The music of Seattle

(I have a total love/hate relation w/ Seattle. I love it because it's not goddamn Everett, and hate it because it's not anywhere else.)

Somewhere east coast. (This shows you how much I pay attention.)

And let's not speak of it again, in the context of a "movement", thanks.

Seattle still has and had well known bands/artists... it's just that the popularity of Death Cab, Pretty Girls, Blood Brothers, Jeff Samuel (now Berlin), Lusine, Eluvium (formerly Portland), The Lights, Earth, Modest Mouse (now Portland) hasn't been such a city-centric focus.. these bands/artists have pretty much become popular on their own terms, and not because they live in a particular city.

I'm really happy living in a city with tons of great bands and artists (not necessarily all the ones I mentioned above) who I can see regularly, and who can live here just because they can thrive here and enjoy living here to some degree, not because they need a "scene" or "movement" to energize them. I wouldn't sleep if I had to catch every band I liked play every night here. There's nothing specifically "Seattle" about these bands

sure we have more Sonics & Melvins sounding bands than other regions, but that's the case with a lot of key bands in any city having that effect.

Anyways, Seattle's "scene" has got to be cooler than Eugene's "scene" which is both a knockoff of the "Bay Area scene" as well as a knockoff of the "Portland scene" depending on which club you go to.

not strange to me in the slightest. look at where the country was in the late 80s/early 90s. look at where it's been ever since.

seriously, though, one of the things i love most about seattle's music scene is the sun city girls and the circle of musicians and labels that gravitate around them: climax golden twins, sea donkeys, katharina tunicata, sublime frequencies, etc.

and now that charlie g's doing much better, we ought to be seeing more action from those guys -- including their scoring harmony k's new film (which means maybe i'll watch a harmony k. movie to the end for once but more importantly some $$ for the girls!)

what else that's not strictly in the emo-esque indie/ roots-rock (kexp-most overrated station everrrrrr?) realm? i gues saxophonist wally shoup is better known, finally? that's rad. seattle-based reissue label light in the attic's deluxe job with the 2nd karen dalton album is lovely, as is most of the stuff they do. for years there i was super psyched about the a-frames and their axis of friends, and was surprised at how unknown they were in town -- surely that's changed, or have they just broken up by now?

the dude from the makers is here? i haven't been going to the strip clubs lately so no wonder i've not seen him.

and i always thought the a-frames drummerwas straight-up ripping off the chrome guy one two out of three tunes and swell maps drummer on the third. bob bert's a good call, too, though. they're all art-tastic...

I guess I will say I have seen that one band live who's name I can't recall = you know, the cutesy, fairly well known electronic bleepy one with a girl playing keyboards I think. They were fun but I felt no desire to buy their music. It's going to drive me crazy for hours now that I can't remember their name. Okay I've got it now: United State of Electonica (USE). Yeah that's who I mean.

I really liked that shoegazing band Voyager One for awhile, in fact I thought their album "Monster Zero" was amazing in that it reminded me so much of the 4AD sound. But eventually I sold it. I'm not sure if I should feel guilty about that or not. They did seem rather amateurish/pretentious at times.

Anyway the point is it's pretty much all non-starters as far as I'm concerned. I still say 764-Hero and Magic Magicians were the very best Seattle has produced (leaving aside Jimi Hendrix for the moment) but that was several years ago now.

Plenty of goods here in garage-punk (A-Frames, Lights, Unnatural Helpers, Intelligence), indie/power-pop (Vells, Speaker Speaker, Slender Means, Math & Physics Club), jazz (Wally Shoup, Dead Science) and in-betweens (Cops, Kinski)

I was never into that many Seattle bands when it was THE scene. Silkworm, Tad, maybe Willard, and, if I can cheat a bit, Melvins. Thats about it.

Totally overlooked: Red Martian. They recently put out an album with remixes done by Severed Heads. Normally on the more indie/shoegazy tip.

Son Of Rose, if you like Fennesz or Ryoji Ikeda.

This is a great city for metal, grind, hardcore... Iron Lung, Akimbo, Book Of Black Earth (ex Teen Cthulhu), Bloodhag... which isn't that surprising.. as most cities these days are great cities for metal, grind, and hardcore... heh.

They're touring very soon on the west coast, so don't miss 'em. I think their dates are on their myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/lights

This song makes me feel so very honoured to call this city my home.

PIL - Seattle

andrew wood died 25 years ago today.

And speaking of the departed, the last post here was from Bimble. It's always still a bit odd for me when one of his old posts pops up. RIP.

so, what are the best albums / mixtapes / releases of 2018 by Seattle (or even Seattle-area) artists? i used to pay close attention to the scene, but have dropped the ball this year.

any / all genres welcome.