In the Emerald City, the slamming power pop and fuzz-bomb rock of Nirvana is now a faint echo of the past.
It was only two decades ago when Seattle nearly ruled the world, when the technological advances of the Internet catapulted Microsoft into global dominance, when the town’s basketball and baseball teams thrust a refuse to lose underdog spirit into the playoffs, when grunge toppled Michael Jackson on the Billboard charts. One by one, it all fell apart. The Sonics were sold to corporate outsiders who ripped the team from its regional base and into Oklahoma; the Mariners decayed into low-income irrelevance; and the alternative-rock revolution collapsed from within as Kurt Cobain from Nirvana and Layne Staley of Alice in Chains committed suicide, and Soundgarden called it quits.
In the past couple of years, a few Seattle acts such as Modest Mouse, Fleet Foxes, and Death Cab for Cutie found themselves graduating to mainstream stardom, reminding the world that the Pacific Northwest could still breed refreshingly original and creatively vibrant independent music. But, thanks to the new Seattle online radio station Jet City Stream, it’s becoming apparent that something is brewing once again in the Puget Sound. And it’s about to explode.
From the scorched-Earth blues of Reignwolf to the breathless hip-hop of Macklemore to the post-punk metal crunch of the Absolute Monarchs, Jet City Stream has invaded the information highway with its playlist of local renegades. CEO Michael Raley and his partners have created a web-based station that recalls the sonic punch that FM rockers once had. In fact, what it is most reminiscent of is the golden age of 107.7 The End. At a time when modern-rock stations viewed one-hit wonders such as EMF and Jesus Jones as the future of music, The End unleashed regional heroes like Nirvana,
It was only two decades ago when Seattle nearly ruled the world, when the technological advances of the Internet catapulted Microsoft into global dominance, when the town’s basketball and baseball teams thrust a refuse to lose underdog spirit into the playoffs, when grunge toppled Michael Jackson on the Billboard charts. One by one, it all fell apart. The Sonics were sold to corporate outsiders who ripped the team from its regional base and into Oklahoma; the Mariners decayed into low-income irrelevance; and the alternative-rock revolution collapsed from within as Kurt Cobain from Nirvana and Layne Staley of Alice in Chains committed suicide, and Soundgarden called it quits.
In the past couple of years, a few Seattle acts such as Modest Mouse, Fleet Foxes, and Death Cab for Cutie found themselves graduating to mainstream stardom, reminding the world that the Pacific Northwest could still breed refreshingly original and creatively vibrant independent music. But, thanks to the new Seattle online radio station Jet City Stream, it’s becoming apparent that something is brewing once again in the Puget Sound. And it’s about to explode.
From the scorched-Earth blues of Reignwolf to the breathless hip-hop of Macklemore to the post-punk metal crunch of the Absolute Monarchs, Jet City Stream has invaded the information highway with its playlist of local renegades. CEO Michael Raley and his partners have created a web-based station that recalls the sonic punch that FM rockers once had. In fact, what it is most reminiscent of is the golden age of 107.7 The End. At a time when modern-rock stations viewed one-hit wonders such as EMF and Jesus Jones as the future of music, The End unleashed regional heroes like Nirvana,
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