Wednesday, July 26, 2017

Don't try to understand

Since moving to Seattle, I haven't really done the whole "Seattle music" scene.  What can I say?  I've been busy.  I'm an adult person and a grad student - and going to shows is a pain in the ass in this city.

We've seen the "Sound Garden" and the "Black Hole Sun" and Kurt Cobain's house and childhood home, and we lived about a long block from Layne Staley's place of death, but I haven't really invested in exploring the actual music that Seattle was known for.

Now that I'm (hopefully) a year out from leaving Seattle, it's starting to creep up a bit.  After this year, I'll have lived in Seattle longer than any other place I've ever lived.  That's nuts, right?  Only 6 years?

Jesus, where the hell am I even from?

The internet, clearly.


Anyway, in my thinking about Seattle music, I recalled the 'Home Alive' compilation from the mid-90s.  The compilation (and self-defense organization) came about after the rape and murder of Mia Zapata, singer of the (awesome) band the Gits.

After rediscovering this comp, I listened to this song and was instantly taken back to 1995.  I was 14, liked the catchier grunge songs and was on the verge of sinking deeply into a flannel-wrapped depression cocoon, only to emerge as a punk rock butterfly a year later.  I listened to a lot of music like this - we all remember Soul Asylum, right?

Although I'd remembered this song really well, I'd never listened to more from the band.  But now that I'm predicting future nostalgic feelings about Seattle, I need a soundtrack for them.  What better way than by digging back into the kind of sounds that I loved when I was 14?  Come to find out that this band was pretty solid.  I mean, I get why they're not famous, but it certainly sounds like a bunch of mid-90s indie film soundtracks.



It's so solidly early 90s, capturing everything great about that era.  I love it.

Wednesday, July 19, 2017


Goodnight, kiddo.