OLYMPIA — “Seattle is often credited as the birthplace of Grunge, but Olympia’s contributions to the Pacific Northwest music scene have received worldwide recognition.”
This is a point made clear on the Olympia Music History Project website, which is a culmination of more than two years’ work gathering interviews, images and ephemera from some of the most well-known music groups from 1980 to the early 2000s. Many of them got their start playing shows around Olympia.
The project website went live Dec. 31.
According to the website, the research led by Kelsey Smith and Elaine Vradenburgh includes collected oral histories, original artwork, photos and other memorabilia of people, places and events. Between 2022 and 2023, the research team conducted 26 interviews with people who were active in the Olympia music scene during those two decades.
At the end of 2023, Smith, Markly Morrison, and Mariella Luz formed a new independent nonprofit to continue the work.
Some of the interviews available on the website are with Allison Wolfe, Beth Ditto, Carrie Brownstein, Kathleen Hanna, Nathan Paull & Chris Pugh and Jon Merithew.
The archive includes a list of bands and artists who played in the region or are from the Pacific Northwest. It also includes a list of events for 2025 that involve local music. Those interested can sign up for a newsletter to be informed about upcoming events.
Much of the information was gathered directly from community members. Vradenburgh and Smith hosted scan-a-thon and information gathering events in 2023.
Morrison, who is the spokesperson for the project, said a lot of the musicians the researchers interviewed were hesitant at first, because it was a project spearheaded by the city of Olympia.
“When they were active in the ’80s and ’90s, the City of Olympia were the people who were actively trying to shut down the all-ages venues, the informal venues, like the house shows circuit,” Morrison said. “They felt like the city had not been very supportive of their work.”
Morrison said the original timeline that was researched ended in 2000, but the group included events and groups up to the year 2002. He said there was a lot of movement in the local music scene in those two years.
He said that’s when events such as Ladyfest and Homo A Go Go started, and there was a musical called “The Transfused.”
“These were all big-scale events that were highly influential and like just kind of stories and examples of our community pulling together and making something out of nothing. So we thought it’d be important to include that,” he said.
He said the project is ongoing, provided the nonprofit can continue to get funding. He said they’re applying for grants and accepting donations, which are tax deductible.
“We want to keep growing this story, and I think we can continue to focus on this specific era for at least another year or two,” Morrison said. “Ideally, in the future, we’d like to turn it into a book or some other bigger project. It’s been a lot of hard work, a lot of hours gone into it, but we’re far from finished.”
The project is continuing to accept additional interviews and ephemera through the website.
The researchers considered it vital to the history of Olympia music to include the voices of those who have been historically excluded.