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In the early '80s, Calvin Johnson, a native Olympian and recent Evergreen grad, didn't follow his musical friends to Seattle. "I was like, 'What? Are you going to be able to wash dishes better there?'" he says. "You can do what you're doing just as well here, and you won't have to spend as much time washing dishes to survive." With help from fellow Evergreener Pat Maley, he launched a catalog through which he sold cassettes of bands he liked, most of which he had recorded himself. He dubbed the outfit K Records. "I was always taken by the concept of regional labels with regional sounds, like Stax," says Johnson, who over the past 15 years has built a reputation for touting local music.
Kill Rock Stars, another Olympia record label, founded in 1991 by Slim Moon (who still owns it), shared K's penchant for signing local talent and took in Sleater-Kinney in 1996. Sleater-Kinney's records are now its bread and butter. By making uncompromising but accessible postpunk, Sleater-Kinney has become Kill Rock Stars' resident rock-star band.
Listen, and it's easy to see why. Sleater-Kinney's contribution to pop has been to invent and perfect a new formula: lyrics worthy of discussion in a Women in Modern Media seminar, '60s girl-group-style vocals backed by two harmonizing guitar riffs, drums--and no bass. It would be hard to find a Sleater-Kinney cover band to play at your wedding reception. Brownstein and Tucker can belt on key and play lead guitar at the same time, and drummer Janet Weiss doesn't need a bass player to stay on beat. It's a style indebted to Olympia riot-grrrl bands like Bikini Kill and to bands from out of town that recorded on Olympia record labels, like Portland's Tiger Trap and Vancouver's Mecca Normal.
Olympians acknowledge how deeply they influence one another. As Maggie Vail of Bangs puts it, "We're very incestuous here." In the town's tight-knit scene, collaboration is the rule. "Someone comes up with the seed of an idea," says Mirah Yom Tov Zeitlyn, whose second album, You Think It's Like This but Really It's Like This, was released on K in June, "and the rest of us are poised for action."
Newcomers sometimes benefit from this kind of closeness. Members of the Gossip are living an Olympia success story. They all arrived from Searcy, Ark., in the past two years, formed a band last fall and played local house parties until Calvin Johnson invited them to cut a record in K's Dub Narcotic studio. The band's self-titled, four-song EP is anchored by the thundering, bluesy vocals of Beth Ditto, while Kathi Mendoncha on drums and Nathan Howdeshell on guitar pound home a sense of languor and urgency born out of Southern heat and teenage boredom. As the opening act for Sleater-Kinney's spring tour, the band earned nationwide buzz, but that hasn't killed its appetite for things Arkansan. "I still like things like okra, and I love my fat Southern grandma," says Ditto, who's still only 19. Adds Howdeshell: "We want to play a tour of weird places in the Midwest, where only 15 kids will show up."