Final Sunday afternoon, tributes to Seattle music journalist Charles R. Cross saturated social media like suggestions from a guitar solo by Jimi Hendrix. As town’s preeminent music historian, Cross spent many years writing honored, deeply researched biographies on Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, and Coronary heart (amongst others), and enhancing the vaunted music journal The Rocket from from the mid-80s till it shuttered in 2000. Within the wake of his sudden loss of life, grief blended with gratitude in eloquent eulogies from the area’s music journalists, musicians, radio DJs, nightlife luminaries, and Cross’s many appreciative readers.
The commonest phrase individuals have used to explain The Rocket is “the bible of Northwest music.” The paper was the go-to publication for Pacific Northwest music information, a prodigious supply of knowledge and acute opinions, a facilitator for musicians to kind bands, a complete gig information, and a cheat sheet for venue bookers to study which native acts deserved stage time. The magazine fostered a whole cultural ecosystem.
The shock that many Northwesterners skilled following the information of Cross’s deadly coronary heart assault on August 9 at age 67 resembled that ensuing from the beautiful, untimely lack of producer and performer Steve Albini in Might. Each very important personalities’ sudden absence has left their admirers bereft; that they had presumed that Albini and Cross had many extra years of enlightening productiveness of their respective corners of the musical universe.
The Rocket was the chronicler of Seattle’s late-’80s proto-grunge scene and the breakout phenomenon that it turned within the early ’90s. Cross was the primary editor to offer future superstars Soundgarden and Nirvana cowl tales (and in Nirvana’s case, the labeled advert that began all of it), however his writers additionally championed much less accessible however supremely proficient native bands reminiscent of Love Battery and Hovercraft.
“For lots of us Seattle music journalists, Charles was the blueprint,” KEXP workers reporter and podcaster Martin Douglas informed me. “He confirmed a literal technology easy methods to thoughtfully have interaction with native music, lengthy earlier than the Seattle music scene ‘exploded’ or turned a ‘money cow.’ He emblematized approaching bands in Seattle with an equal quantity of curiosity—and he would separate what he felt was the wheat from the chaff accordingly. Native music is among the most important corners of group. Music journalism is among the most undervalued artwork types on this planet. In his work, Charles handled each like gold. Our group has suffered an incalculable loss.”
Its affect reached past the cities of the Pacific Northwest. For Portland-based electronic-music producer Technique (aka Paul Dickow), The Rocket was a lifeline to an remoted younger music fanatic residing in Moscow, Idaho. “Moscow, Pullman, and Spokane all had The Rocket distributed, so for anybody with a deeper curiosity in music you might see what occasions had been coming, and caravans of individuals would head out to the ‘large metropolis’ to concert events based mostly on the listings contained in it. It was regionally essential in a method that Portland’s alt-weeklies usually are not.
“Studying The Rocket was crushing for me as a result of the older youngsters who shared my outré musical tastes weren’t individuals who my mom needed me driving six hours with. So I may hint a line by means of all of the superb exhibits I missed within the early ’90s by means of these Rocket points, pining for bands I might not see for an additional 30 years, like Skinny Pet and My Bloody Valentine.”
Present Mild within the Attic report store supervisor Travis Ritter informed me that he held onto one Rocket concern from October 2000, which contained a report retailer information. He says, “I realized about many report outlets all up and down Interstate 5 as I used to be constructing my report assortment.”
Sadly for this music journalist, I arrived in Seattle within the fall of 2002—too late to expertise The Rocket‘s imperial reign in actual time. However within the years since, I’ve not heard anyone converse sick of the journal (a outstanding feat for any publication, on condition that considered one of America’s favourite pastimes is maligning the media.)
After I labored at Various Press journal within the ’90s, copies of The Rocket would often make their strategy to our Cleveland workplace. Studying it, I might envy Seattle for having a publication that scrutinized and boosted the scene twice a month with perception and humor. If each main metropolis had such a help system, think about how a lot more healthy music scenes can be.
On high of that, Cross nurtured high-caliber writers reminiscent of Grant Alden (cofounder No Melancholy), Gillian G. Gaar (writer of quite a few music books), Adem Tepedelen (co-author of Stever Turner’s Mud Experience memoir), and Peter Blecha (founding father of Northwest Music Archives), and cartoonist Matt Groening.
Right here’s the place one would say, “Individuals didn’t notice how good that they had it” throughout The Rocket’s existence. However it seems that Northwestern music heads did notice their success. And to at the present time, they lament the journal’s closure. It’s a testomony to Cross’ editorial imaginative and prescient and integrity over the many years.
Fortunately for posterity, Cross spearheaded—together with College of Washington ethnomusicology archivist John Vallier—the digitalizing of The Rocket‘s complete run. Vallier is a music-journalism teacher at UW, and Cross incessantly visited his classroom, and Vallier was struck by his openness. On a latest go to, “he spent two hours talking off the cuff, studying quick passages from his memoir, and fielding questions,” Vallier mentioned. “His distinctive mixture of wry wit, in-depth data, opinionated (however all the time well-grounded) takes on music, and real love for the analog days of yore resounded with the category. A lot of college students queued up afterwards hoping to speak with him one-on-one. He was busy and had someplace to go, however he caught round, unhurriedly connecting with and providing encouragement to every one.”
Cafe Racer co-owner Jeff Ramsey additionally remembers Cross’s generosity throughout the 1992 opening of his Pioneer Sq. membership The Colourbox. “I knew nothing about expertise shopping for or reserving artists,” Ramsey mentioned. “I reached out to Charles and he invited me as much as the Rocket workplace and we nerded out about all issues native music. We went by means of the roster of native expertise. He gave me his insights and predictions on which rising artists had been prone to do nicely. He was an exquisite advocate to have for a fledgling music venue.”
And that spirit continued by means of the many years. “Through the pandemic when Racer was shut, we created Cafe Racer Radio, and Charles and I reconnected. He loaned me a pile of Rockets for a section now we have known as ‘Again within the Day,’ which is actually skimming outdated copies of The Rocket and sharing that info and music of the time to our viewers,” Ramsey recalled. “Final Friday I put a field of Rockets within the automotive to return to him and was wanting ahead to the go to when the devastating information got here. I’ll miss him.”
Nellis Data proprietor and Nirvana superfan Brad Tilbe cites Cross’s revered Kurt Cobain biography Heavier Than Heaven as the one guide that ever made him cry. Through the seven years that Tilbe managed Mild within the Attic’s retail retailer, Cross incessantly visited and was keen to speak with Tilbe, fortunately answering his “oddball questions on Nirvana, grunge,” and Seattle’s musical historical past.
Earlier than working for The Stranger within the ’00s, Aaron Edge served as The Rocket’s assistant artwork director within the late ’90s. Edge remembers Cross as “a form captain. He was affected person with me as I realized my craft and appreciated the wild ruckus that was The Rocket artwork division. [Co-worker] Stewart Williams and I blasted music and yelled inappropriately on the common. Charles would enter the room and settle us down—with attraction and in enjoyable—like that favourite uncle [who] would tuck ya in higher than your personal people.”
Former KNDD and KEXP DJ Marco Collins was a key determine in serving to to popularize grunge within the metropolis whereas on the former radio station. “I do know he documented the perfect elements of our Seattle music historical past, however after we bought collectively, we talked concerning the new artists we had been loving. At all times evolving, that man,” Collins mentioned. “I found so many killer bands from that magazine! It is humorous, I keep in mind being so aggressive with it, feeling jealous after they discovered a cool band I hadn’t heard of. I additionally would impatiently await every concern to see in the event that they’d scored any interviews that I could not land. Being talked about in The Rocket was a badge of honor—it actually mattered.”
Experimental musician and famend producer Steve Fisk (Screaming Bushes, Harvey Hazard, and so forth.) was initially skeptical of Cross’s musical tastes, not least as a result of Charles based the Bruce Springsteen fanzine Backstreets. Fisk observed loads of bitter envy amongst Seattle’s ’80s musicians when town’s scene blew up within the early ’90s, and he thought Cross, as The Rocket editor, was partially chargeable for that sentiment. “That was me being younger and silly,” Fisk admits. Later, Fisk and Cross wound up on the Grammy committee collectively for just a few years, and several other rewarding conversations ensued. “I questioned, ‘What the hell is my downside? Charles Cross actually loves what he is doing. He is a stand-up dude.’
Fisk grew to respect him as a musical authority within the area. “When anyone [wanted to know something about Seattle music], they’d ask Charles. And for higher or for worse, he acknowledged the mantle [of Northwest music authority], and he did the perfect he may with it. He was like Coronary heart. He wasn’t going to depart the music scene that he beloved and devoted his life to.”
Cross’s editorial instincts skewed towards the favored, and his books’ topics had been a few of Seattle’s largest, most bankable icons. However Cross knew that he had an obligation to cowl underground-rock artists, too. Fisk notes, “Charles developed his personal voice, however as a result of he bought going younger, his preliminary stuff was within the context of [Creem/Rolling Stone critic] Dave Marsh. Charles being a Springsteen head put him way more within the line of Cameron Crowe: a younger author with loads of enthusiasm and loads of data and anyone who needed to inform the tales. He began off as rock’s Woodward & Bernstein, after which slowly turned The Northwest Man. So, his arc was very attention-grabbing. He modified loads. Being a dad made him extra of an individual and fewer of a rock fanatic.”
On the time of his loss of life, tradition critic Ann Powers informed The Stranger that Cross was engaged on a brand new guide, “type of a biography of Seattle,” she mentioned. “A cultural historical past of Seattle and Seattle music.”
His good pal Ben London, Sonic Guild’s government director, says he and Cross had many talks concerning the challenge. “He was going to attach how what occurred within the ’80s set the stage for [the grunge explosion] in Seattle within the ’90s,” London mentioned. “I used to be reflecting this morning that there could be some actual magnificence within the interviews he was doing for the guide as a result of he had substantial conversations with a ton of individuals he knew and labored with through the years. A lot of our music scene is outlined by the victors, within the sense of artists who go on and have these large careers. However so many individuals should work collectively to make that occur on totally different ranges. None of that occurs in a vacuum. And so Charles was an important cog to all of the success that these artists had within the late ’80s and ’90s. It simply would not have occurred in the identical type of method with out individuals like Charles working behind the scenes.”
With Cross’s cultural contributions within the rearview mirror, members of the group are beginning to really feel the vacuum he left. Fisk hypothetically likened Cross’s loss of life within the grand scheme of Seattle music historical past to dropping Sub Pop founders Jonathan Poneman or Bruce Pavitt. “It is multilayered and really sophisticated. I did not count on to get emotional, however yeah, I bought actually emotional. [Charles] was a candy little man, and he was simply beginning to inform his tales. He had 15 fucking books in him.”
