This is the second time that I wrote a fairly lengthy blog entry, only to press something (I have no idea what, but I really wish it were not so damn easy to hit, whatever it is) that completely erased everything - including pictures!
After the last time, I wanted to establish a rule: always copy what I am writing, in the event that, should it ever happen again, it would not be so damn annoying, and effectively eliminate all my hard work.
Charles Peterson has an amazing eye, and that eye was the first one not only to see, but to capture on film, the image of Seattle that would shortly thereafter be popularized and imitated, to the point that it caught like wildfire.
This book is a selection of what he considers his best photgraphic work (at least up until 1995), and documents the "Seattle scene", mostly before it exploded and took over the world. The "Seattle sound" (there is no such thing, by the way - each of these bands sounds different from one another) that began to take over had its roots with Charles Peterson's shots, before the movie "Singles" really helped to popularize the image to the masses.
But before everyone cashed in on Seattle's music scene, it was just a bunch of relatively unknown bands experimenting. It was about the music, and the music was accessible. So were the pictures, which were in black and white not just for the artistic effect, but also because it was cheaper. It must be remembered that, in the beginning, much of the "grunge" look was hardly a fashion statement about what was "cool" or popular. It was cheap and accessible, and so it was used. The same could be said for the black and white film that Peterson used.
Michael Azzurad writes in his Introduction:
Like so many aspects of punk, poverty begat an entire aesthetic, and Peterson plugged right into it. Even his equipment was relatively low-rent, while his decision to adopt a grainy, Blue Note Records-style look became a lot easier when he got a bunch of high-speed Kodak T-Max film for a cheap price.
Peterson's images included many blurry pictures, which became a staple in much of his work for live shows. It was underground photography for an underground music scene, and so like the music, there was a philosophy behind the thing:
The logic was sound: mainstream rock magazines would never touch these bands, so why make a mainstream photo? Sure enough, the shot was picked up by countless fanzines, including the influential Forced Exposure.
The thinking behind it was to get the Seattle music scene to seem like something more than it actually was, to punch harder than it's weight. Sub Pop stated their goal was "to decentralize pop culture".
Who knew that they would succeed on the level that they did?
The music was obviously huge, and again, "Singles" has to be given credit for setting a certain, if overly idealistic, "image" of Seattle.
It all grew very fast, and exploded to the point that it became out of control.
Michael Azzurad again explains in his Introduction:
So there was a snowball effect to what Peterson did....Peterson was not only documenting events but reinforcing and propagating an image. Other bands and fans emulated what they saw in these pictures. And then Peterson emulated them. And so on and so on. Very quickly, chain wallets, ripped cardigans, baseball hats (preferably worn backward), and Doc Martens were all the rage.
I think it could rightly be said that the nineties were Seattle's decade. The music scene exploded, and everyone seemed to tune in. Nirvana became the biggest band on the planet behind their anthem of teen angst and disaffection, "Smells Like Teen Spirit". Pearl Jam soon followed and had their turn as the biggest band in the world, behind the strength of their debut album, Ten, and the next couple of albums and releases. Alice in Chains and Soundgarden each began to sell albums in the millions, an to be on frequent rotation both on MTV, and popular radio stations throughout the country and, indeed, throughout the world. Some other bands achieved some success, as well, including Mudhoney, Screaming Trees, Tad, the Fastbacks and, eventually, the Foo Fighters (post-Nirvana, of course). Courtney Love's Hole moved to Seattle.
Peterson's work had been a huge early influence, but the scene had exploded and, it could be argued that in the process, had lost much of it's meaning. Although, perhaps, Seattle had brought some of it's values into the mainstream, which Peterson's photographs reflect, as well: Azerrad explains:
Peterson's photographs demystified the look of rock music...These were not glamour shots by any stretch of the imagination....That honesty coincided with the music and times. Pretty faces signaled artifice. People wanted authenticity.
And in a larger sense, Peterson's black-and-white shots of regular people rocking out in small clubs perfectly symbolized a downscaling that was a nineties touchstone, a make-do ethos that's manifested itself in everything from the lo-fi trend in indie rock to recycling - and has become more and more prevalent as the decade wears on.
Towards the end of the nineties, Seattle once again came to represent something unique, and possibly even special. The protests against the WTO saw a unity of opposition against the powers that be which had not been seen in generations.
It can be argued that all of that started with Charles Peterson and his incredible eye, and this book serves as proof of that!
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