The Punks and Poets of Grunge Alley

The composites are based on real people and true events.

Violet Wander, the main character is based on my early life. There were many real punks and poets in Seattle during the grunge era. It was impossible to choose one or two from a roster the size of “Grunge Alley’s” live music dives.

Mia Zapata, lead singer of Seattle’s punk-grunge band The Gits, is one of many riot girrrls in the composite character called Twizz.

Andrew Wood, frontman for the band Malfunkshun and Mother Love Bone, is a composite character in many of the stories. His energetic performance style and tragic overdose are revisited.

Layne Staley, lead singer for the band Sleze and Alice In Chains, is remembered here as composite characters with talent, energy, ambition, and addictions.

Pioneer Square’s infamous “Zentral Tavern” is a good example of a composite used in the stories, and the bands who performed there.

Coincidentally, my partner owned two architecture firms in Pioneer Square. The first was above Larry’s Greenfront (my former employer), and the other was directly across First Avenue from “Larry’s”, the green-fronted restaurant in the photo below.

Most of this district is built on top of an authentic wild west ghost town. “The Great Fire” of 1889 happened during the Yukon gold rush.

Within a year, the city planners re-built right on top of the burnt bones of the lucrative shipping (and red light) district by the docks. Today, the Seattle Underground is a fabulous tourist attraction as seen below.

The doorways on the left were once at street level. Many buildings on top of the underground have renovated their original 1889 spaces for storage, though I’ve seen rustic “storage units” fashioned from crude drywall with the original floors.

The idea of a “27 club” doesn’t work for me. The heart of it is lost when the stigma of ageism enters the headlines, and these artists become just a number in a tabloid—a cliche.

They were our friends.

My cousin, Bob Barr, co-published City Heat Magazine with Matt Aird. Bob sold ads and kept the computers running waaay too fast.