The web you see above is only one tiny, Nirvana-centric piece of a cool, new internet toy for music nerds. The Seattle Band Map tracks the connections between the thousands of Northwest-based bands over several decades, from groups with shared members to artists who have collaborated. (A band called The Unnatural Helpers currently owns the title of “Most Connections,” with 43.) Browse the map, search for your favorite artist, and submit any band that’s missing here.

Some news that makes us wish that we lived closer to Seattle: Experience Music Project has just opened Nirvana: Taking Punk to the Masses, a major exhibition of photos and 225 artifacts from the band’s short history that includes high school artwork by Kurt Cobain, old show flyers, and several smashed guitars. “We made a great effort to show these items in context,” EMI curator Jacob McMurray, who has been working on the show for the past two years, told the Seattle Times. “We didn’t want these things to exist as sterile items in a case.” Click through to check out a slideshow of highlights from the exhibit.

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With images of Nirvana, Sonic Youth, and Smashing Pumpkins and text by Thurston Moore, Michael Lavine’s photo book is a grunge almanac.

As label photographer for Sub Pop Records in the late ’80s and early ’90s, Lavine spent as much time snapping the street scenes in Olympia and Seattle as the bands that made them famous. Grunge collects over 180 of his pictures, ranging from tattooed street-corner angels to the musical artists who would define a generation.
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The 2009 edition of Seattle’s Decibel Festival takes place September 24th through the 27th, and our friends at Ghostly have asked us to exclusively announce the choice lineup for their 10 year anniversary showcase/opening night gala at the Seattle Art Museum. Read More »