"Bad name. Lame name, actually. But kinda funny in its lameness. That was the point, to some degree. It was the late 1980s and Nirvana, Mudhoney, Soundgarden, and swarms of other Seattle area bands released albums on Sub Pop Records, the label started by Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Poneman. The kids were so uncool, they were beyond cool. They embraced and reclaimed their high school denigration: LOSER. Sub Pop Records even threw an event they called Lame Fest."
That's how Grunge, a new book of photographs by Michael Lavine, starts—with contemporary indie rock figure Thurston Moore's intro spotlighting the wink-wink, Can you believe this shit is happening? side of Seattle's inevitably overblown musical era.
He would know. Moore, of Sonic Youth, was making noisy guitar rock when Kurt Cobain was a hormonal, directionless teen. And he introduced honchos at Geffen Records imprint DGC to Cobain's band in 1990. (Nevermind hit on the label the following year.) And you could argue that thanks to grunge's massive success, Sonic Youth enjoyed its own in the alt-rock 90s.
Moore knows what he's talking about, too, when he writes, "The sensuality of this on-its-own and on-the-loose subculture is sweet and rough in the faces and stances of Michael Lavine’s early-eighties Seattle street series." That's the first half of the book, comprised of B&W shots of punk U-District and Capitol Hill kids making punk faces and naturally doing punk things. The photos are stark, honest, and amusing in a tough, wry way.
Kind of like Mudhoney's sense of humor. The band, pictured above circa 1990 (frontman Mark Arm wields the weapon), is just one of the many seminal acts that appear in the latter half of Lavine's book. And the photos aren't strictly of Seattle musicians; Tad and Soundgarden gaze out from these pages between shots of the Smashing Pumpkins, Hole, Pussy Galore, Babes in Toyland, and, of course, Sonic Youth and Nirvana, among others. It's a frank, nostalgic look at a generation of young, rough-edged artists simultaneously finding their way and defining global culture. Who knew? If they did, it was with a sarcastic smirk.
What better way to celebrate the release of Lavine's grungy book than to have Mudhoney, the grungiest of bands from that era—literally, the band that still represents the label, "lame" as it might be, to an amazing, inexhaustible T—play with some of their still-rocking contemporaries? Tonight, Mark Arm and Co. will be supported by Brothers of the Sonic Cloth (featuring Tad Doyle of Tad) and Unnatural Helpers at a Neumos-hosted Grunge bash. The New York-based Lavine will presumably be on hand, as he's appearing at Easy Street Record's West Seattle location at 4 p.m. on Saturday.
Somehow, tickets (only freaking $12!) are still available. This is one lame night you don't want to miss.
