Seattle’s grunge scene

“Seattle has always rocked. Grunge is a hybrid of clever songwriting and the many styles of rock ’n’ roll present in Seattle in the mid-1980s – heavy metal, garage rock, noise. But the influences of this region go back further than grunge. Seattle had a big jazz-era post-second World War, when musicians like Ray Charles came here to cut their teeth.the isolation of the Pacific Northwest (where big tours seldom came) gave these musicians room to experiment on their own.

Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain is beyond iconic. He’s the Pacific Northwest’s Elvis. Jimi Hendrix is also essential. Other musicians who found their way in Seattle include Chris Cornell, Quincy Jones, Ernestine Anderson, and Stone Gossard and Mike Mccready from Pearl Jam – the list could go on.

My tours typically start at the historic Moore Theatre and finish at KEXP’S Gathering Space (KEXP was the first radio station to air a Nirvana song).we also visit former clubs like Thevogue, where Nirvana played their first major Seattle show.

Another institution I respect is MOPOP (Museum of Pop Culture), housed in a Frank Gehry-designed building. It functions as the quintessential archive for Pacific Northwest music history, and it has a long-standing and excellent Nirvana exhibit.

Seattle is one of the best cities to see live music, and I gravitate toward venues with deep local connections to this, like The Crocodile in Belltown and Neumos in Capitol Hill.” Writer Eric Magnuson runs the Seattle Grunge Redux tour (seattlegrungeredux.com) in Seattle,washington.

Sound of Seattle (this page; top to bottom) Seattle’s MOPOP was conceived first as a Jimi Hendrix museum; Nirvana’s 1991 Nevermind album has sold tens of millions of copies; Eric Magnuson at Seattle’s London Bridge Studio, which offers guided tours