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* The (Still) Fabulous Sounds Of The Pacific Northwest

Well before the heydays of Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and other grunge-centric denizens of early-'90s Seattle, the Emerald City was home to a different variety of rock 'n' roll revelation.

An auspicious foursome who called themselves the Young Fresh Fellows helped to put the Northwest on the underground-music map in the early/mid-1980s, a few years before Sub Pop arrived on the scene. They played with an abandon and devotion similar to that of the grungesters who followed; but rather than drawing their emotive power from angst and desperation, they thrived on a spirit of whimsy and humor. They were, in a word, fun. And fabulous. (It was tongue-in-cheek, yet fitting, that the Fellows' first album was titled The Fabulous Sounds Of The Pacific Northwest.)

A quarter-century later, their legacy lives on, having carried the day long past the dissolution of Seattle's grunge scene. The city has supported other sytlistic surges and swells over the years -- roots bands have had occasional upswings, adventurous jazz players have found a small but significant niche, and indie-rock is at a fair peak right now -- but the Fellows' style of old-school garage-based rock 'n' roll has carried on throughout. One could argue, in fact, that this is the true Seattle Sound.

A visit to the area this past weekend reaffirmed that notion. Although Fellows ringleader Scott McCaughey moved a few years ago to Portland (where he continues his Minus 5 exploits and tours with R.E.M.), his various cohorts still carry on in Seattle, spinning amid several main-projects and side-projects. (Perhaps they're all side-projects of each other, or just on the side of whatever everyone may do during the daytime hours.)

Two of the best held court at a couple of relatively new venues over the weekend. Friday night, the High Dive played host to the Tripwires, which features Fellows bassist Jim Sangster, his guitar-slinging brother Johnny Sangster (an accomplished producer), drummer Mark Pickerel (who has his own solo deal with Bloodshot Records), and frontman/songwriter John Ramberg.

Everyone in the band is essentially overqualified for the Tripwires' humble local-bar-band stature, but none of them seem to mind; on the contrary, they all appeared to be having a blast sharing the stage, and the band's repertoire features the best songs Ramberg has written since the early days of his mid-'90s group the Model Rockets. (As it happens, the Model Rockets will be reuniting on July 4 to celebrate a reissue of their 1994 debut disc Hilux.)

Jim Sangster was the common denominator to the show I saw on Saturday, a headlining slot at the new Slim's Last Chance Tavern by a group that seems to call itself either Sergeant Major or Thee Sergeant Major III. (Which is sort of a carry-over from the Fellows' playfulness with band monikers; they once released an album under the name 3 Young French Fellows 3.) Name-games aside, this is a truly engaging bunch, largely because they seem to have hit on a naturally compelling and musically conducive lineup: a guitar-bass-drums power-trio fronted by two full-throated singers (one male, one female).

The instrumentation is top-of-the-line garage-pop, with Sangster joined by longtime Fellows and Fastbacks guitarist Kurt Bloch plus drummer Mike Musburger (who's played with the Posies and Love Battery among many others). Bloch is the primary songwriter, and thus the material reflects the sort of twisted pop-punk edge that was the hallmark of the Fastbacks (a long-running Seattle band fronted by female singer Kim Warnick that in its early days included Guns N' Roses bassist Duff McKagan).

But it's the two singers, Bill Coury and Leslie Beattie, who launch those songs into the stratosphere. Sometimes they're trading off the vocals, sometimes they're singing in harmony, or in melodic unison; but the vocals are always out-front, even against the propulsive wall-of-sound being bashed out by Bloch and his mates. This is in-your-face stuff, but in a glorious and inspirational way; with Bloch and Sangster kicking and grinning their way through the set -- on this night, wearing jumpsuits featuring logo-patches that read "Waste Management" and "Coroner" -- they make it nigh impossible not to get swept up in the grand spirit of their rock 'n' roll.

The audience is, perhaps, not what it once was for bands such as these; both nights, the crowd capped out at around 100, whereas in decades past a draw of 200-300 might have been more typical. Still, this has never really been a thousand-capacity-venue type of thing, and probably never will be. Yet it seems quite clear to me, after basking in this weekend's double-shot of Fabulous Sounds, that it's also never going to go away. Long live the rock 'n' roll pest control.

adios,
peter

Posted by peter on June 23, 2008 9:57 PM | Permalink