My God, it's full of bars!

March 1, 2011 11:27 PM

Thanks to long rainy days and a lot of funky global culture and cross-pollination, Seattle has long been known as an epicenter of music and related creativity where people riff off of each other and freely beg, borrow and steal ideas. But how incestuous is it, really? Who has collaborated with whom? Played gigs together? Worked on albums together? Exactly how complicated is the Seattle music scene? It's so complicated that it needs a map - the Seattle Band Map. Via Wired.
posted by loquacious (16 comments total)

I thought Seattle was yesterday's Portland.
posted by Fizz at 11:30 PM on March 1, 2011

No Singles reference to "Citizen Dick"? Oh, for shame.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 11:51 PM on March 1, 2011

BP: It's only two weeks old. Submit it. :)

Fizz: Go figure. I though Portland was Seattle's weird little sister.
posted by loquacious at 12:11 AM on March 2, 2011

Done.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:18 AM on March 2, 2011

Despite the terrible timing of the release (months after it was expected, and too late for several bands to capitalize on their featured new releases and tours), MTV's $5 Cover: Seattle was a pretty fun, if embellished, look at the highly connected Seattle music scene. Some of the band members displayed some pretty natural acting chops, like Jason Dodson of the Maldives. Others, not so much.

Even if you know or care nothing about the details of the Seattle scene, you might still enjoy episode 3, which features Sean Nelson dealing with the tragedy of past fame.
posted by lantius at 12:42 AM on March 2, 2011

Jesus. That thing is addiction-ville.
posted by artof.mulata at 2:15 AM on March 2, 2011

This is fun, the database is awesome, but I don't find the visualisation very useful - once you zoom in enough to see actual names, all the connected bands are then off the screen, and there's this dense background of unrelated bands and connections. Displaying graphs like this is hard, but it would be great if you could do something like turn off connections more than a certain number of steps away from a particular node.

(This is where I complain about wonderful free things on the internet, right?)

Also – how amazing is the original paper version!!
posted by Pre-Taped Call In Show at 3:27 AM on March 2, 2011

The Wailers?
posted by maxwelton at 4:07 AM on March 2, 2011

...where people riff off of each other...

Ah, that explains why the Stone Temple Pilots were not run out of town on a freaking rail.
posted by NoMich at 4:19 AM on March 2, 2011

Comparing artistic collaboration to incest is an insult to one of them, I'm not sure.
posted by LogicalDash at 4:33 AM on March 2, 2011

You know...I'd never heard of Caspar Babypants until 3 weeks ago. Now I see him everywhere and that makes me smile for a number of reasons. I'm also glad that I can potentially win in music trivia because that guy that always wins with that obscure Mother Love Bone reference needs to be taken down. Thanks!
posted by victoriab at 4:59 AM on March 2, 2011

Now do Manchester.
posted by empath at 7:09 AM on March 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

I guess I was sorta hoping for an actual cartographic map. (BTW, Sleater-Kinney? For me that's the street with the Fred Meyer.)

...now trying to remember the name of the super-obscure band that mr epersonae swears was the bomb back in the day (Oly early 90s).
posted by epersonae at 7:29 AM on March 2, 2011

Wow. There's a surprising amount of underground hiphop artists on there! It's pretty cool and weird to see folks you've known putting out music since the 90's who never get radio play actually being put on these things and not shuffled under the rug. Nice.
posted by yeloson at 7:44 AM on March 2, 2011

A couple years ago, I was meeting with an architect, as part of my work. He was from Seattle, and I mentioned the Experience Music Project, in passing, and he mentioned, also in passing, that one of his guitars is in there.

WHAT????

Turns out this guy, who now makes his living designing and building things was in Blood Circus, one of the seminal grunge bands, and a band that both Nirvana and Mudhoney opened for, back in the day.

I looked it up, and everything he told me was true, if slightly understated. I was also very sorry that this guy's proposal for us was not what we needed at the time. I would have loved to talk to him more.

I am pretty surprised that Blood Circus is not on this map.
posted by Danf at 8:11 AM on March 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

epersonae, I hope you remember and post it! Your Mr. and I might've been at some of the same shows.
posted by safetyfork at 10:30 AM on March 2, 2011