Forgotten birthplace of music royalty

THIS city is the setting for 50 Shades of Grey, but don't let that put you off — it’s also the birthplace of Jimi Hendrix, Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden.

Seattle

There few places in this world that evoke a scene — and a sound — the way Seattle, Washington does.

This lush Washington city in the far northwest corner of America was long overlooked. The city gave birth to Jimi Hendrix, who single-handedly redefined rock and roll, but while Hendrix rose to glory, Seattle’s music scene remained a hidden gem.

The Seattle sound was always there, bubbling away underground; a pressure cooker of punk, pop and early metal influences that was gathering steam in garages and divey music clubs all over town. It was a DIY scene driven by pugnacious kids who didn’t see their own lives reflected in the hair metal excess of the eighties, who rejected the mainstream and built an alternative with thrift store guitars and broken drum kits. The sound was raw, honest, angst-ridden and emotive, and the media dubbed it “grunge”. When the Seattle sound finally exploded, it set off a global tsunami.

In the 30 years since Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden began storming the charts, and Sub Pop Records became the one of the coolest indie record label in the world, Seattle has become a more cosmopolitan city. But the music scene is alive and well, and more dynamic than ever. Many of the favourite haunts of the grunge icons are still standing, and still hosting live music, and many more venues have grown up beside them. For history buffs, there are incredible music landmarks to discover, but it’s the living sound of here and now that makes Seattle such an awesome music city.

SEATTLE’S MAJOR MUSIC LANDMARKS

Before taking in a live show, there are many worthy stops on a Seattle music trip. Hendrix fans flock in the tens of thousands to his gravesite at Greenwood Memorial Park, with photos, guitar picks and letters left behind all making their way to the private Hendrix archive. There’s a Hendrix statue on Broadway and a bust at the library where he went to school, but the Jimi Hendrix Park on South Massachusetts Street is Seattle’s greatest tribute to the 20th century icon. The walkways bend into the shape of a guitar, his lyrics are etched into the stonework and “frets” running down the central path map out chapters of his life. There’s also a butterfly-shaped band shell in the park where live music lives on, inspired by his legend.

There are numerous sites of historical significance for grunge fans in Seattle, outside of the venues where the famous acts played. Amongst the most curious spots is the Black Sun sculpture by Isamu Noguchi in Volunteer Park —  said to be the inspiration for Soundgarden’s hit Black Hole Sun. The building that housed Reciprocal Recording still stands in Fremont, where Mudhoney, Soundgarden and Babes in Toyland made albums, and Nirvana cut the first tracks for its debut studio album, Bleach. The OK Hotel and Apartments near the ferry station, no longer a live venue, was the spot where Nirvana played Smells Like Teen Spirit live for the first time, while Pearl Jam rehearsed in the basement below a design store called Object, which was then a blacksmith’s shop. One of the most hallowed sites is a simple park bench in Viretta Park, which is covered in graffiti and carved tributes to Kurt Cobain’s troubled genius.

The largest archive of Seattle music history is held at Seattle’s MoPop, the Museum of Popular History, beside the ever-visible Space Needle. It includes galleries dedicated to all the major players in the local music scene, with hundreds of photos, interview and artefacts, and a towering sculpture made from guitars. Under a vaulted ceiling design by Frank Gehry is MoPop’s Sky Church, a huge cinema screen devoted to music videos that occasionally transforms into a jaw-dropping high-tech live music venue.

THE MUSIC VENUES THAT MADE HISTORY

There are dozens of great places to catch live music in Seattle and many of them have an incredible history. Re-Bar is a perfect example, a small but popular club between Downtown and Cascade that hosts club nights and events throughout the week, and was the site of Nirvana’s Nevermind album launch party in 1991 — an event that the band was allegedly kicked out of after starting a food fight.

The Crocodile in Belltown is another much-beloved venue, where Mudhoney, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, and Nirvana played to intimate crowds of less than 600 people. Members of these bands are known to make the occasional appearances in their current day side projects, alongside a steady stream of hip hop, electro and indie rock acts that are touring through town. Neumos in Capitol Hill has a similar vintage. While recent years have seen marquee indie acts like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, MGMT and Vampire Weekend hit its stage, it was also the place where Neil Young and Pearl Jam debuted their Mirror Ball collaboration in 1995.

HOT SPOTS FOR THE HERE AND NOW

There are literally dozens of live music venues spread out across Seattle, offering everything from afro-jazz to classical to alt-rock and opera. In the University District, the Blue Moon Tavern is a proper, beer-soaked dive bar that plays host to up-and-coming rock acts, while Seamonster Lounge in Wallingford is a hole-in-the-wall catering to a funkier crowd. Also in Wallingford, the high ceilings and stained-glass windows of the Chapel Performance Space provide a magical backdrop for ambient and experimental music, while the Sunset Tavern in Ballard is a low-lit and intimate temple to indie rock.

Nectar Lounge in Fremont is the perfect place in Seattle for a proper EDM party, with indoor and outdoor spaces that buzz on the weekend, while Downtown’s Benaroya Hall — complete with raked seats and a grand old pipe organ — is the best place to catch a symphony. The majestic Paramount Theatre is another Downtown gem — the antithesis of the grunge aesthetic but so much a part of Seattle’s history. Built as a cinema in 1928, the Paramount became a concert venue in the early seventies and since then all manner of artists have appeared on its stage, from Frank Sinatra and the Grateful Dead to Jack White, Kraftwerk and The Pixies. It’s the grand dame of a living scene, in a city that breathes and bleeds music.