Who can you name? Mark Arm, front and centre + Dean H, thanks eh / Subpop, 2010Yeah i know the pics aren’t great but just to document my trip to Subpop HQ, Seattle (of course)… in March 2010 – I was in the city for a conference, gig, start-up internet-y meeting or some thing, I remember eating some Hawaiian/Japanese hybrid at an izakaya and a few other activities but importantly, visiting Subpop.
The photo strip booth was broken now but so many notable humans capture in instant b&w goodnessNote: This was the third company I had SubPop (OlyWa, Zhonka, Hootsuite) as a customer and received a warm familiar welcome and buncha questions about social marketing for bands/labels strategy. Felt useful.
all the sticker! I cover doors and suitcase and laptops with stickers and enjoy a satisfying collage / Subpop, 2010Carrying on anyway,… i had visited the old HQ years ago (with Banghi and scored a Sebadoh “Zippo” and other treats) but this time got the full tour, especially loved the walls various photo strip booth and instant-photo collages – So many faces from bands I know and appreciate over decades, all presented in a style that’s right out of my erstwhile playbook.
Plus various walls of silk screen posters (silkscreening done on site), walls of stickers (yeah my style!), bunch of other neat stuff like original invoice for the Nirvana 7″, original LOSER ads, the framed “Wood Records” for bands that sold fewer than a gold record or whatever, some of the gold/platinum records are displayed in the toilet, and, at-the-time-just-recently framed and hung properly B&W Charles Peterson (who rocks the instagram like whoa) classic photos.
Posters, handbills, promo sheets – much of which done right on premises, love the DIY goodness / Subpop, 2010I left with a box of CDs, bunch of posters and other ephemera, most importantly , a Mudhoney double signed by fcking legend Mark Arm of Mudhoney who works as a shipping warehouse wrangler (and to whom I asked a stupid question about his other band Monkeywrench) PS thanks Dean H.
More posters including Iron and Wine and Flight of the Conchords, not who you first think of right? / Subpop, 2010
Mudhoney (my fave) + shade of The Constantines, Sleater-Kinney, couple more i dig / Subpop, 2010Digression: Remember back when Subpop was a column in the fine alt/news-weekly “The Rocket” (thanks Marty) and Olympia/ Evergreen was sort of where Poneman/Pavitt started it up, and most of the bands first came through, a lot more to say about this but you probably know already… (see also: Go With the Flow).
PS so I have some more lousy photos cobbled together in a post but well, don’t know if it’s worth it… yeah or nay on the part 2?
Once the photo strip booth konked out, they switched it up to Polaroid and markers, dig it / Subpop, 2010
