Massacres and miserable weather in Seattle, 1983: The many tragic events that created grunge
You scoffed at your tweed-clad Geography teacher when they professed that the subject is the one worldly factor that underpins everything. They were, however, correct. Even grunge is inextricably woven into the physical world around us. Every art movement is for that matter. The Dadaists of the 1920s might have dismissed the scholarly deduction that their work reflected the madness of war as an act of philosophising silliness into something more academic than it ever was. But in the broadest sense, the scholars were right, you simply can’t escape the world around you. The same can be said for how grunge rose from the swampy mire of blood and misery that seeped into the streets of Seattle in 1983.
What is grunge? Well, the dictionary does a decent job of it by describing it as “a style of rock music with loud, harsh guitar sounds.” And it even goes so far as to say that its potential origin comes from an amalgamation of grubby and dingy. Whether that is what Mark Arm meant when he wrote a brazenly self-critical letter about his own band and proclaimed: “I hate Mr. Epp and the Calculations! Pure grunge! Pure noise! Pure shit!”
Little did he know that this style, right down to the air of self-loathing, would catch on. When Mr Epp finally ended, having succeeded in being called “the worst band in the world” on local radio. Arm and his old bandmate Steve Turner would go on to form Green River. Once again, we see that strange little phrase pop up in a press release for the band. Bruce Pavitt wrote: “Ultra-loose grunge that destroyed the morals of a generation.” This was punk without the pointed edge. No longer the realms of rebels without a cause, just ordinary people without a cause, or perhaps most accurately even self-deprecating guitarists without a cause.
That Green River press release came out in 1987 and soon after grunge began to bloom all over the world like a bad smell. However, of all the arbitrary points in the build-up of this movement, it would seem that 1983 in Seattle was one of the most pivotal and here is why…
Punk really rose to the fore in America in 1976. There were glimpses of it growing before then, but records like Patti Smith’s Horses in the tail end of 1975 really helped to get it moving. Albums that like gave it the small scene increasing creditability and afforded The Ramones the chance to go on a world tour with Flamin’ Groovies and spread their sound. Sex Pistols, Damned and The Clash would soon go on their own tour. And in 1977, Punk had its first number-one album (at least in the UK) with Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistol.
By that stage, its work was done. Not to diminish the punk music that followed, but aside from all the Mohawks, leather and masochism, the stand-out legacy seeded by punk was the sense of expression beyond expertise. It opened the door for pop culture to be more inclusive and rubbished the old prog notion of whirling off some ten-minute virtuoso viola shroom and spiritualism epiphany that you had in your parent’s summer house. But the actual rebellion beyond that reality hadn’t rattled the sages of power from their perch.
Thus, the door had been opened for the scruffy kids without formal training to play, but there was nothing for them to do but scuff their shoes while kicking abandoned cans on the cold wet tarmac of Seattle. This final frontier of America was the perfect flowering ground for the next revolution, the revolution well and truly without a cause. But why there? And why would 1983 be the catalyst?
Well, not everywhere was as receptive to apathy amid the waning of punk. With technology advancing at breakneck speeds and seemingly a swathe of progression along with it, poppy new wave was in its pomp. Technology literally spearheaded the musical era too in the form of synths. Such a glossy sound called for a pruned and pretty style of song. These tracks seemed wildly out of place for the kids in Seattle who failed to see where they fit in with it all.
Things seemed far more dystopian there. 1983 got off to a tragic start for the city. In February, three armed men stormed Wah Mee Club which operated as an illegal casino. These men proceeded to hogtie the people present. They then robbed them. The assailants then proceeded to shoot the victims in the head. The only apparent motive for the massacre that resulted in the death of 13 people and severely injured another, was money. Headlines about the deadliest mass murder in Washington state history hit the newsstands. The number one single, ‘Flashdance… What a Feeling’ by Irena Cara seemed out of place.
In fact, optimism was not a feeling that had been faring well in the city for a while. The decade before, the headline had been “Boeing bust” and it cost 100,000 people their jobs. A quarter of them left the area looking for work. This led to a subsequent headline in later years that read: “Will the last person to leave Seattle please turn out the lights?” Thus, by the time of the Wah Mee Massacre, there was a whopping unemployment rate of 12% and dilapidation was distending.
Further reports saw a 13-year-old boy vanish from Seattle streets in April, the Queen’s half-a-day visit in the torrential rain seemed tragically misguided, the Green River killer began terrorising the state, and the comical satire of MASH ended so nobody was even laughing anymore. The signs of a change weren’t limited to Seattle either. The world was seeing what the conformist pressures of commerciality can do as the death of Karen Carpenter sent shockwaves. The AIDS epidemic was on the rise. And all that was wrong in the world seemed clear to the Seattleites.
Then came Thanksgiving, the day when all the woes of 1983 could be put behind them. Sadly, ‘The Turkey Day Storm’ rendered it a washout, remaining one the worst to have hit the seaboard in occupied history. Things had been bleak. Music needed to be a boon, but the pop on offer was like offering a lollipop to someone whose leg has just been blown off.
Green River decided to set that straight when they formed in 1984. As the famed press release would later state, “gritty vocals, roaring Marshall amps” and anti-attitude seemed to sit well. The dilapidation of the city meant that many of the venues were dive bars.
Thus, polished sound was impossible anyway. You were better off offering up a rally cry of angsty expression. That is just what they did. And a scene soon formed. As Warmduscher recently told me: “I think when things are shit, you find people making music because that’s just what they do. That’s what rises out of it. When there’s no reason to make music, that’s when you’re going to find the best stuff. You start finding people who are just doing it because they love it and that creates genuine scenes.” The rest, as they say, is ancient… geography.
