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Abstract

Between the late 1980s and early 1990s, the rock music genre which became known as ‘grunge’ put Seattle, Washington in the cultural limelight. However, it had been since the late 1970s that independent music – much of it emanating from scenes in American ‘college towns’ – had been shaping the underground musical landscape of the United States. This meant that while Seattle captured the global imagination by 1991 with its hard-hitting punk-meets-metal sound, DIY scenes continued to blossom in towns and cities across America. For both Olympia and Bellingham, Washington, two college towns with close proximity to Seattle, the early 1990s – with grunge's international recognition – proved an interesting and unusual time to exert local musical sensibilities. This article charts the opportunities and challenges that these two Seattle-adjacent music scenes experienced while creating and maintaining their individual identities during the heyday of grunge.

Keywords

Music scenes DIY grunge Riot Grrrl indie rock

It is well established that American independent music scenes from the late 1970s through the early 1990s often arose around institutions of higher learning in so-called ‘college towns’ (Arnold, 1993; Hale, 2020; Shank, 1994). With large cohorts of young people living in them, college towns have been important sites for youth to develop their interests away from the potentially prying eyes of parents (Gumprecht, 2003; Karp et al., 1998). Since the early 1990s, both journalists and scholars have reflected on the currency and impact of independent or do-it-yourself (DIY) music scenes – both in American college towns (and cities) and elsewhere around the world (Azerrad, 2001; Bennett and Guerra, 2019; Kruse, 2003; Reynolds, 2006; Straw, 1991; Verbuč, 2022). Paying focused attention to late-twentieth-century scenes illuminates how such communities created discrete spaces for musical activities to coalesce – whether playing in bands, starting independent record labels, organizing concerts, hosting college radio shows, creating media (such as fanzines, posters, and flyers), or actively attending local concerts (Bennett and Peterson, 2004; Kruse, 2003; Verbuč, 2021). That said, while the participatory elements of such scenes have tended to be similar, their histories are singular – with each locale having a narrative reflecting its own time, place, and circumstances.

While Athens, Georgia likely remains the most well-known and best documented ‘college rock town’ to those both inside and outside the US given the subsequent national (and international) popularity of local bands the B-52's and REM by the early 1980s (Brown, 1991; Hale, 2020; Jipson, 1994), the narratives of both Olympia and Bellingham, Washington's music scenes from 1988 to 1994, are worthy of closer examination – especially when examined together. This is because, unlike other college towns at that time, both had to contend with neighbouring Seattle as it became a musical epicentre with grunge – the city's homegrown style of underground rock (Bell, 1998; Strong, 2016). With both towns located less than one hundred miles from Seattle to the north and south respectively, Bellingham and Olympia already had their own flourishing music scenes by the late 1980s. While exact start and end dates for any cultural phenomenon are blurry at best, this study is bracketed on one side by the official incorporation of the Seattle-based independent music label Sub Pop, which became the main purveyor of the grunge sound, and, on the other, by the suicide of Nirvana's songwriter and guitarist Kurt Cobain. Since Nirvana became the most globally successful grunge band, Cobain's death heralded the genre's decline in popularity (Elliott, 2018; Stafford, 2018; Strong, 2019). During these years, Olympia and Bellingham could not help but feel the effects of Seattle's cultural moment in the sun – even as young people in both towns created their own spaces of musical revelation. As a cultural history, the discussion that follows highlights how these two music scenes maintained their individual styles while Seattle experienced unprecedented international attention during the peak years of grunge.

Method: writing cultural history

Since this project seeks to fill a gap in cultural history, the approach taken is one that constructs a historical narrative created from a combination of primary and secondary sources. In Doing History, Donnelly and Norton highlight that the practice of history ‘refers to particular ways of thinking about the past, researching phenomena from the past and creating accounts’ (2020: 3). In this account, primary sources such as newspaper articles were found through digital archives while personal testimony was gathered through asynchronous e-interviews. Interviewees were emailed a questionnaire that they responded to in written form at their convenience (Golding, 2014; Kamp et al., 2018). Since I participated in Bellingham's music scene between 1989 and 1993, autobiographical history is also included because it ‘has the advantage of bringing to the historical task a greater range of sources (not only memory, but frequently access to personal records, including the records and memories of contemporaries)’ (Irving, 1992: 113). Indeed, my personal collection from this time alongside ongoing contact with former Bellingham scene members help to inform this account. Of 10 people interviewed, three responded to a Facebook post calling for participants while seven were recruited through my personal network.

Given the project's framework, personal testimony is implemented within the tradition of oral history, which today can employ digital communication like email (Skinner, 2011). Oral history does not necessitate a minimum number of interviews because such testimony is meant to complement other primary sources by offering unique, experiential perspectives. It is but one kind of primary source combined with others to produce a historical narrative (Donnelly and Norton, 2020; Feldman-Barrett, 2018; Leavy, 2011; Ritchie 2015). Ethical approval for the e-interviews was initially granted by Griffith University's Office of Research in 2016 (2016/776). Though contributors from Olympia and Bellingham were sought, only those from Bellingham came forward or agreed to participation. Initially disappointing, I saw this as an opportunity since far less information is available about Bellingham than Olympia in either primary or secondary sources. All participants gave informed consent and reviewed their e-interview excerpts for inclusion in the article.

Beyond my personal collection relevant to this history, I digitally accessed the historical collection of Western Washington University's student newspaper, The Western Front, through the Western Libraries’ Archives and Special Collections. Historic editions of The Cooper Point Journal, The Evergreen State College's student newspaper, were also accessible online through their library's Archives and Special Collections. Prior to finalising this manuscript, a digital archive for The Rocket, Seattle's music monthly from 1979 to 2000, was created and available through the Washington State Library's Washington Digital Newspapers site (washingtondigitalnewspapers.org). Though primary sources are preferred for cultural histories, retrospective online news stories and other secondary sources were also referenced to further understand what happened in both Seattle-adjacent towns during grunge's heyday.

Olympia and Bellingham: a brief Introduction

Bellingham lies almost eighty miles (128 kilometres) north of Seattle while Olympia is approximately sixty miles (97 kilometres) south of the city. Bellingham is Washington state's largest northernmost town with proximity to the Canadian border and Vancouver, British Columbia. It is home to Western Washington University (WWU), which is referred to colloquially as ‘Western’. Olympia is the state capital and hosts The Evergreen State College (TESC), which most simply call ‘Evergreen’. Despite being Washington's capital, Olympia usually has had a smaller population than Bellingham by about 20,000 residents. In 1990, Bellingham's population was a little over 53,000, while Olympia's was almost 34,000 (Biggest US Cities, 2023a; Biggest US Cities, 2023b). Of the two institutions, Western – a university, not a college – has more undergraduates than Evergreen (just over 14,600 at time of writing).

Within the state and differing from most universities and colleges in central or eastern Washington (regions which are typically more conservative), both towns’ main tertiary institutions often have been viewed as politically and/or culturally left-of-centre (Elway, 2021; Mitchell, 1995; Parker, 2015). Though this perception has been attributed more so to Evergreen in recent years, Bellingham was considered by some a ‘hippie town’ from the late 60s into the 70s, with Western's interdisciplinary Fairhaven College – which opened its doors in 1967 – as especially welcoming to countercultural youth (Hannela, 1971; Connolly, 1985). Though Olympia's longer history is tied to being the state capital, it is also known as home to the non-traditional Evergreen State College – which was also founded in 1967 but held its first classes in 1971. Evergreen has attracted progressive-minded youth from across the US since its inception (Evergreen State College, 2020). Part of the appeal was that Evergreen created undergraduate programs offering students small, seminar-style classes, self-designed majors, and written evaluations of their work rather than traditional letter grades. Fairhaven College is also run this way and has had the same appeal to prospective students (Muscatine, 2009). Though only a small minority of Western Washington University's students has ever attended Fairhaven, its presence nonetheless helped cement the town's somewhat bohemian reputation. Moreover, and germane to the discussion of the music scene in Bellingham, the Fairhaven College building housed a recording studio that offered space for students from all parts of campus to document their localized music-making (Mitchell, 1995; Disbrow, 1991).

While local bands and their audiences had existed in these towns decades prior, by the late 1980s both had music scenes that helped define them. Also, by this time, Seattle was gaining attention for an innovative style of rock – later coined ‘grunge’ – which combined aspects of classic rock, punk, and heavy metal (Bell, 1998; Strong, 2016). The sudden attention paid to Seattle would play an important role in the cultural life of both Olympia and Bellingham in the years to come.

Seattle connections

The location of both towns meant that young people living in Olympia or Bellingham would have shared reference points in terms of music and media emanating from Seattle. The independent record label Sub Pop, which started releasing music in 1986, was one key connector between these two communities. Record stores in either town not only carried Sub Pop (and other local labels’) releases, but also Seattle's music-oriented monthlies, The Rocket (1979–2000) and Backlash (1987–1991). These sources kept college students and teenagers in both towns abreast of the latest developments in terms of bands, concerts, and musical releases (Azzerad 1992). The importance of media for coalescing a sense of scene was mentioned by an interviewee who had moved to Bellingham as a teenager in the early 1990s: ‘Bellingham didn’t have its own consistent music rag until the later 90s, so [beyond The Rocket] information was down to flyers, bar marquees, the Bellingham Herald, and Western Front [the university's newspaper], and maybe the Fishwrapper sometimes’ (Anonymous, personal communication, 2016). Though The Rocket focused on Seattle, some Olympia and Bellingham venue listings appeared in every issue. Occasionally, stories about bands from either town would be featured, while the paper's monthly calendar and ads mentioned when Seattle groups would be playing locally. Alongside the young, eager audiences populating these towns – making them appealing stops for touring musicians – both are easily accessible via Interstate 5 (known as ‘I-5’). The I-5 runs through the western part of Washington and the entire west coast (Weikel, 2004). This meant that scheduling a concert in Portland, Oregon could include a stop enroute in Olympia as well. The same held true for Bellingham when bands were already headed for Canada to play Vancouver (Whatcom Museum, 2023). Thinking about the entire region (including southwest British Columbia) in terms venues and audiences was also visible in The Rocket, with its semi-regular mentions of concerts in both Vancouver and Portland.

While touring bands could perform at bars in either town, sometimes they were contracted to play on-campus or, more informally, at dorms and house parties nearby. Local musicians and students also hosted all-ages gigs at various venues around town. Advertisements for all-ages shows in Evergreen's Cooper Point Journal and Western's Western Front attest to this important component of scene life. Significantly, performers opting for non-bar venues allowed college students to attend more concerts, as most were not yet the legal drinking age of 21. These shows offered college-aged music fans – and local teenagers – familiarisation with up-and-coming bands from around the region. With both towns under two hours’ drive from Seattle, older teenagers and college students in either place also could travel to the big city for concerts and other music-oriented events. Nonetheless, while Seattle provided cultural offerings to youth in Olympia and Bellingham, both towns still had their own scenes that young people could further cultivate and enjoy.

Olympia

Between Olympia and Bellingham, it is Olympia's music scene that is more well-known to those outside the Pacific Northwest region. Gina Arnold's 1993 book Route 666: On the Road to Nirvana, which tracks the evolution of American underground rock and its music scenes prior to grunge's international popularity, devotes only one and a quarter page to discussing Bellingham while Olympia is discussed across two chapters. Olympia's name garnered international attention by the early 90s due the rise of independent music label K Records and then, the third-wave feminist punk movement Riot Grrrl, which emerged there (in tandem with Washington, DC) in 1991 (Marcus, 2010; Parker, 2015). By April 1994, international music fans following grunge's trail may have heard reference to Olympia and its ‘school’ in Hole's song ‘Rock Star’ from Live Through This (Arnold, 1993; Lowndes, 2016; Mapes, 2014). Well-documented also, including in Brett Morgen's documentary Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck (2015), is the fact that Nirvana's first steps towards international fame began in Olympia rather than Seattle, with Kurt Cobain moving there from the Washington logging town of Aberdeen in 1987. Nirvana's most well-known song, ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ (1991) also has its origin in Olympia and is connected to members of Bikini Kill, with its title coined by lead singer Kathleen Hanna in reference to a then-popular deodorant for girls (Marcus, 2010).

A main driver for Olympia's scene by the late 1980s was K Records, which was founded in 1982 by Calvin Johnson, a member of local band Beat Happening. The label was set up to promote local bands and its first recordings were circulated via cassette tapes. There was also an Evergreen connection, as Johnson hosted a show for campus radio station KAOS FM as a teenager and subsequently attended college there. Interestingly, since Johnson was an Evergreen contemporary of Sub Pop founder Bruce Pavitt, the two independent music entrepreneurs crossed paths as KAOS DJs who were both seeking to promote lesser-known artists on their shows (Arnold, 1993; Parker, 2015). Many of the K label bands, including Johnson's Beat Happening, were known for simple chord progressions and catchy melodies, which were later described as producing a kind of ‘twee punk’ or ‘punk indie pop’ (Abebe, 2005). The label's aesthetic differed greatly from the harder-edged imagery and sounds coming out of Seattle by the late 1980s – though a clip of K artists Some Velvet Sidewalk in Doug Pray's Seattle-focused 1996 documentary Hype! features the group performing a track with a more aggressive, grunge-like edge to it.

Another point of difference between Seattle and Olympia was how women participated in these scenes. Generally, Seattle had many hard-rocking all-female or female-fronted bands like the Gits, Hammerbox, 7 Year Bitch, and Dickless (Whittington-Hill, 2022). Meanwhile, Olympia was ground zero for Riot Grrrl, with bands such as Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, and Heavens to Betsy. Though Riot Grrrl bands were still confrontational in their sound, the local influence of K's low-fi aesthetic could be heard and felt in these bands’ brand of post-punk. Moreover, and thanks – at least in part – to the influence of some courses offered at Evergreen, feminism was more overtly present in Riot Grrrl's lyrical content (Marcus 2010; Verbuč 2022). In likely the first published interview with Bikini Kill's Kathleen Hanna and Tobi Vail, appearing in Evergreen's Cooper Point Journal in February 1991, both Hanna and Vail champion the use of the word ‘girl’ over ‘woman’ within their scene. According to Hanna, reclaiming the word gave it a new power, adding that it was also ‘a really cool word… and it has a different root than “woman” which is based on the word “man”’ (Dickson, 1991:10). Notably, while Seattle's female bands were embodying a kind of feminism-in-action by taking on the stereotypically masculinized, ‘heavy sounds’ of hard rock – feminism-as-message per se was not as integral to their music-making as it was for the bands in Olympia (Rogers and Deflem, 2022; Whittington-Hill, 2022).

In terms of musical releases from Riot Grrrl bands, K – while certainly supportive – was not the label primarily linked to this spirited cohort. Kill Rock Stars, originally a joint Olympia-Portland venture begun in 1991, was the one releasing music for bands like Bikini Kill, Heavens to Betsy, and Bratmobile. Nonetheless, and in collaboration with K, the label was also connected to a significant event held in Olympia during the early 1990s – the week-long International Pop Underground Convention, also known as the IPU (Gershon, 1996; Wray, 2021). The IPU took place from August 20 to 25, 1991 and was organized under the auspices of K Records by Calvin Johnson and the label's then co-owner and manager, Candice Pedersen. This event not only showcased the local scene – both in terms of bands and fans – but highlighted Olympia's trans-local reach across the US and beyond. Washington, DC's Fugazi performed at the IPU, as did British bands The Pastels and Thee Headcoats. In keeping with the town's high visibility of women musicians, the event also hosted an evening, on August 20, featuring musicians and bands both from Olympia and elsewhere called ‘Girl Night’ (University of Maryland, 1991; Nelson, 2006).

Olympia became a unique bastion of post-punk, featuring an equitable mix of male and female musicians. Local bands played at Evergreen (whether at campus parties or student union gigs), house parties, and at in-town venues like the North Shore Surf Club and the Capitol Theater (Sabatier, 2023; Verbuč 2022). Due to the K label, a vital strand of Olympia's scene coalesced around a musical style that was less bombastic than punk or grunge. Instead, it featured simple-but-catchy melodies and a sense of naughty playfulness. While Riot Grrrls called for ‘Revolution Girl Style Now!’ in their prolifically produced fanzines (such as Girl Germs and Jigsaw) and at their shows – with Bikini Kill's Kathleen Hanna famously singing a song called ‘Suck My Left One’– this was also a group of young women who wore girlish barrettes in their hair and praised teen magazine Sassy as an excellent vehicle for exciting girls into feminism (Eby, 2012; Mendez, 2020). Mya Colasurdo (née Miller) attended Evergreen between 1988 and 1992 and remembers how the early days of Riot Grrrl both impressed and somewhat confounded her, recalling ‘Kathleen Hanna walking out of the Evergreen photography lab with a t-shirt scrawled with “GIRL”. I didn’t know what it meant. This was not your mother's feminism’ (personal communication, 2017). In considering K Records and Riot Grrrl as the two strongest musical forces present in Olympia at the time, one could conclude that its scene revelled in the sounds of youthful innocence and exuberance as much as it celebrated revolutionary zeal.

Bellingham

Unlike Olympia, Bellingham's scene did not include a galvanizing movement like Riot Grrrl, nor did one particular label impact the local sound. Instead, the town's bands drew from various influences – whether from sixties garage and classic rock (the Mono Men, Game for Vultures, Nowhere Garden), ‘jam bands’ (G.T. Noah, Black Currant Jam) or American and British post-punk (Medelicious, WeeHuggum, Wicker Biscuit). Black Currant Jam's Brian Hughes remembers ‘that there were a lot of bands for such a small town. And there was a supportive crowd of people to sustain them’ (personal communication, 2021). Similarly, G.T. Noah's Jon Wall contends that ‘our Bellingham following was big’ despite sounding more like sixties group the Band than any grunge act from Seattle (personal communication, 2021). In this sense, no matter a band's musical bent, there was always an audience ready and willing to support local talent.

While there were some Bellingham groups, such as Loaf, that cultivated a semi-grunge sound, most did not imitate what was popular in Seattle. And though, by 1992, there were a few female-led groups and one called Hussy (I was their bassist and second vocalist) inspired by Riot Grrrl – as well as a band called Crayon with a style akin to some Olympia K bands – such musical inclinations were rare in Bellingham. Instead, the town tended towards stylistic diversity – while still feeling some effects from the Big Smoke. Becky Harbine (formerly Cox), who was lead singer of Dunebuggy during this time, recalls: ‘from my personal perspective—every musician I interacted with was making music on her/his own terms, where an eclectic mix of bands existed’ (personal communication, 2016). Nonetheless, she believes international recognition of Seattle did affect the local music community in some ways. As she put it, ‘the grunge scene and subsequent media focus added a weird level of something (pride, pressure, increased energy and motive, and sometimes arrogance?)’ to what was happening in Bellingham. Beau Fredericks, who played in various local bands starting in 1988, believes Bellingham groups could not help but be influenced by grunge. However, the fun that came with observing international news coverage of bands like Nirvana was that it ‘validated our backwater corner of the globe’. However, he also believes that ‘the most lasting influences were from outside Seattle: Fugazi [from Washington, DC] and Beat Happening [from Olympia]’. In his view, ‘their DIY ethos was contagious and showed us that punk rock could be inclusive culturally and malleable musically’ (personal communication, 2016).

Like Olympia, Bellingham's local scene hosted a mix of all-ages and bar gigs, with many all-ages shows played on Western's campus (What's happening?, 1992). The most popular bars hosting music were the World Famous Up and Up Tavern, its neighbour a few buildings away, the Bellingham Bay Brewing Company (‘the 3B’) – both walking distance from Western – and Speedy O’ Tubbs Rhythmic Underground, which was located further afield in the historic Fairhaven district (Benoit, 2023; Cole 2014). The ‘Up and Up’ tended to host new, up-and-coming bands from Seattle, Portland, and elsewhere, while also showcasing local groups. The 3B booked similar acts but featured more nationally and internationally touring bands. It also hosted the annual Garage Shock festival (Mitchell, 1995). Speedy O’ Tubbs provided the most musical diversity – with jam bands and what were then known as ‘world music’ performers booked alongside trendy local and out-of-town groups (Kidd, 1992a).

Because Bellingham is just south of the Canadian border, internationally renowned acts often could be persuaded to add a stop at Western while on tour. Between 1989 and 1994 this included – among others – Lydia Lunch, the Violent Femmes, and Echo and the Bunnymen (Hines and McNett, 1990; Kidd, 1992b; Patrick, 1992; Whatcom Museum, 2023). A particularly important night among these on-campus concerts was when Nirvana played a surprise performance at the university's Carver Gym on October 3, 1992. Originally billed as a Mudhoney concert meant to register voters for that year's presidential election and featuring local groups Medelicious and Saucer as opening bands, this was a banner night in drawing Seattle and Bellingham together (Iverson, 1992; Soulsby, 2015).

The town's scene was fostered not only by concerts, but also, as was typical of other college towns, the university's radio station, KUGS FM (McWhinny, 1991). As one teenage transplant to Bellingham shared, the Local Vocals program on KUGS was something that ‘led [her] to the local music scene’ (Anonymous, personal Communication, 2016). Another KUGS show featuring music only from the Pacific Northwest was Brad Roberts’ Our Secret, named after a Beat Happening song. Music-oriented print media also had a homegrown component. While there was no movement like Riot Grrrl producing fanzines that reflected a particular aesthetic or voice, Bellingham had Throwrug, Death McSkate, and THRILL!, the last of which was created by local band Crayon. Inspired by the Riot Grrrl publications, all-female band Plum Nellie also produced a one-off fanzine called Juicy in early 1992.

Alongside the fact that KUGS and locally produced zines helped animate Bellingham's music community, the scene also benefited from the mentorship of an older adult, Michael Griffen. While K Records’ Calvin Johnson could be seen as an ‘older brother’ role model and mentor for teenage and college-aged musicians and fans in Olympia, Bellingham had Griffen – a warm-hearted local in his fifties who served as a kind of musical father figure for the community. Opening his semi-rural house on the outskirts of town (known as Griffenshire) to bands like WeeHuggum, Crayon, Plum Nellie, and Hussy as a practice and recording space, Griffen was important to many people in the scene. Hussy's lead singer Mya Colasurdo remembers that ‘his living room was full of band equipment and plastered with local show flyers. He would drink tea and smoke in the other room while we practiced. He was super welcoming and encouraging and it was a perfect space for a new band’ (personal communication, 2017). Griffen also played violin and drums with WeeHuggum and then became one half of the avant-garde duo Noggin with WeeHuggum guitarist and Gritty Kitty Records founder Eric Ostrowski. When Griffen died in 2008, his obituary in the Bellingham Herald made sure to say – among his many experiences and talents – that much of his life had been dedicated to mentoring creative people, many of whom were young locals (Legacy.com, 2023).

While the community experienced a diverse music scene, Bellingham became known nationally and internationally as a bastion of garage rock – a genre that had been linked to the Pacific Northwest in the 1960s with bands like the Sonics and the Kingsmen (Gill, 1993). This part of Bellingham's reputation was due to musician Dave Crider, his band the Mono Men, and the garage-oriented independent label he founded in 1990, Estrus Records. As a result, Bellingham became an annual site of pilgrimage for garage rock fans from across the US and overseas with Crider hosting the Garage Shock festival every Memorial Day weekend throughout most of the 1990s (Dalrymple, 1992; Nipper, 1999). The Mono Men is also the only Bellingham band featured in the Seattle-focused music documentary Hype! (Pray, 1996). Nonetheless, garage was never considered the definitive ‘Bellingham Sound’ among locals. Instead, the Mono Men's and Crider's contributions were but one expression of the town's multifaceted, music scene.

Though Estrus is the most well-known music label associated with Bellingham, other independents such as Ensign (which also produced music videos), Flaming Cow's Head, Szanktone, and Gritty Kitty emerged during these years as well (Anderson and Higgins, 1990; Burdsal, 1993; Moss, 1992; Thompson, 1992). These labels produced singles as well as cassette albums and compilations that gave voice to Bellingham's wild assortment of local bands – most of whom, like their sixties garage rock predecessors – would not become music industry professionals. In late 1993, a Gritty Kitty compilation CD called North of Nowhere: 19 Bands from Bellingham appeared. It featured bands that had populated Bellingham's scene in the lead-up to its release. The title poked fun at Seattle's pre-grunge reputation as a remote cultural outpost while also suggesting that an unpretentiousness and dry wit prevailed in the state's northernmost town. If Olympia tended towards a new, punk revolution, Bellingham was happy to joke about their disparate-if-spirited music community. A review of the CD in Seattle's Rocket did not just suggest the scene was diverse but that it promised something new. The writeup states that most of the songs could be described as indie rock – well before this was a commonplace term – and when ‘alternative’ seemed the only descriptor American rock journalists wanted to use (Tepedelen, 1994).

In considering Bellingham during the late 80s and early 90s, there is no obvious, cohesive style that can be identified. Bellingham's musical creations were diverse in a way that echoed what had been happening in most university towns around the country throughout the 1980s, complete with the ‘free format’ college radio stations of that decade (Kruse, 2003; Sauls, 1998). This lack of a codified or identifiable sound is likely why Bellingham's scene history remains relatively unknown to people outside the Pacific Northwest or the United States. That said, Bellingham produced a well-respected power-pop rock band just prior to the commercialisation of grunge – the Posies. In 1990 the Posies were one of the first Washington-based bands of their generation to sign to a major label (DiMartino and Greyshock, 1990). Then, in the aftermath of grunge, Death Cab for Cutie – with most band members Western students during the mid-to-late 1990s – found international, critical acclaim as an indie rock band by the early 2000s (Rietmulder, 2019). Overall, Bellingham was a scene that encouraged different pathways to music-making rather than locking into a few particular styles. Given that history, Bellingham predicted the wave of indie rock to come after grunge and alternative rock had seen their day.

Spanning the scenes

While Olympia and Bellingham bands occasionally played in each other's towns during the late 1980s and early 1990s, it could not be said that there was a tight-knit relationship between these two scenes. One point of connection, however, was Beat Happening's Bret Lunsford, who lived in Anacortes, a town about forty miles (66 kilometres) from Bellingham. Brad Roberts recalls ‘running into him in Bellingham when he was putting up posters for a Beat Happening/Screaming Trees/Girl Trouble show that was happening in Anacortes’ (personal communication, 2016). Given Lunsford's nearby residence, he was able to promote his Olympia-based band in Bellingham. A lost opportunity to draw the two communities closer has its origins at a Melvins concert held at Olympia's North Shore Surf Club on May 16, 1991. I was lead singer of Bellingham band Plum Nellie and I ended up attending the show with some friends. I was surprised to find an all-female band called Bratmobile as the opening act (Melvins Wiki, no date). I approached their singer Allison Wolfe after the group's performance, complimenting Bratmobile's set and sharing that I too was in an all-female band. Allison gave me a copy of Girl Germs and suggested I contact organizers of a ‘Girl Night’ for Olympia's upcoming International Pop Underground Convention (University of Maryland, 1991). Unfortunately, Plum Nellie could not play the event due to band members’ conflicting schedules – thus nixing an opportunity for exchange between the two music scenes – at least among some of the towns’ female musicians. And it seems that other collaborations between Olympia and Bellingham musicians were also not to be. Crayon's Brad Roberts – who did attend the IPU and who considered himself a kind of ‘male Riot Grrrl’ at the time – recalls members of Bikini Kill inviting his band to partake in ‘an all Riot Grrrl tribute to [80s band] the Waitresses that never panned out’ (personal communication, 2016).

In the few writings that chronicle both Olympia and Bellingham, it is normally Olympia that is described as the more culturally significant scene. As previously mentioned, this comes across in Gina Arnold's writing about both places in 1993's Route 666: The Road to Nirvana. While Arnold notes the beauty of Bellingham as a place, she does not comment on anything musical beyond the Mono Men and their Garage Shock festival. Michael Azzerad's writing about Beat Happening in his 2001 book Our Band Could Be Your Life includes only brief, passing mentions of Bellingham as if it was an unremarkable rural outpost – a nowheresville in Washington state as compared to hip Olympia. Brad Roberts, who grew up in Olympia, was a teenager when K Records rose to local prominence. In 1988, he moved to Bellingham to attend Western and quickly became involved with the music scene there. He was responsible for many of the all-ages concerts initially held in Bellingham at this time and formed the band Crayon in 1990. He remembers that no one in Olympia really knew anything about Bellingham in terms of music. Barring Estrus Records and his band Crayon, ‘Bellingham was not on the Olympia radar at all’ (personal communication, 2017). He observed, though, that the same held true for the Bellingham scene – that most people there were unaware or disinterested in what was going on in Olympia. Roberts was one of the few people at the time who understood and appreciated what was happening in both scenes. He often felt like he was a ‘link between the two towns, musically. I liked a lot of Olympia bands. It was a very innovative scene with some very smart and creative people’ (personal communication, 2016). Meanwhile, Connie Jones, who co-founded the group Hussy with Mya Miller in 1992, shared that she and an Olympia-based pen pal – a woman who wrote zines and was very involved in the local scene – would ‘compare notes’ as to what was happening in each town (personal communication, 2021).

In many respects, the idea of examining Bellingham's and Olympia's music communities during this time, and in contrast to the more well-known Seattle scene, was inspired by a written account that seemed to juxtapose ‘happening’ Olympia with a somehow ‘less dynamic’ Bellingham. In this case, it was one provided by musician/actor Carrie Brownstein in her 2015 memoir Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl. In recounting the genesis of her musical career, she writes about the short time she spent at Western before eventually transferring to Evergreen. It was nonetheless while in Bellingham that she experienced a concert that became a turning point in her life. It was not Nirvana's surprise show at the university in October 1992, which she also attended, but a concert a few weeks later, when she saw Olympia band Heavens to Betsy play a venue called the Show Off Gallery (Brownstein, 2015).

The Show Off was housed in an old, industrial building just past Bellingham's downtown and adjacent to train tracks that travelled towards the Canadian border. It became a gallery space in the autumn of 1989 and all-ages gigs were held there starting in 1990 (brass rocket, 2002). Though various residents (including Plum Nellie bassist Suzanne Mackay) had coordinated events there since its inception, in 1992 one of the Show Off's founders – Western fine arts graduate Connie Jones – moved back into the space and focused on all-ages concerts featuring local, regional, and nationally touring bands. In doing so, Jones hoped to see more inclusion of women and younger music fans within the local scene. Reflecting on this time at the Show Off, Connie shared:
I just remember that the bar scene shows had a real male dominant feel to them and all ages shows felt more inclusive. I remember wanting to really promote all types of sounds and more gender equality in the music scene. We had a group of 14–15-year-olds that would regularly get dropped off at the Show Off to attend shows and they have become lifetime pals and thank us for providing this outlet in their youth. (personal communication, 2021)
Mya Miller, a friend of Connie Jones, had recently graduated from Evergreen and moved to Bellingham. Soon, the two friends – inspired by Riot Grrrl – founded the band Hussy in late 1992. Thinking back on this northbound move, Mya recalls
I can’t say I was aware of the Bellingham scene when I lived in Olympia except that my friend Connie lived there, and she knew a lot of people in bands. Moving to Bellingham and starting something from scratch was freeing in a way. The Olympia culture felt a bit exclusive – who lived in the right apartment, wore the right clothes, knew about the best new bands. Bringing some of the inspiration of the scene to another place, especially the ideas of Riot Grrrl felt new and inclusive. (personal communication, 2017)
Given Mya and Connie's goal of inclusivity coupled with their familiarity of bands touring the Pacific Northwest, they started booking bands – including, of course, some from Olympia. As a result, the night future Sleater-Kinney bandmates Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker (then in Heavens to Betsy) met was also a night that Bikini Kill was supposed to perform in Bellingham (Brownstein, 2015). Though they had played the Show Off previously, this was the first of two further occasions that the band had to cancel engagements there due to personal circumstances. Though Bellingham never had its own Riot Grrrl chapter, the Show Off featured many women-led or all-women bands and hosted, in response to the mostly male Garage Shock festival, an event called Girlshock!, which took place on July 9, 1993. This showcase was the second time Bikini Kill cancelled, with the final line-up including Bellingham's Hussy as the opening act, Olympia's Heavens to Betsy and Bratmobile, and Vancouver's Kreviss (who were on Sub Pop) as the headliners (Jacky, 1993).

Despite the Show Off's efforts to connect Bellingham with Olympia, there was not much more that bonded the two college town scenes with one another. They operated independently, serving the interests of local youth while also further shaping the music, venues, and events that continued to drive their scenes. By evaluating these two music communities in tandem decades later, it does seem that their biggest similarity remains a shared, regional reality of suddenly being bound to Seattle's elevated status as America's capital of underground (soon: ‘alternative’) rock. If anything, both towns’ scenes signalled the wide spectrum of DIY musical possibilities that could be generated while international attention was being paid to the big city next door. As Plum Nellie bassist and Show Off resident Suzanne Mackay reflected, as the world's eyes turned to Seattle, its neighbours to the north and south were still free to craft music and community as they saw fit. In the context of Bellingham, she recalled:
A music reviewer comparing Seattle and Bellingham once said that if ‘Seattle was the Liverpool of the grunge era, then Bellingham was Manchester’. That always stuck with me because we were in full swing during the grunge era yet managed to escape for the most part the influx of fame seekers that flooded into Seattle. We were left to a more authentic transformation. (personal communication, 2018)
In this respect, youth in both Olympia and Bellingham were open to fun, new ways to create and appreciate music while the music industry itself sought to codify and market all things ‘Seattle’. Instead of being subsumed by grunge's influence, both towns’ proximity to the music-city-of-the-moment provided a unique, self-reflective context that helped drive and maintain the individuality of their scenes.

Conclusions

Writing a cultural history comparing the music scenes of Olympia and Bellingham, Washington was meant to illustrate how two music communities – adjacent to Seattle during the rise and height of grunge – cultivated and maintained their own identities. Interestingly, the band most synonymous with ‘Seattle grunge’ – Nirvana – always had strong ties to Olympia. Kurt Cobain's residency there and his friendship with women who were part of Riot Grrrl demonstrate a powerful connection between these two Washington state scenes. Nevertheless, Olympia's identity is unmistakably its own. Bellingham serves to remind cultural historians that 90s ‘underground’ music in the Pacific Northwest was more expansive than grunge, Olympia's independent labels, or Riot Grrrl. Instead, there were various expressions of non-mainstream sounds in Washington state that excited young people to either form bands or support them. The two college towns’ geographic positioning during the late 80s and early 90s meant that their communities were within the direct impact zone of grunge – something that became a global and generation-defining music phenomenon. This unusual situation of two distinct scenes developing independently within a conurbation that included an internationally recognized ‘music city’ raises questions about how other towns or cities have managed to do the same. How did Manchester's scene, for example, contend with Liverpool circa 1963/1964 and how might contemporary music communities forming in towns near musical meccas best forge their own paths? From this account, it is clear Olympia and Bellingham managed to stand their ground, with people in each town creating a music scene that was not only recognisably different from Seattle's, but from each other's. Rather than being in Seattle's shadow, Olympia and Bellingham produced their own rays of musical luminescence. It is a history of neighbouring scenes asserting their uniqueness that is worthy of remembrance.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author declared the following potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The co-editor of this journal, Andy Bennett, is a colleague of mine at Griffith University. I am also friends with co-editor Paula Guerra.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Christine Feldman-Barrett

Author biography

Christine Feldman-Barrett is a senior lecturer in Sociology. Her area of research is youth culture history with a focus on popular music.

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From Girl Germs to Garage Shock: Charting Olympia and Bellingham,Washington's music scenes in the shadow of grunge,1988–1994

Abstract

Keywords

Method: writing cultural history

Olympia and Bellingham: a brief Introduction

Seattle connections

Olympia

Bellingham

Spanning the scenes

Conclusions