Jack Endino On the State of Seattle Music

http://lineout.thestranger.com/lineout/archives/2011/10/18/jack-endino-explains-collapse-board-post-did-not-write-grunge-is-dead

Housekeeping / Shit Talk / Mailbag Jack Endino Explains Collapse Board Post, Did not Write Grunge is Dead

Posted by on Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 9:35 AM

You may or may not have seen Endino’s article, posted at Collapse Board (and subsequently printed in Seattle Weekly‘s Reverb monthly), a site co-run by former Stranger Music Editor Everett True.

The Akimbo show review he refers to is here:

Akimbo, Grenades, Bitches Crystal

(Comet) In a recent cranky blog post, Jack Endino read a batch of local music reviews and surmised, “Grunge is dead… but everything else sounds like it’s on life support.” You’re only half right, Mr. Endino. Grunge is dead. It shouldn’t surprise you, since you made that declaration the title of your book in 2009. But to say the rest of the Northwest music scene is on life support is bullshit. Akimbo have been slaying eardrums for more than 10 years, and they’ll do so again tonight with two more hard and heavy bands: Grenades and Bitches Crystal. So I suggest you hit up this show, Jack. It may not take you back to grunge’s golden age (these days, flannel is more appropriate for the campfire rock scene), but it sure as fuck will prove that the heavy shit is alive and doing more than well. MEGAN SELING

Endino’s response:

To Megan Seling… Endino here. You malign me slightly (Grunge Is Dead was Greg Prato’s book, not mine), and I think you missed my point: My “cranky blog post,” mentioned in your Akimbo show preview, was actually lampooning the Weekly’s music reviews and their writing style, as well as the fact that, from what they CHOSE to review in their first issue of Reverb, you wouldn’t know there was ANY rock left in this town! I was surprised when they asked if they could reprint it. I told them OK, as long as their reviewers stop using the word “elegiac.”

I know perfectly well there’s rock here, cuz that’s what comes in the doors of my studio every day, even though sometimes it seems like it’s invisible! I love Akimbo, BTW, and the Lesbian show at the Funhouse was killer [the other] night. I could go on, and on. (Check out Stag.) Plenty of rock in this town, it just gets no respect, and not much local indy-label love either. Keep covering the rock; someone’s gotta.

JE

The Stranger

We just noticed that the Stranger gave our show w/ Marcy Playground a nice preview last week. Kurt B. Reighley had some nice things to say. We’re blushing…. Check it out!

Marcy Playground, Stag

(Tractor) What does it sound like when you cross singer Steve Mack, formerly of Undertones spin-off That Petrol Emotion, with grunge survivor Ben London of Alcohol Funnycar and alt-country act Sanford Arms? Would you believe… a power-pop band? This local quintet has already issued two EPs of streamlined and sinewy gems like “Love Her Records,” sure to please Cheap Trick and Guided by Voices fans. As befits a band that posts old Raspberries footage on its blog and courts mouth-breathing fan boys who groan whenever some VH1 talking head dismisses the Knack as “one-hit wonders,” Stag’s latest must-have is a limited-edition colored vinyl 45, “Don’t Lead with Your Heart.” KURT B. REIGHLEY