On a Saturday in mid-August, dozens of musicians and journalists gathered on a patio, representing 4 many years of Seattle’s historical past. It’d been simply days since Seattle music journalist Charles R. Cross had handed away unexpectedly. His presence loomed massive on the nice and cozy summer time night. “Lots of the associates who attended have been profitable creatives who obtained their begin many years in the past when Charley gave them an opportunity at The Rocket or supported them in another means,” says Alexa Peters, a neighborhood music journalist and longtime good friend of Cross’s. “As family and friends reminisced on his patio that night, I half anticipated Charley to stroll by means of the door.”
Barely a month later, Seattle’s music scene remains to be feeling his loss. As the town’s preeminent music historian, Cross spent many years writing honored, deeply researched biographies on Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, and Coronary heart (amongst others) and modifying the vaunted music journal The Rocket from the mid-’80s till it shuttered in 2000. Within the wake of his surprising loss of life, grief combined 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 be taught which native acts deserved stage time. The magazine fostered a whole cultural ecosystem.
The shock that many Pacific Northwesterners skilled following the information of Cross’s deadly coronary heart assault on August 9 at age 67 resembled that which resulted from the beautiful, untimely lack of producer and performer Steve Albini in Might. Each very important personalities’ sudden absence has left their admirers bereft; they’d 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 provide future superstars Soundgarden and Nirvana cowl tales (and in Nirvana’s case, the categorised advert that began all of it), however his writers additionally championed much less accessible however supremely gifted native bands, reminiscent of Love Battery and Hovercraft.
“For lots of us Seattle music journalists, Charles was the blueprint,” KEXP employees reporter and podcaster Martin Douglas tells me. “He confirmed a literal era the way 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 neighborhood. Music journalism is among the most undervalued artwork kinds on the planet. In his work, Charles handled each like gold. Our neighborhood has suffered an incalculable loss.”
Its affect reached past the cities of the Pacific Northwest. For Portland-based digital music producer Technique (aka Paul Dickow), The Rocket was a lifeline to an remoted younger music fanatic dwelling in Moscow, Idaho. “Moscow, Pullman, and Spokane all had The Rocket distributed, so for anybody with a deeper curiosity in music, you could possibly see what occasions have 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 means that Portland’s alt-weeklies are usually not,” he says. “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 wonderful reveals I missed within the early ’90s by means of these Rocket points, pining for bands I’d not see for an additional 30 years, like Skinny Pet and My Bloody Valentine.”
Mild within the Attic file store supervisor Travis Ritter tells me that he held onto one Rocket concern from October 2000, which contained a file retailer information. He says, “I realized about many file outlets all up and down Interstate 5 as I used to be constructing my file 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 unwell of the journal (a exceptional feat for any publication, provided that certainly 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 sometimes make their method to our Cleveland workplace. Studying it, I’d 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 could be.
On high of that, Cross nurtured high-caliber writers reminiscent of Grant Alden (cofounder of No Despair), Gillian G. Gaar (creator of quite a few music books), Adem Tepedelen (co-author of Stever Turner’s Mud Trip memoir), and Peter Blecha (founding father of Northwest Music Archives), in addition to 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 Pacific Northwestern music followers did notice their success. And to today, 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 earlier this yr. Vallier teaches music journalism at UW, and as Cross continuously visited his classroom, Vallier was struck by his openness. On a current go to, “He spent two hours talking off the cuff, studying brief passages from his memoir, and fielding questions,” Vallier says. “His distinctive mixture of wry wit, in-depth information, opinionated (however all the time well-grounded) takes on music, and real love for the analog days of yore resounded with the category. Quite a lot of college students queued up afterwards, hoping to talk 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 recollects Cross’s generosity in the course of the 1992 opening of his Pioneer Sq. membership, the Colourbox. “I knew nothing about expertise shopping for or reserving artists,” Ramsey says. “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 have been prone to do properly. 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 phase we have now known as ‘Again within the Day,’ which is basically skimming previous copies of The Rocket and sharing that data and music of the time to our viewers,” Ramsey recollects. “Final Friday, I put a field of Rockets within the automotive to return to him and was trying ahead to the go to when the devastating information got here. I’ll miss him.”
Nellis Information proprietor and Nirvana superfan Brad Tilbe cites Cross’s revered Kurt Cobain biography, Heavier Than Heaven, as the one ebook that ever made him cry. Through the seven years that Tilbe managed Mild within the Attic’s retail retailer, Cross continuously visited and was keen to talk with Tilbe, fortunately answering his “oddball questions on Nirvana,” grunge,” and Seattle’s musical historical past.
Earlier than working for The Stranger within the aughts, 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 appeal 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 very best components of our Seattle music historical past, however after we obtained collectively, we talked concerning the new artists we have been loving. At all times evolving, that man,” Collins says. “I found so many killer bands from that magazine! It’s 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 look ahead to every concern to see in the event that they’d scored any interviews that I couldn’t land. Being talked about in The Rocket was a badge of honor—it actually mattered.”
Experimental musician and famend producer Steve Fisk (Screaming Timber, 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 a number of bitter envy amongst Seattle’s ’80s musicians when the town’s scene blew up within the early ’90s, and he thought Cross, as The Rocket editor, was partially liable 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 a number of other rewarding conversations ensued. “I puzzled, ‘What the hell is my drawback? Charles Cross actually loves what he’s doing. He’s 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 might ask Charles. And for higher or for worse, he acknowledged the mantle [of Pacific Northwestern music authority], and he did the very best he may with it. He was like Coronary heart. He wasn’t going to depart the music scene that he cherished and devoted his life to.”
That additionally meant persevering with to mentor Seattle’s younger journalists. “Charley could be the primary to say that music journalism is a troublesome gig today, however we not often had a dialog when he didn’t explicitly encourage me,” says Peters, a good friend and native freelance journalist who’s a contributor to the Seattle Occasions and The Stranger. “He’d urge me to ‘preserve the religion’ after a setback, have interaction with my (typically half-baked) story concepts, or refer me to some cool new alternative.”
Cross’s editorial instincts skewed towards the favored, and his books’ topics have 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 obtained 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 a number of enthusiasm and a number of information 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 fascinating. He modified quite a bit. 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 advised The Stranger that Cross was engaged on a brand new ebook. “Type of a biography of Seattle,” she mentioned. “A cultural historical past of Seattle and Seattle music.”
His good good friend Ben London, Sonic Guild’s government director, says he and Cross had many talks concerning the venture. “He was going to attach how what occurred within the ’80s set the stage for [the grunge explosion] in Seattle within the ’90s,” London says. “I used to be reflecting this morning that there is likely to be some actual magnificence within the interviews he was doing for the ebook as a result of he had substantial conversations with a ton of individuals he knew and labored with over time. 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 must 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 wouldn’t have occurred in the identical form of means with out individuals like Charles working behind the scenes.”
With Cross’s cultural contributions within the rearview mirror, members of the neighborhood are beginning to really feel the vacuum he left. Fisk hypothetically likens Cross’s loss of life within the grand scheme of Seattle music historical past to shedding Sub Pop founders Jonathan Poneman or Bruce Pavitt. “It’s multilayered and really difficult. I didn’t count on to get emotional, however yeah, I obtained actually emotional. [Charles] was a candy little man, and he was simply beginning to inform his tales. He had 15 fucking books in him.”
The unique model of this story was revealed on-line on August 18, 2024. It has been up to date for print in our Artwork + Efficiency Fall 2024 concern.
