit record stores. I’ll feature exciting new material added to the stories told along my route through Seattle’s cultural history.

September’s also when I’ll drop the first episode of my new podcast - Seattle Redux. My first season of what the kids are probably already calling “SeaRe” (or probably not…) will focus on a saucy mix of the hidden roots and glorious off-shoots of Seattle’s musical evolution. This multi-episode historical tour of Seattle will kick off in the mid-1980s and crisscross the decades like a Tarantino script on steroids. My podcast will mirror the tour that digs deep into the places and the people that populated the world’s ongoing love affair with the Pacific Northwest. Love it or loathe it - “grunge” is a bumper sticker that’ll never be fully scraped off of Seattle history.

For those new to this jam, my original aim in devising Grunge Redux was to embrace an era's deeper roots rather than fall into cliched retellings. To dig, not bury. Call it generational arrogance, but I hoped a Gen X’er could deliver a friendly all-ages analog tour of one of the greatest regional American music scenes. Countless online magazines and cultural dumpster divers continually shovel glorious recap heaps of what happened in early-90s Seattle. I don’t set out to tell you what’s best in an inch-deep, barely-researched listicle. I’m a writer who moved to Seattle for grad school in the early ‘90s with an eye for authenticity and a semi-legendary memory for details.

When you take one of my tours, we’ll tromp out there where the proverbial meat hit the street. I’m certainly not the hardest working tour guide in the biz. 20 dates in three months? Yep - that’s what’ll fit in around everything else I have going on these days. This was a lovable side hustle from the get-go for me. I’ve been down this path of my own design nearly 100 times and met tour takers from 30 countries (before I stopped counting). Then I even took off for an eight-month swing through Africa when the buzz around Grunge Redux really was building. Oh, and then there was that whole pandemic. Meaning that over the past two years, Seattle’s venues and points of historical value have continued to disappear. As much as that sucks and in spite of my desire to preserve what I remember fondly, I’m not on a quest to lament what’s lost. I’m a guide and a music fan. In some cases, I’ll point you toward what was where back in the various eras (Seattle’s history has many worthwhile layers). In others, I’m telling you where to find what’s worth knowing in present-day Seattle. The way I lead folks around is a largely organic effort. Each tour is different. Why not take one and experience it for yourself?

With limited tour dates ready to roll (one already sold out while I was putting this post together), I’m probably going a bit deep on this post. Nonetheless, if you’re up for it, now’s a prime window to see where my storytelling time machine will take us. It’s a fleeting luxury I’m honored to share with a few inspired travelers. Come fall, I may hang it up again as other projects stretch me thin.

For those still reading (and my hard-working overpaid team of lawyers), I should say a few things about COVID and my adherence to the phased return to work in Washington State. In something resembling an order of importance:

1. I’ll say it again. I’m fully vaccinated. I would like to think that everyone who comes on my tour went down that same path as soon as they could. There have been, however, many challenging paths through this global pandemic. If you became infected with COVID but didn’t get the shots, you simply aren’t protected to the same degree as those who’ve gotten vax’ed. Don’t believe me? Take it up with Dr. Fauci. I care about you. So get the jab(s). Let me join the chorus - we all need to do our part.

2. On my tour, we will be outside and maintain proper social distancing. I will not encourage group hugs or give any piggyback rides.

3. We will, however, make a pit stop where adult or non-alcoholic beverage(s) may be enjoyed. In the past, that stop was always at the Back Bar of The Crocodile Cafe. Often we’d check out the performance space unless a band was doing a sound check for a show. The Croc has since shut down their original venue. The good news is that The Croc’s currently prepping a whole new musical wonderland in the old El Gaucho location a few blocks away (at the corner of First Avenue and Wall Street). Shows at the new Croc start in August. Until I can get navigate that soon-to-be-essential stop, our pitstop will be at the 5 Point Cafe in what some call Tilikum Place (a small square featuring a life-sized statue of Chief Seattle along Dexter Avenue near Seattle Center). That location has outdoor seating, which we will likely use. You may still be required to wear a mask if you head inside to check out their legendary jukebox or men’s room periscope view of the Space Needle (seriously). So bring a mask along. I will have extras in my ever-present bag o’ wonders, if need be.

4. If you’re NOT vax’ed, you should wear a mask everywhere. To be honest, you should make it easier for everyone and get vax’ed before you come to Seattle. Come here, as you are. Unless it is unvax’ed. In which case, come as you should be. We lead the nation’s cities in the rate of vaccination for good reasons. The first COVID cases in America were found here in January 2020 and the first deaths from the disease occurred in nearby Kirkland by the end of that February. Seattle and the surrounding communities took this pandemic seriously. We don’t want to go back to a lockdown situation. I got vax’ed and still wear a mask inside most places because I care about people aside from myself (who I also care about).

Here endeth my COVID statement-eth for the betterment-eth of all.

I’m excited about the new stories I’ve compiled in addition to the old favorites I’ve been dusting off as I get ready for prime time once again. I continue to be surprised by the people coming through Seattle with their own stories to tell about the music they love and what it means to them - no matter what era or place spawned said love. Seattle’s blessed by a reputation for a special musical sauce that continues bringing people here from all over the globe. I don’t subscribe to the maxim - “your band sucks.” In truth, everyone’s band sucks. To some other people. And who cares. Rather than offering the pollyanna-ish claim that everyone’s choice in music is equally valid, I head down the path that everyone can and should embrace their own brand of weird or nerdiness or gothic pessimism or mind-numbing cool. The one universal, however, should be an interest in learning more about the accurate history of where it all came from. Seattle’s a cultural onion worth peeling. That’s the cut of my jib. Once again, love it or loathe it, that’s how this tootsie rolls.

Most importantly, getting back to tours means getting a bit more back to the normal we all crave. I used some of my time in lockdown to think about why these sorts of cultural geography experiences matter. I won’t say that my thinking evolved - my appreciation for this sort of immersive storytelling is why I started this company. I’m just a bit more focused and tons more thankful for the opportunity to interact with folks on the streets of Seattle. Lob me questions, if they arise. Or just plunk down your hard-earned cash for a few hours of entertainment and maybe a few original thoughts to bring a nostalgic era back into focus. Get vax’ed. Then hug someone and tell everyone you know that you’re happy to see them. Get ready to rock. Here’s hoping to see y’all soon.

Getting ready for that final mic drop

If you’ve paid attention to any of the blog posts or updates on my “socials” about Grunge Redux tours, you’ve probably noticed a tendency to cry wolf about the end of this side project. Put all of that aside. Because now I’m really serious. I’m hanging it up. But if you get to this in time, maybe you can join me for one of the last storytelling loops around Belltown. Before I do, however, a few notes on the historic importance of this time of year seems in order.

30 years ago, Sub Pop held Lame Fest at The Moore Theatre. That show on June 9th, 1989 came before most people turned their ears and eyes to the Pacific Northwest. That’s certainly not to invalidate the hard-working bands of all stripes who’d long since been working to create a distinctive blend of punk, metal, garage and amalgamated fuzz. It was just long before it seemed the sounds from Seattle (and the greater Pacific Northwest) would take over the airwaves. One epic sold out show with three local bands on the bill didn’t change the world. It did, however, give us a signpost to reflect back upon if people ask when the hype actually got serious.

Fast forward from Lame Fest less than five years later and you’re looking at the “best of times/worst of times” conundrum that was 1994. That was the year that four bands who called one city home (Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Alice In Chains) independently topped the Billboard album charts. It had never happened before. Nor since (especially given how success is now quantified). That was also a year of foundation-shaking tragedies, as evidenced best by Kurt Cobain’s suicide in April.

As I lead people along a path that points out landmarks with backstories from The Moore Theatre to KEXP’s forward-leaning Gathering Space, far too often the connective tissue worth seeing firsthand is being balled up and tossed aside. The point of this side project for me isn’t to fixate upon the sadness of the era. This was a vibrant, rockin’ place, nonetheless full of contradictions and murky as an alley mudpuddle. For every $50M+ mixed-use construction project newly added to the cityscape, there lurk in the shadows countless stories of artistic evolution and sonic inspiration. I’ve tried to point out some of what I remember, sprinkled liberally with what I’ve learned along the way from others. For all those people who came along on one of my tours during their first trip to Seattle, I’m forever humbled by the role. And to each story shared from another’s perspective on what the Seattle scene meant to them, I pay homage with my utmost appreciation.

The bottom line for me is that another door is opening. A few months from now, I’m moving overseas for a year. Big adventures await and I’m very excited to have the opportunity. I’ll be back in the late summer of 2020. Will I pick up my record bag again and head out with the same mission in mind with respect to Seattle’s music history? I simply don’t know. At the rate that things are changing around The Town, there might not be anything left to point toward. When I hear, for example, that the stretch of Second Avenue between Bell and Blanchard is up next for redevelopment, I’m far from alone in wondering what will be gained. Just as I wonder what will be accomplished by the redevelopment of that stretch of Fourth Avenue where Studio X/Bad Animals and other recording studios thrived until as late as last October. I find solace in the belief that storytellers find ways to connect the past with the realities of the present and hope for the future. Maybe I’ll be one of those storytellers performing the function for visitors or longtime Seattleites who simply want to be reminded of what had been there before. If so, I’d be honored. If not, maybe someone better will figure out a way of explaining what happened to the grunge era’s legacy in Seattle. Either way, I believe a whole gaggle os someones should do so. Because nostalgia isn’t just a way to sell things. It’s a duty to keep alive what’s real and good and worth remembering.

Don’t presume that I’m melancholy about this transition. I’m just adding a bit more backstory, in case you were curious about why someone would pursue the folly of keeping grunge era memories on life support. My kernel code has always been to steer lovingly into meeting new people and to talk openly about an era that continues to reverberate with Seattle’s heart and soul. Maybe I’ll see you out there, sooner or later. Maybe you’ll find it on your own. Rock on, regardless.

Seeing Filthy Friends (and feeling damn good about it)

I caught the West Coast tour kick-off for Filthy Friends (and Eyelids) last night at Neumo’s. The show hit all the right marks for the age and style of fan that I assuredly have become. Both bands delivered accomplished sets. Recognizable icons filled the stage. The crowd grooved but no one got hurt. And we all got back on the road elsewhere at a very agreeable time. As my wife just commented when I gave her my morning coffee recap, “sounds like the perfect Dad rock evening.” Yes, indeed.

Filthy Friends (left to right) - Kurt Block, Scott McCaughey, Corin Tucker, Linda Pitmon, Peter Buck

Before you take that as snark, dear reader, allow me to add a few deets. Filthy Friends are a true supergroup made up of Corin Tucker (Sleater-Kinney, and various side projects), Peter Buck (R.E.M., ditto), Kurt Bloch (Fastbacks…), Linda Pitmon (Zu Zu’s Petals…) and Scott McCaughey (The Young Fresh Fellows…). They live in Seattle, Portland, and NYC. They concentrated on their new album (“Emerald Valley”) released last week. Add up the amount of performing years experience on the stage and the tally would reach well into a second century. In other words, they’ve each forgotten more about rock ‘n roll than any of us will ever know firsthand. They do their jobs and look like they’re having fun up there.

Tucker and McCaughey

Admittedly, I was there to see Scott McCaughey first and foremost. He’s one of the often uncredited icons of the exponential growth in Seattle’s music scene through the mid-’90s. By the time I’d rolled into town back in ‘93, The Young Fresh Fellows had already earned an honorary emeritus professorial position locally. Do yourself a favor if you’re not acquainted with them and give a listen to “The Fabulous Sounds of the Pacific Northwest” (1984) on Spotify. While you’re at it, check out Fastbacks “Very, Very Powerful Motor” (1990)…but I digress. The point being that I always loved McCaughey’s unpretentious swagger on stage. Which made the news that he’d suffered a stroke back in 2017 all the more jarring. The good news is that he’s doing great. He now looks like Christopher Lloyd as Doc Brown in the “Back to the Future” movies. And while the interplay between the players may not be as natural as a group who’ve been together for years in the van and on the stage, they made me just plain feel good about being out to see a show at my favorite club on a Thursday night. Even when a group of well-soused, much younger club goers weaseled their way in front of me prior to the encore…including one oversized dood who appeared to be as over-wide as he was over-tall and over-served…I couldn’t help but laugh at myself for even getting a slight bit annoyed at the pluck on them. It is rock ‘n roll, after all. Long may it live. Especially if it gets me out, inspired, and then home not long after 11pm on a weeknight.

Spring Brings a Grunge Era Focus

Spring arrived in stellar form here in Seattle. We’ve actually been sweating through record temps - with record temps near 80-degrees for three days running. 3/19/19 was even the warmest Winter day EVER recorded in Seattle. This comes little more than a month after an equally rare snowy stretch dumped a foot on us and canceled a week worth of school. What better time to shine some light on a few noteworthy dates as the days lengthen and brighten.

April Fools Day is the true anniversary of Sub Pop Records’s official founding. They turn 31 this year. After last year’s “can you believe we’re 30?” parties and countless features, this birthday may prove easily missed. There’s still much to celebrate. Like the return of Sub Pop’s famous “Singles Club” in its 4th Volume (sorry - no longer open for new subscriptions). They tell me that the first two 7-inch vinyl records will ship in April. I’m certainly not alone in my stoked-ed-ness.

Which reminds me to mention something that is still available - Gillian G. Gaar’s new book. World Domination: The Sub Pop Records Story sheds beams of new light on their history (as the first in the “RPM Series” of titles from BMG Books). Gaar got plenty of access to Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Poneman, and a full roster of insider perspectives. I saw her talk about the book a few months ago at Seattle’s Elliott Bay Book Company. There was a room full of old school Seattleites present to ask Gaar obscure and sometimes pertinent questions. Even if Sub Pop’s not officially shining a light upon itself this month, I’ll be telling some of my favorite old and new Sub Pop stories as we walk around Belltown.

A far less celebratory but certainly significant milestone comes up that same week. April 5th marks the 25th anniversary Kurt Cobain’s death. When he was found on April 8, 1994 at his home here in Seattle, I was in grad school at the University of Washington. One of the stories I share on my tour focuses upon what I experienced on the day Kurt was found, and over the melancholy days that followed. I suspect I won’t be alone in recalling in the coming weeks what I experienced and thought 25 years ago. Judging by the contact from fans I’ve recently received, this date merits a variety of worldwide observations.

Viretta Park

The bench used as an informal memorial since April 1994.

I should note for those just tuning in that by design I don’t take people by Kurt Cobain’s former home. I’m actually somewhat uncomfortable with that location being used as an informal memorial, although I certainly understand the need it serves for some. My walking tour around parts of Seattle functions more as a tribute to where the scene lived in the mid-1980s through the 1990s. All of us who feel a connection to the music that came from Seattle and the Pacific Northwest during that era can and likely do have something to say about what occurred here. With all due respect to other forms of memorial, I hope you’ll join me in observing not just where the tragedies happened. Maybe then we’ll have a better sense of where we’ve traveled since. And possibly where we’re we should be looking for what’s next.

Discussing the ongoing use of "grunge" in fashion

Unlike so much else that came from the grunge era, the fashion of the those times remains popular. Or at least continues to be marketed and discussed as grunge. My tour intentionally follows a path that includes stories of the so-called fashion of the grunge era. For those who shopped in thrift stores especially during the 1980s and ‘90s, it wasn’t about the look so much as the price of what was available. And the continued marketing of the grunge-y look undoubtably causes some mocking awareness. What’s always been worthwhile talking about is how flannel shirts and combat boots became such identifiable cliches. The bottom line being in part that the “acres of flannel” (a term I’d like to copyright) found at the Goodwill stores and Value Villages and less identifiable second-hand stores of Seattle fielded the cheapest crop of looks for those with the most limited budgets. The look of grunge, for lack of a better term, wasn’t invented in the Pacific Northwest. Punks all across the world can scream that fact at you. But good luck telling that to the larger world that assumes it was required for entry into the scene here in Seattle.

It’s perhaps not surprising that the look hasn’t gone away. And what got me thinking about the fashion of the era yet again this week came from the NYTimes’s amazing chief fashion critic, Vanessa Friedman. She reported from Milan’s Fall Fashion Week shows about the continued presence of “grunge” fashion on the runways of Versace and Agnona (among other fashion lines). Friedman even pondered in print what to call the current trend of “luxury grunge” looks for next Fall - whether “lunge?” or “gruxury?” - while offering her trademark dissection of where it all comes from while analyzing where the winds may be blowing. Marc Jacobs has by far the most scandalous mix of such retreads. He even called his 25th anniversary line of grunge looks “Redux Grunge.” For anyone who knows the backstory of his brilliantly disastrous 1993 Perry Ellis grunge line, his attempt at “redux” surely shouldn’t shock. The Cobain family and surviving members of Nirvana beat me to the punch of filing suit against Jacobs for trademark infractions. One look at the logo he stole from Nirvana and you’re sure rule for the plaintiff. Next up - my grievance for stealing and trashing the good name of my tour.

I simply believe that continuing to re-fashion grunge amounts to creative laziness. I would like to think that most fashion consumers are aware when they are stepping over the line into self-mockery. Or are they? Jacobs got destroyed (lost his job, mocked for decades) for designing flannel shirts that would sell for hundreds of dollars back in the early 1990s. What about those same basic designs selling for much more today? Nobody struggling to pay rent or afford a night out in the clubs could ever hope to afford one of these new faux grunge looks from a fancypants fashion house. Nonetheless, I still love a good flannel. Especially those with provenance like the ones being made in the U.S.A. for the first time in decades by American Giant.

That’s a whole other layer of dissection of form and function…don’t get me started on my broader work on where fashion comes from…and certainly not the point of this no-longer-so-simple post. I just wanted to mention that we spend some time out on the streets of Seattle pointing to places like the Army/Navy Surplus store on First Avenue in Belltown as places with legitimate history dating back far beyond the grunge era.

As I wrote here in my most recent post, I’m going to lob more subjects on this ongoing blog to broaden the overview for my Grunge Redux tours. Along with the podcast (!) I’m developing. If you have questions about what I cover out on the streets of Seattle, holler back. Or just join me for a tour. I promise we’ll have a good time revisiting a fascinating era of the region’s cultural history. And there’s no dress code required.

Tour schedule update, and KUOW's "The Record" segment on "What Killed Grunge?"

February’s almost over, which means that my Grunge Redux tour schedule kicks back into gear. I’ve recently led some special tours (including one awesome group of high school age music fans from Seattle on a particularly rainy January day). I’ve done some special advance scouting travel for an August overseas move (more on that later). But for those interested in regular walking tours around Seattle’s fascinating cultural geography, I’m happy to announce that I’m getting back out on the streets.

As always, you can drop me a quick line if you have plans to visit Seattle when you don’t see a tour on my schedule. More often than not, I’m open to thoughtful pitches and special requests. There’s really nothing else out there like what I do for those obsessed or at least curious about the Pacific Northwest’s grunge era history. As I’ve often said on my tours, “I’m not trying to ‘out cool’ anyone.” This is a labor of love and my (self-appointed) ambassadorial duties have introduced me to an expanding atlas of far-flung tour takers. So far, people from a few dozen countries and more than 30 American states have toured with me. Why not jump into the mosh pit yourself? It’s a friendly, invigorating way of seeing a slice of Seattle - both past and present.

I need to add some links to some recent media that has featured Seattle Grunge Redux. I’ll preview them with a link to a recent conversation on Seattle’s NPR station (KUOW) that I was honored to join. Host Bill Radke’s from “The Record” brought a few of us into the studio - Ean Hernandez (from Seattle band Sicko and many other bands with a signature pop punk ethic) and Gretta Harley (writer, musician, educator with a new album coming out this weekend from her latest band, Love and Fury). and yours truly. The segment used the 25th anniversary of Green Day’s “Dookie” being released as an intro to ponder when the grunge era and Seattle’s presumed dominance came to fade away. I had recently come back from a trip to Africa, so my jet lagginess took the edge of my insights. I did the chance to voice my opinions that marketing shaped much of the world’s view of Seattle and that nostalgia is actually a worthy lens through which to view the music from the grunge era. Give it a listen and let me know if you have any thoughts to contribute.

I’m going to expand upon my usual sparse posting here to reinvigorate the conversation. Let me know if you have any questions. Sign up for a tour. Or just check back. More to come…

Back on the road (with new dates scheduled)

The rumor(s) spread (by me…) about the extended hiatus of my Grunge Redux tours have been quashed. Due to popular demand, I’ve added some new scheduled tours starting on Valentine’s Day (with more to come). I’ve actually been out rockin’ and rollin’ on the streets of Seattle often enough recently that I should offer a fuller update. That will come soon, I pinkie swear. But the bottom line for anyone curious about when you might be able to book a storytelling journey into Seattle’s fascinating past/present/future is the band is back together! If I can call myself a band (I can’t) as a solo artist (loosely speaking, of course) out on the road (here in Seattle) trying to entertain and educate the crowds (generally limited to less than 10 people).

I should mention a special tour I ran earlier this week for a cool, thoughtful bunch of local high schoolers. Plenty of musicians in the group, with a super-cool adviser who got our “field trip” approved with the administration of their Seattle-area high school. If you’re also angling at a special group event, feel free to give me a holler. No promises. But I definitely love the chance to tailor the research I’ve done to audiences with special interests.

As visual evidence, here we are outside MoPOP. Good looking crew, I must say.

It's been fun, but the time has come to end this chapter.

Without spending on advertising…aside from a few days of testing out Google Adsense and realizing that clicks mean next to nothing in terms of connecting with actual people…some pretty awesome people found their way to my walking tours during the past handful of months. I’ve done a few tallies to illustrate the dynamism of who’s come along (here’s a brief snapshot). I’ve met visitors to Seattle from 18 countries. I’ve had along journalists from right here, a German “Rolling Stone” reporter, and a documentary TV film crew from France. I showed around as many as 15 people in one group (a hopeful mistake) and as few as just one woman visiting from South Korea (a total delight). There were boundlessly positive waves of Pearl Jam fans especially around the time of the Home Shows in August. So often there were tough questions asked that drew me obsessively deeper into the research of Seattle’s cultural history. We’ve experienced the sudden loss of Paul Allen, watched the unfolding debate over The Showbox, awaited the evolution of the former Galleria Potato Head/Black Dog Forge space into something new and exciting, appreciated MoPOP’s Pearl Jam exhibit and the unveiling of the Chris Cornell statue, celebrated with Sub Pop their first 30 years of going out of business, and prepared for places like Studio X/Bad Animals to leave behind their Belltown digs. The list of discussion worthy points along the way through Seattle’s landscape and history goes on.

And now it’s time for me to drop to mic.

I have one more tour scheduled for this week. Given the current warm and sunny weather, it should make for yet another lovely walkabout. I even have a few more fun details to share that I recently learned from both the Andrew Wood documentary (available from Seattle’s awesome Public Library) and the obsessed folks behind Northwest Passage’s reporting on the story behind the Deep Six compilation by C/Z Records back in 1986.

Whenever I finish a tour, I scrutinize what I forgot to mention. I don’t have a script…as might prove obvious to most…even though I have some reliably retold tales and a good memory for detail. Although I shouldn’t push the analogy too far, I’ve seen this little side project take on the elements of a live show. In that light, the thing that I’ve learned above all else from this particular performance is that I respect the power of nostalgic yearning. I often say that I don’t want to ever fall into any form of “your band sucks” criticism as we conversationally amble through music history. That’s not to say I’m without strong opinions on what music then or now matters. Either here in Seattle or beyond. I’ve simply tried to offer an entertaining mix of stories tied to the places from whence the stuff came.

If you’ve found your way to this humble post and want to reach out in hopes of still scheduling a tour, I’m always open to hearing your pitch. But I’m not planning to put up anymore regularly scheduled tours for the foreseeable future. Not that you asked, but the year ahead will be an extremely busy one for me and my family. I have a book project that demands my immediate and full attention. My family and I are planning for a sabbatical year starting next August in Ethiopia. I’m thinking about developing this material further for a self-guided podcast/audio tour. Yada yada yada. We all have our plans and dreams and day-to-day distractions. I’m nonetheless glad to have met all the people I did while trying to share a small slice of Seattle.

This isn’t the end. The conversation will continue. Thanks for checking in. Holler back if you have questions. And rock on.

Pearl Jam's "Home Shows" and Sub Pop's 30th Anniversary...pump up the volume on an amazing week of Seattle activities

The summer's been hot and the news has been steamy in Seattle. A brutal report about Dave Meinert's sexually abusive actions shocked many, and the backlash has been severe from all quarters (I will continue to mention his background, but with the essential update that came from that KUOW story last week). News of The Showbox's possible demise and/or pending landmark status may be stirring people into action (I strongly suggest signing the Change.org petition as I've done to do whatever's possible to protect this essential big room venue, and putting your words into action as I'm also doing). 

And this all comes as Pearl Jam prepares to play their "Home Shows" in less than two weeks from when I write this. I've sold out my Grunge Redux tours for that week, and the far flung members of the "Jamily" arriving soon have reached out with much excitement and earnestness. MoPOP long ago tapped into that energy by organizing a new exhibit set to open on Saturday, August 11th.

Sub Pop's 30th Anniversary Weekend celebration adds an equally amazing river of energy to that week's festivities. KEXP has kept them fresh in everyone's mind as they've played something off the entirety of Sub Pop's 1200+ release catalog for months counting down to the parties themselves on 8/10 and 8/11.  

It's a head-spinning mix of awesomeness. To show some of my priorities...and to give a hopefully helpful cheat sheet for that week...I'll offer the following list of activities that deserve to be on your schedule. In chronological but certainly not entirely complete order:

Saturday, 7/28 @ Georgetown Records - Punk Flyer Retrospective 1979-85

Wednesday, 8/1 on-air with KEXP - The Home Shows spotlight (from 6am to 6pm Best Coast Standard Time)

Thursday, 8/2 @ KEXP's Gathering Space - Storytelling Session with members of the Black Constellation collective

Tuesday, 8/7 @ MoPOP - Member Preview Day of "Pearl Jam: Home and Away" exhibit at MoPOP

Tuesday, 8/7 @ Optimism Brewing - MoPOP + Optimism "Pop Culture Trivia Night (focus upon Pearl Jam)

Thursday, 8/9 in Magnuson Park/NOAA Campus - Chris Cornell tribute

Thursday, 8/9 @ KEXP's Gathering Space - Storytelling Session with Mudhoney

Thursday, 8/9 @ Nordic Museum - Danish music journalist Henrik Tuxen's book talk for his fascinating bio titled "Pearl Jam: The More You Need, The Less You Get"

Friday and Saturday's redonkulously interesting lineups of Sub Pop Concerts @ Seattle Center's Mural Amphitheatre and West Seattle's Alki Beach. Check the SP30th website for all the updates.

Saturday, 8/11 @ MoPOP - the opening of "Pearl Jam: Home + Away" exhibit. Expect that it will sell out incredibly fast. 

Please note that I will be adding more details and/or suggested events for that whole week soon. 

Plus, I've got just two more tours left before the end of the summer (Tuesday, 8/14 and Saturday, 9/1). Some other fascinating media outreach has cropped up. So there's much going on, and much to look forward to. Rock on y'all.

Looking back on the anniversary of "Bleach" dropping...and forward

It's been a few months since I put up one of my periodic time capsule-heavy how-you-doin' updates. Today seems like an especially apt time to do so. Because on this date, Nirvana's first album "Bleach" was released back in 1989. While the album was well-received by critics, it barely reached the broader public still quaintly thinking of Seattle as an out of the way "noun" rather than a soon-to-be ubiquitous "adjective" (as in "Seattle sound" or "Seattle band" or the like). The relative lack of promotion eventually led Nirvana to leave Seattle's own Sub Pop Records. "Bleach" sold just 40,000 copies by the time their next album "Nevermind" fully cracked the cultural firmament two years later. However, it would go on to become Sub Pop's biggest selling album (1.9M and counting). Not bad for an album that cost just over $600 in studio time to record. 

Music journalists eventually dug way deep to learn that Cobain wrote most of the lyrics for that first batch of songs in a "pissed off mood" (Kurt's characterization, not mine) the night before their first recording session with Jack Endino at Reciprocal Records in Ballard. The sound was somewhat shaped to fit what Sub Pop was looking for at the time. But the energy and the originality and the off-kilter melodic fury endures. I still spin it from time to time. In fact, that's what's playing in the background as I write this. 

As I also like to point out at the start of my Grunge Redux tours, six days prior to "Bleach" dropping was an especially fortuitous date for the 2000-ish lucky people who made it into Sub Pop's "Lame Fest" at the Moore Theatre. The kind, naive people running that venue misjudged a billing with Nirvana, Tad and Mudhoney on the marquee. Hardly anyone aside from the in-the-know local fans thought it could sell out (which it did). Surely including the management of The Moore, who chose to send home early their security. And maybe not even Sub Pop, who were (reportedly) banned for a decade from that neighborhood venue as a result of the mayhem that resulted. 

Shifting forward to the now-ish...two months on down the line, we'll all most likely be lamenting "where did the summer go?" Before then, I've got big plans. Travel, family fun, a pile of work that's staring me down. Not that you asked, but I like to keep y'all in the know. Regardless, interspersed until mid-August on some special dates, I'll be running more Grunge Redux tours. Then after Pearl Jam finishes up their first Seattle shows in five years and Sub Pop throws itself a 30th birthday bash out on Alki Beach, I'll be dropping the ol' tour guide record bag (aside from a few charitable outings and the occasional special request). My subtle wink wink nudge nudge point here is to say that I'd love to have you join me for one before I stop doing encores. Next Friday even. Which could be an unseasonable warm day. What better time to skip out of work early and make a few Happy Hour cooling stops wrapped up in my uniquely Seattle storytelling experience? Tickets are available. Questions, as always, are welcomed and answered as soon as I can get to them.

Or you can also check me out for a limited time on Airbnb. If you've joined me before and want to say something about the experience, reviews can be placed there. No pressure. Just another friendly nudge.

Now if you'll excuse me, time to get back to rocking out. I hope you're doing the same...or will be soon...on this room-temperature and sunny Friday.

New deets for Grunge Redux walking tours in May and June

No one should aim to dwell too much in the past. But who doesn't love an entertaining ride in the ol' time machine every once in a while? If you set the flux capacitor for 27 years ago right about now, you'd be able to make the grand opening of the Crocodile Cafe (with The Posies and Love Battery on the bill). Looking around Belltown in the Springtime of 1991 might seem delightfully primordial. Or well past prime for those locals who'd grown up going to venues well before the Teen Dance Ordinance starting shutting them down. No one, however, could have foretold that two of the biggest-selling albums of the entire decade (Pearl Jam's Ten released that August and Nirvana's Nevermind in September) would soon come from here. Who wouldn't get a charge out of skipping that rock back to before Seattle largely became an adjective and grunge became a noun in common worldwide usage?

Or what about a trip back to 1989 around the time of "Lame Fest" at The Moore (with Mudhoney, TAD, and Nirvana introducing their first and only Sub Pop album Bleach). Or the turbulent watershed year of 1994 when Seattle's Big 4 (Alice in Chains, Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden) all hit #1 on the then-still-important Billboard Album chart. You could easily wear out the dial flipping back and forth between the dates that could showcase Seattle's unlikely rise and evolution as a music City of sizable awesomeness. 

Thankfully, you don't have to. You can instead sign up for one of my Grunge Redux tours. 

As we leap into May, I've got three tours on the calendar, and another 5 scheduled in June. I'll be on the road in July, but then back in August with a prescheduled slate of tours the week of Pearl Jam's "Home Shows" and Sub Pop Records's sure-to-be epic 30th Anniversary Party. Nothing's rock solid, however, since even the most beloved side projects get shelved when the proverbial band gets back together. 

This is, nonetheless, a rather long-winded wink wink nudge nudge way to say that there are available spots on my Happy Hour tour this Friday, 5/4, starting at 4pm. As usual, we'll walk an approximately two-mile path through Belltown and finish up at KEXP's Gathering Space in Seattle Center. The many stops along the way make this a two-hour-plus-a-skoch storytelling journey. Tickets are $50/person, although cheaper as pairs or even more so in larger groups. I'll happily reply with timely answers if you lob back questions. Or I'll send along all the logistical details you'll need if you pick out tickets that appeal to you.

In the past month alone, I was been delighted to lead around folks from Germany, Denmark, Scotland, England, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Detroit and the Great Pacific Northwest. As always, people ranging from the most casual of music fans to the randomly obsessed lobbed back new insights along the way. Snippets from those conversations and other newly discovered grunge-y gems factor into the storytelling I'll be doing along the way. If you've not yet heard my backstory on this, my love for that era's music developed both prior to and after making my own way out West in 1993. As I like to say (on purpose), "grunge is people." One of these times on this evolving loop around Belltown, I'll figure out just what I mean by that. 

But in all seriousness if you're looking for a more tangible sense of what gets covered on my Grunge Redux tours, I've dug deeply for places where the essential music of the mid-1980s through later-1990s was both created and consumed. The course of a few hours gives us time to explore a workable overview of the grunge era in Seattle and beyond. More material will come your way later to inspire additional exploration. I'm happy to proclaim that this ain't no sucky suicide and sadness tour. Although I certainly don't shy away from giving those chapters their due inclusion. I'm just firing up the wayback machine, and hopefully connecting some of the dots you might have missed along the way. With more than a few yucks thrown in. Hopefully. 

Whether or not you can make it on a tour, feel free to pass this or future friendly promos along. There are no guarantees of how long I'll be offering this. Passion projects are like that. I'm nonetheless happy to accommodate y'all and any special requests that arise so long as I do.

Regardless, here's hoping we cross paths at a show sometime soon. Be well, and rock on always.

Grunge Redux Happy Hour tour this Friday...Brunch tour on Saturday, 4/14

30 years ago this month, a series of curious events occurred that would eventually shift the plates of Seattle's seemingly sedate cultural bedrock. Sub Pop Records signed a lease on office space in Belltown on a metaphorically significant April Fools Day. Nirvana played their first two Seattle shows. Mudhoney also played their first show, seven years after their lead singer, Mark Arm, unintentionally coined the much-loathed yet essential term "grunge" in a letter to the long-since defunct punk zine, "Desperate Times." To go further down that rabbit hole, Mudhoney formed from the split nucleus of the band Green River, which also led to the formation of Mother Love Bone. For the non-geeks out there and/or anyone else still reading, Pearl Jam formed in part from Mother Love Bone, after the tragic death of their lead singer, Andy Wood, in 1990. As one might say in a deep, movie-trailer quality voiceover, "in a world where few bands dared to believe they could succeed...now there were many...and soon there'd be many many more."

Whether or not its obvious, I've continued to polish the chrome and tweak the carburetor on my Grunge Redux walking tour through parts of downtown Seattle. And without being a noodge...too late...I want to point y'all toward my revised calendar for upcoming tours. 

This Friday, 4/6, I'm doing another Happy Hour tour starting at 4pm. And then the Saturday after next, 4/14, I'm doing my first Brunch tour starting at 10:30. In both iterations, we'll walk an approximately two-mile path through Belltown and finish up at KEXP's Gathering Space in Seattle Center. The many stops along the way make this a two-hour-plus-a-skoch storytelling journey.

If you've not received or just not bothered to read through one of my promos previously, there's more detail on my website along with a schedule through August. Tickets are $50/person, although cheaper as pairs or even more so in bigger groups. I'll happily reply with timely answers if you lob back questions. Or I'll send along all the logistical details you'll need if you pick out tickets that appeal to you.

As has always been the case with my Grunge Redux tours, there's an element of improv drawn from the particular interests of those along for the walk. Feel free to tell me what you yearn to hear covered. Please bear in mind that you needn't be versed in the grunge era (which I bookend with stories that place the action between 1985 and 1996-ish). Or if you're a Seattle music super geek, I still believe I can add to that with deep cuts and thoughtfully researched connective logic. All ages are welcome, although there will be opportunities for the grown ups to stop briefly for beverages along the way. In which case, the all ages ticket holders get to play in the figurative street.

I believe this immersive history tour makes an essential boom era in Seattle's history return to life. Imagine the Underground Tour of Pioneer Square. But with careful research, fresh air and even fresher shtick. I'd be stoked to show y'all some of what I've learned along this path. Regardless, I hope you're well and ready for whatever new stories are being currently generated all over the Great Northwest.

Seeing Treepeople well outside of the forest

I caught the first of two reunion shows in Seattle for Treepeople last night at Neumo's on Capitol Hill. You're probably already Googling the band Treepeople, which will surely lead to the subsequent work of lead singer/guitarist Doug Martsch's next Boise-connected band, Built to Spill. Maybe you already know their further connections with The Halo Benders, and the incredibly influential K Records from Olympia. Heading down the ol' band genealogy road never fails to entertain me, whether or not it does much for you.

Yet aside from more of this "six degrees of Seattle separation" shtick, I'm actually more interested in bearing down on the pleasure to be had from a spirited show on a random Wednesday. The bottom line being that I still love seeing live music. 

I'm not aiming to be mean, but I was also reminded last night of just how, um, let's just say weathered so many of my Gen X compatriots appear as our median age careens toward (or beyond...) 50-years-old. The joy, nonetheless, lies in seeing the varied shades of my graying generation truly bobbing along to noisy riffs. Let's face it folks - Gen X is heading toward AARP territory. I, for one, hope we fully steer into that skid. 

My thinking about last night also loops around toward a rational view of why I even dare to offer something as inherently silly as a walking tour for the grunge-serious or at least curious.

To start, let's further call out Gen X's demographic shortcomings. We're the smallest population slice on the tray here in the good ol' US of A. Surely we play well with others, but that's a point still worth mentioning as the baby boomers and millenials and whatever the hell you want to call my daughter's generation are fighting for influence over the mainstream culture with numbers we simply can't match. Of my generation's serious cultural contributions, the most influential surely must be seen as the growth in the late '80s to '90s of hip hop. But the rock mashup that's become comfortably known as grunge has (at least in my mind) become harder to trace.

From another angle, I mean it as a compliment to the fans of Pearl Jam when I say they are more akin to classic rock fans than to that of any other genre. Their concerts are huge, their audience is global, they are followed like the Dead but with much nicer accommodations expected and found out truckin'. But aside from their admirable longevity and continued output of studio albums over what will soon be three decades, there certainly isn't a caravan of bands still out there applying salve to the souls of my generation. The simple logic of aging mean that other bands from the grunge era are increasingly relegated to retooling and reunions. At best. Which means that people looking to tap into quality sharable nostalgia from the '80s and '90s have to dig a little deeper. That act can be rewarding, though, when the beloved resurface. 

Digging just a little deeper on last night, Treepeople added Troy Wright on bass, to fill the gap left by the tragic loss of Pat Brown in 1999. Pat's younger brother, Scott Schmaljohn, and Martsch were a joy to watch shred and connect and just plain bloom in the familiar spotlight on the stage. I've always focused an inordinate amount of attention on the drummer, and Wayne Rhino Flower did not disappoint with the way he chokes up on his sticks and drives so passionately through song after song. Theirs was a solid hour+ of grungy glee, shared by all.

Although my sample of what others thought of the show is limited. The best conversation I had was with an epic-length-grey-goatee-wearing superfan named Adrian during the break after the second opener. We started in with parkour jokes about Neumo's upper level, and effortlessly shifted to shared concerns over recently mangled joints and a grudging appreciation for yoga or whatever zen bullshit works best to keep us rock solid so that we can see decades of more adventures. Including these sorts of shows. Whatever others thought about last night, I hope to join them or their ilk out for more of the same very soon. Thank you, Treepeople. Thank you, Seattle. And thank you, too, for reading.