If someone was to ask me what music I think of when I think of Seattle I would say grunge. But in all honesty I wouldn’t actually think of grunge, that is just the most popular music to come out of the area. I like grunge, and it is true that it is a big deal where I am from, but by the time I was plenty old enough to go out into the world and see music, the grunge scene was for the most part over. when I was getting older and getting into music more seriously the music I remember being in Seattle was indie rock, ska, and later folk music. Not only was this music becoming very popular, it also sat very well with me, and I owe that to my parents. When I was young I can remember my parents always having music on in the house. I remember my mom listening to Joni Mitchell and James Taylor, and my dad listening to Crosby, Stills, and Nash, and the Moody Blues. It is because of this experience as a child listening to this kind of music that I enjoyed all the music that sounded similar to it when I was a lot older. I like Nirvana and Pearl Jam, but I really loved the Band of Horses and Damien Jurado. What I originally set out to look at was this second Seattle sound, a more folk oriented sound. but I don’t think anyone would give it a name like the second Seattle sound because this was a trend that was happening just as much outside my city as in it. This doesn’t make the sound any less appealing to me and I am sure I could still find a way to listen to the music and try to identify if the band was from Washington or not. This new wave of folk music wasn’t brought on just by one area, but probably because just like me, a lot of people grew up with their parents listening to it folk music, so when they went to go make music those were some of the earliest influences they had.

Now when I think of music that really represents my home I think to soccer. In Seattle we have a strong supporters culture for our major league soccer team, and they really love singing songs. When I think of songs to really get me excited about where I am from and the potential of winning a soccer match I think of two very specifically. The first one I actually can remember from way back when I was a kid as well, it seems like it has just always hung around my life. It is Perry Como’s Seattle:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NUzNtqu3zQ

The second song is from an artist I definitely know a lot more of than Perry Como, but was less familiar with the song. It is Woody Guthrie’s Roll on Columbia. here it is sung by Pete Seeger with a little bit of a story:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GrhBDaKu3o

The reason I bring these two songs up is because I was trying to think of songs that I felt really encapsulated the Pacific Northwest and Seattle, but also have some history too them. In a previous blog post I talked about the song, an American Trilogy, and how it was the combination of three songs that span over Southern history, and how it made me homesick and longed for a song similar. These are the first two songs I thought about when considering trying my hand at some sort of trilogy. The first problem is I need one more song, and the second problem is they way the songs sound. I really enjoy the way Woody Guthrie’s song moves along, but I find the Perry Como song borderline annoying. here are two sets of lyrics that I particularly enjoy

“The bluest skies you’ve ever seen are in Seattle

And the hills the greenest green, in Seattle

Like a beautiful child, growing up, free an’ wild

Full of hopes an’ full of fears, full of laughter, full of tears

Full of dreams to last the years, in Seattle

… in Seattle! ”

“Green Douglas firs where the waters cut through.

Down her wild mountains and canyons she flew.

Canadian Northwest to the ocean so blue,

Roll on, Columbia, roll on!

Roll on, Columbia, roll on.

Roll on, Columbia, roll on.

Your power is turning our darkness to dawn,

Roll on, Columbia, roll on.”

I am very grateful that I have one more week and one more blog post before we return to class. This means I will be able to attend the folklife festival in Seattle which fits very well into my current song project. I hope that next week’s blog post has a completed song.

I am writing this in the backseat of a car. We have gone just over 3000 miles and are almost to the Black Warrior River in Alabama. This trip started Wednesday night about midnight right when my girlfriend got off of work; we piled into a Nissan Altima and set off. I drove from about 1am all the way until 11am the next morning (Thursday), we made it to Utah. We stopped in Salt Lake City for some food and to stretch before we set off again, I tried to sleep in the back of the car all day to prepare for the next set of night driving, but as everyone knows car sleep just isn’t the same as sleeping in a bed. I drove again from 3am till about 9am (Friday) and we stopped to eat breakfast on historic route 66 in New Mexico, then we made it all the way to Alexandria Louisiana where we slept at a hotel so we could be fresh for the next day long stop, and the reason we drove so far in the first place, New Orleans. It’s hard for me to write about the drive from Washington to new Orleans in much detail because it really did just go by in a flash, nonstop 40 some odd hours of car time and it is just mush memories in my brain, the truly memorable things were yet to come.

We got to New Orleans mid Saturday after a long and needed sleep. It was not my first time in that city, but it was just as incredible as the first time I drove in. We actually found really nice parking in the French Quarter despite being warned about trying to drive into the part of the city. First thing was first we had to go get some beignets, but then we were off to find some live music, and it was the easiest hunt of all time. We saw so much music on the street, but eventually made our way into a piano bar. Once we got through with the piano bar went to go find some dinner and then to go listen to some jazz. We made it to Fritz European Jazz Bar. It was such a great environment, a little bit removed from the craziness of Bourbon Street, we settled into this bar for the rest of the night. The name of the band was the Red Hot Brass Band and despite the name of the bar, there was nothing really European about the music, all the musicians were from the south, and they were playing classic New Orleans style jazz. Late that night we took off for a friend’s house where we spent the night before waking up the next day (Sunday) and driving to the Gulf Coast in Alabama.

The Gulf Coast is always shocking to me never have I ever experienced the tempter of the color of the water there, it is so opposite to the body’s of water we have in Washington. We spent alto of Sunday just being on the water. We floated around in a lazy river, took a boat ride to Gulf Coast National Seashore, and then another boat ride to a restaurant on the water where I had some fish that I have never heard of. It was very strange to see a menu that didn’t have halibut or cod or salmon on it. Later that night we went to a place called the Flora-Bama, a bar that is on the Florida/Alabama line. This place had to be the perfect place to do this field study. I had no idea the type of situation we would be walking into. I assumed this was a normal sized single story building, but I couldn’t be more wrong. The building was three stories high, and even had a section on the beach. There were three different musical acts happening that Sunday night, and I am told on other more popular nights there are even more bands playing in even more rooms. Not only were there a lot of bands playing that I had the opportunity to listen to, I felt like I also got a good tour of some southern music. The first and second bands we saw where fairly similar playing loud guitar-solo-filed classic and pop country songs. The third band however I was much more interested in, they were a group of four guys (3 on guitars, 1 on drums) playing acoustic versions of old classic southern music. It was here I heard the band play an incredibly powerful version “an American Trilogy,” a song that could almost be considered a southern folk song. This song is so steeped in southern history it made me homesick for the Pacific Northwest. This inspired me to try and write some sort of song about the place I am from, hopefully containing bits and pieces from classics from the area.

Now I am on the way to the Black Warrior River, where my girlfriend’s parents own a small cabin right on the shore. Hopefully this will be a place where I can relax and discover some more things about a place I know very little about. Next post I should be back in Washington.

The past week I didn’t get to stay in Seattle as long as I would have liked, but I also didn’t plan on going at all in the first place. This first week I thought I would only be able to do some reading and studying and that I wouldn’t start making my weekly trips down till the following week, however, I went down to visit and have dinner with my family. My sister live on Queen Anne hill not far from Kerry Park, there are amazing views around there and just as amazing soundscapes. It is almost as if you can look at the water and hear it then look at the city and hear it as well, like your eyes are shooting targets for your ears. I took particular notice of the street drumming while i was driving around Seattle this week, it really is just all around. I’m not sure I ever really notice how prominent it is, probably because when something never stops you start to stop hearing it. When I started to listen more intently on the drumming I felt like I was listening to little themes or heartbeats from different parts of the city. While driving through downtown there was many drummers and it was fast and seemed hectic, when I got to the U-District I felt like it started to single out into one drummer and the pace slowed, and then when I got up the hill to Queen Anne I felt like I left the chaos down below and it turned into a calming murmur.

This week I read Ernest Callenbach’s Ecotopia. It is a fiction book about northern California, Oregon, and Washington succeeding from the United States and becoming their own nation. It reads as a journalist’s diary/column that he writes as he is there. It was an enjoyable read, and I started to really romanticize the idea of this actually happening. The link between these places is made by a bioregion, that is a way of distinguishing an area by is environmental traits. In the real world this area would also include some parts of Canada, Idaho, and Alaska. Prior to this book a professor at Seattle University named this bioregion Cascadia, obviously because of the cascade mountain range. When I think of Cascadia the first thing that comes to mind is actually soccer and a type of beer. This is because there is a strong rivalry between the Seattle Sounders, the Portland Timbers, and the Vancouver (Canada) Whitecaps; they compete for the a trophy called Cascadia Cup. The idea of Cascadia goes far beyond just soccer and beer though, some people really do want to succeed from the United States and form their own country (and they have a pretty good argument on why it would be possible), but I honestly am far less interested in succession as I am the idea of Cascadia having its own people and culture. There is an idea that people from this region should be active in it and stay working for it, this is called bioregionalism. Bioregionalism would include things like eating locally, using local materials, keeping native plants, and using energy you can harness from the environment you live in. The site cascadianow.org has a good definition Cascadia:

“A much more common definition of Cascadia instead seeks simply to help further local autonomy, empower individuals and communities to better represent their own needs, as well as push or environmental and economic responsibility, and increased dynamic, transparent and open governance. The Cascadia movement encourages people to re engage with their local communities, develop local and personal resilience (community gardens, disaster preparedness, etc.), and create alternate lines of regional communication, politics, and interdependence that better represent the social, cultural and political boundaries that define our region.”

The idea of Cascadia is also useful to my field study, because I am looking for what makes influences on Seattle music, I’m sure the environment and the people who live there will be large parts of it. Also when looking at the bioregional map of Cascadia I realized I haven’t really traveled much out of it, I think this would make it particularly hard to see things as being different from or original to Seattle when I know so little about what the opposition would look like. I know what going to a show, hearing music on the streets, or making music with friends is like here in Seattle; but, I could not speak to what that is like in other places. However, I am lucky enough that I will be able to tag along on a road trip to New Orleans and Alabama. I will be gone for around eight days and I’m hoping this will provide me with great contrast to my home.

“Journeys are the midwives of thought…” This phrase immediately stuck out to me, and put words to an experience I have had many times. In fact the whole of chapter two in The Art of Travel was maybe the chapter I related to the most. It first stuck out to me when de Botton speaks about his pleasant kind of loneliness that he is experiencing in the gas station as he is eating his snack; I too can identify with that kind of feeling. De Botton goes on to say that because he was in a place of strangers where the architecture and lighting seemed to acknowledge and reflect the loneliness of the place; coupled with the absence of people who would cause contrasts with happiness and togetherness in the room, he says that it makes the loneliness pleasant. This was a perfect explanation of this feeling to me. I always thought when I feel this pleasant loneliness it is because I am feeling comforted by the fact that other people are also alone, and that people are not all that different. It provides me a kind of connection with the rest of the human race. De Botton even speaks to this idea later in the chapter, when he is speaking about the painting Gas and says “Against the backdrop of night and wild woods, in this last outpost of humanity, a sense of kinship may be easier to develop than in daylight in the city.” Actually, his whole description of gas was incredibly relatable to me. Before I lived in Olympia and would drive back and forth from Seattle, I took great joy in the drives I would have late at night when few cars were on the road. I liked to stop at empty gas stations that were still, and had only me or one other person standing in silence, both doing the exact same task. These drives back and forth also brought me back to the original passage “Journeys are the midwives of thought…” because, as de Botton goes on further he helped to change my view, he says “thinking improves when parts of the mind are given other tasks — charred with listening to music, for example, or following a line of trees.” What this changed was my perception of the drives that I will be going on to and from Seattle and Olympia during this research project. Before reading this section, I thought of this drive as a hassle, however, now it sounds like a great opportunity for me to use this time to take in whatever I learned during the day, and form solid ideas out of it. This also inspired me to look into taking the train from Seattle to Olympia or Portland a few times. I think these train rides would be an inspiring journey, but also give me time useful for me to write about my experiences.

In chapter four, de Botton speaks about his time in Madrid and his struggle to figure out what he is suppose to do with his time there. This is a fear that I have about my time in Seattle. My struggle is, I used to live in Seattle, and  I am worried that when I go back to do research things will not inherently capture my attention or seem interesting. Yes, I will have a research question, and yes there are things that I have planned out to do, but, because I used to live there I am concerned about how I will see the city and events. When talking in about his time in Madrid, De Botton said “My discoveries would have to enliven me; they would have in some way to prove ‘life enhancing.’” Now I do believe that this entire project project is “life enhancing,” as it gives me an opportunity to learn about a place I love, however what I want to know (as does de Botton in madrid) is “How does a person come to be interested in the exact height at which he or she sees a fly?” For me the fly is Seattle and I need to figure out how best to become more interested in a place that I feel I already know so much about. I think the best ways for me to achieve this, is for me to branch out and do the things I have never have done as a inhabitant. I need to become a tourist in my own city in a sense (maybe go up in the space needle for the first time and hear the sounds of the city from there.) De Botton decides he is interested in the under representation of vegetables in the spanish diet, and the size of spanish men’s feet; something I doubt the people of Madrid ever questioned. I have decided to find things that trigger a fascination in me, things that I may have never even thought to look at or listen to.

Going to Seattle doesn’t seem scary, I only moved from there 6 months ago, and before I lived in the city I was born and raised in a suburb just outside of it. Because of this I have a lot of ideas of what the city will be like, what sounds I will hear, what the people will be like, and what the neighborhoods will be like that I stay in. I want to try and throw these understandings out when I go back to Seattle, I want to go to the city not with new eyes but with new ears, after this quarter I can’t stop thinking about all the sound I must have never heard when I lived there and how many musical experiences I must have just walked right by. I think about how I had the perfect roof to sit on top of and just listen to the noises the city makes. This trip is an opportunity for me to go back to all the places I regret not listening to more and try again. I also want to go back and try to find any similarities I can in the sound of the city. When reading about the Manchester sound it reminded me about the Seattle sound – if there is one – and the kind of sound the city makes people want to create. I am not convinced that this kind of phenomenon exists, I think it is more accurate that when people start making music with each other they feed off/are influenced by each other, either way I would like to look for a some relation between all the sounds I hear.

The “Seattle Sound” was grunge of course, but there was talk of a Seattle sound again when indie folk artists started appearing (like Fleet Foxes, Band of Horses, Head and The Heart). If this second Seattle sound does exist I want to see how much, I would like to see just how popular folk really is in the city compared to other places in the United States.

I currently have four weekends planned to go to Seattle to do this study, because of how close the city is this saves me money rather than having to stay up there for extended periods and miss work. I’ll be going from friday to sunday. Along with a handful of other days I will be able to drive down and also study. I have planned out my 4 weekend trips below, leaving the other days free so I can make quick plans to go see music.

When I go around the Seattle I plan to always have an ability to take notes at any time. this is how I plan on being able to capture and analyse the sounds of the city, because they can happen all the time. I will be keeping a small field notebook in my back pocket along with a small pen, but ill also have my phone on me, which can be an audio recorder that I could later upload to this site.