The wrecking ball and the revolution

David Scherer Water

In 1892, on the corner of 4th and Cherry — now the site of City Hall — local media mogul millionaire John Miller Murphy erected Olympia’s first major music venue: a massive four-story, thousand-seat opera house.

This behemoth seemed ill-suited for this fledgling western capital where the legislature still met in a barn. John Philip Sousa played, Mark Twain read essays, and in grand Olympia style, the leviathan was smashed with a wrecking ball.

By giving up on trying to be a major hub of arts and culture, Olympia unintentionally created the fertile ground for it, although that crop wouldn’t sprout for another hundred years. In place of the opera house, more modest venues sprang up and the performing arts were enjoyed by more sensibly-sized audiences. The city slipped into obscurity. If any of its music was remarkable, none of it stirred the pens of historians or garnered national attention — until 1959.

For a few weeks that year, the number one band in America was a trio of youngsters from Olympia. The Fleetwoods were the epitome of contemporary American music. Their ultra-bland sound was designed for post-war calming, and anesthesia.

As the 20th century drew to a close, this kind of music was making America increasingly nauseous. A cure came in the late 1960s. It was administered everywhere, except Olympia.  Here, mainstream forces maintained a protective disdain toward anything odd.

In 1967, the city lapsed into fits of depression when Evergreen broke ground. For the next 15 years, Muggles tried to make everything seem perfectly normal despite the westside Hogwarts. Things were tense between the growing counterculture and the Olympia establishment.

 It was time for another wrecking ball. 

The Wipers, as seen in this poster promoting a gig in Olympia for Feb. 26, 1983.

Courtesy of David Scherer Water

On Feb. 26, 1983, a group of young residents rented the vacant shop at 211 4th Ave. for a one-night performance featuring Portland punk band, The Wipers. This was unprecedented. Shows like this had been confined to basements, living rooms, garages, or the Evergreen dorms, with only sporadic moments when bands were permitted to play Skateland, Lakefair, or the Olympia Center.

The concept of a dedicated venue for local bands was unheard of, but riding the excitement over the success of the Wipers’ show, The Tropicana was started at 311 4th Ave. While only open for a year, the venue gave the region’s young indie music scene a new confidence and focus. The Melvins, Beat Happening, and Girl Trouble played their first shows here. Bands on tour included Black Flag, Slayer, and The Butthole Surfers.

The Olympia Downtown Association had The Tropicana shut down in 1985, but it was too late. Something was set in motion that couldn’t be stopped. A new energy had been unleashed. In the following years, more venues opened, new bands performed, ones no one had heard of. One was a band called Brown Towel. After they changed their name to Nirvana … you know.

Three labels, Sub-Pop, K Records, and Kill Rock Stars started in Olympia and became the amplifiers of a music revolution. The Olympia scene and the feminist movement, Riot Grrrl, challenged popular culture and redefined music. At its core was a sincerity previously rejected in mainstream youth culture and earlier manifestations of punk rock.

Then gasoline got poured on the fire. U.S. News and World Report named Evergreen the No. 1 college in America. Overnight, decades of scorn directed at the school evaporated. Evergreen was free to get wilder, and it did, attracting students who pushed the boundaries further.

Courtesy of David Scherer Water

The Olympia DIY arts and crafts culture was a celebration of raw honesty and unpolished humanity. Its outward fashion — a tongue-in-cheek embrace of 1950s kitsch — stood in contrast to the messiness of it all. It wasn’t just messy, it was loose, it was ragged … oh right, it was grunge.

Musical proficiency was shunned in favor of authenticity. Anger at the world was tempered by a call for genuine care among peers. The scene defied cultural and gender norms, with women expressing long-suppressed rage and men singing tenderly about innocence.

 The whole world was starving for honesty and integrity, especially in music, and by 1993, the world had largely swallowed the Pacific Northwest music scene whole with Olympia at its center. For its small size, Olympia has been a big sanctuary. This continues today.

Fostering this is a culture promoting connection, collaboration, slowing down, an embrace of all that’s considered weird, a rejection of Americanism and its definitions of success. The phenomenon is further helped by the fact that Olympia conveniently sits in the shadows of two large cities — close enough for bands to attain financial gain, yet isolated enough to still be a retreat, a cool harbor.

 It wasn’t just Nirvana. Many artists had an important cultivation period in Olympia before going on to bigger things. Bikini Kill, Sleater-Kinney, Unwound, Mirah, Kimya Dawson, Phil Elverum, and Macklemore are examples.

However, for every commercially successful band that brewed its groove in the Olympia gloom, or artist who grew their identity in this fertile ground, there are hundreds you’ve never heard of.

Courtesy of David Scherer Water

The grim side of things

Taking your music to larger circles is what nearly all musicians strive for, but ascending into the highest levels of commercial success is soul-crushing. There’s no better example of this than Kurt Cobain. He lived in Olympia for four years, the period when Nirvana coalesced, wrote "Nevermind," got signed to a major label, and blew up.

While few admit it, almost all musicians dream of having a fraction of the reach Kurt Cobain attained. Love him or hate him, since 1989, he has had a major effect on every Olympia band and individual musician.

During the golden years of the mid-1990s, it seemed like anyone shouting into an open mic was suspected to be the next Cobain and had a record deal before sunrise the following day. The money was intoxicating. Many of Olympia’s graying machers are still chasing it.

 Olympia’s newest bands continue to blossom in good numbers, enjoying above-average commercial success compared to bands from bigger cities. 

In the attic of the former K Records building on the corner of 8th and Jefferson streets.

Courtesy of David Scherer Water

In the attic of the former K Records building on the corner of 8th and Jefferson streets.

Courtesy of David Scherer Water

The old shul

In the attic of the former K Records building on the corner of 8th and Jefferson streets is a small brick casket. Inside, there’s clay from the Vltava River that was smuggled out of Czechoslovakia in the late 1920s.

When the indie music label moved into the building in 2004, they knew the place used to be a synagogue, but knew nothing of the mud that touched the hands of Judah Loew ben Bezalel, a late-16th-century rabbi from Prague. Calvin, Rabbi Seth and I climbed up there, confirmed it was still in place, and in the spirit of the ending of Raiders of The Lost Ark, we let it be.

I'll give anyone a nickel for every band or musician with a strong connection to Olympia that I left off this list.

Anna Oxygen, Arrington de Dionyso, Bangs, Barn Band, Beat Happening, Bikini Kill, The Blow, Bratmobile, Broken Water, The Burnt Toast Society, Calvin Johnson, C-Average, Chris Sand / Sandman, Christian Mistress, The Clocks, Cool Rays, Dead Air Fresheners, Dennis Driscoll, The Drugs, Dub Narcotic Sound System, Earth, Eprhyme, Erica Freas, Excuse 17, The Family Stoned, Fitz of Depression, The Fleetwoods, The Frumpies, GAG, Get The Hell Out Of The Way Of The Volcano, G.L.O.S.S., godheadSilo, The Good ‘Ole Boys From Way Back, The Go Team, The Gossip, Growing, The Halo Benders, Heather Dunn, Heavens to Betsy, Heliotrope, The Hive Dwellers, ICU, Internal External, Jason Traeger, Joey Casio, Karp, Kicking Giant, Kimya Dawson, Little Red Car Wreck, Lois Maffeo, Lync, Mac Dawg, Macklemore, Mecca Normal, The Microphones, Milk Music, Mirah, Miranda July, Mocket, Moldy Peaches, Mu, The Need, Nikki McClure, Nirvana, Nomy Lamm, The Old Haunts, Old Time Relijun, The Previous, Rickie Lee Jones, The Righteous Mothers, RVIVR, Satisfact, Scream Club, Sleater-Kinney, Some Velvet Sidewalk, Spider & The Webs, Steve Fisk, Super Duo, Team Dresch, Tender Forever, Tiger Trap, Timothy Brock, Unwound, Warren Lee, Western Hymn, White Boss, Whitchypoo, Wolves in the Throne Room, госкино.

David Scherer Water writes about local history and culture in a genre best described as comedic nonfiction. Follow him here.