Seattle natives are always pressured into defending the musical legacies of their hometown against those who would like to say the city’s scene began and ended with Nirvana. This is unfortunately an uphill battle.
While the Seattle-Tacoma area has produced a small handful of bands that were extremely important, it has only really had two eras of notable “scene.”
What Seattle’s advocates would answer to this is, after the dissolution of that “scene,” one is left with only one or two notable groups, so who needs all the surrounding hype?
A great band can exist as a completely separate entity, and in some cases that autonomy may make the band greater, as they are challenging the musical climate around them.
Take, for example, The Fartz. If the late ’60s and early ’90s are seen as the creative peaks of Seattle’s music history, then the early ’80s were just when Seattle needed a band like the Fartz.
Their nine-song 7″ single Because This World Fuckin’ Stinks, released in 1981, captured perfectly their frustration with an inert music scene and a Reagan-controlled nation. Their 1982 follow-up World Full of Hate, recorded in a single night, became the first full-length hardcore album to be released by a Seattle band.
Had there been a scene of like-minded groups at the time, The Fartz would have probably gone all but unnoticed. But there was no such scene, and the group’s independence made their cry of defiance that much more effective.
Using songs that generally clocked in at less than two minutes, the Fartz tore apart everything that was responsible for the sorry state of their world. Reagan, the KKK, organized religion and art-school pretension are among the victims of Blaine Cook’s gargling-with-glass rants.
Before the band reunited in 1998, Alternative Tentacles released all of the Fartz’s hard-to-find material along with live tracks and a snazzy pin. The band has been active ever since.
Not content to limit themselves to early ’80s politics, The Fartz have released two full-lengths and a 7″ in their four years back on the scene, incorporating aspects of both their early punk recordings and their later, metal-tinged work.
Fans of punk rock in any form would do themselves a favor by checking out this band. While the youth can only seek out their records for a document of the Fartz’s force, those who are of age and who were around “back in the day” will probably feel old flames rekindled at this show.
Hopefully, the re-issues, new releases and touring will be enough to remind people that Seattle is, yes, Nirvana and the Sonics, but also The Fartz.