The Strangest Tribe: How a Group of Seattle Rock Bands Invented Grunge

by Stephen Tow

Grunge isn’t dead – but was it every truly alive? Twenty years after the height of the movement, The Strangest Tribe redefines grunge as we know it. Stephen Tow takes a second look at the music and community that vaulted the likes of Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Mudhoney, and Soundgarden to international fame. Chock-full of interviews with the starring characters, Tow extensively chronicles the rise of rock 'n' roll’s last great statement and contextualizes what the music really meant to the key players. 

Delving deep into the archives, Tow paints a vivid picture of the underground rock circuit of tattered warehouses and community centers. Seattle’s heady punk scene of the late '80s gave birth to a rowdy and raucous movement, influenced by metal, but wholly its own. Seattle made its own sound, a sound that came to be known internationally as grunge. Tow walks the reader through this sonic evolution, interviewing members of every band along the way. 

In 1991, Seattle’s sound took the world by storm--but this same storm had been brewing in the Pacific Northwest for a decade before it hit MTV. The Strangest Tribe is a reframing of this last transformative era in music. Not just plaid shirts, bleached hair, and angst, “grunge” is a word used to describe a rich community of artists and jokers.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2011

Reviews

[Tiffany · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some things as I'm reading:

1. Finally, someone explains why Kurt Cobain has been Kurt, Kurdt, Cobain, and Kobain.
2. How punk influenced grunge (we knew this before, but the book gives a nice evolution between the two)
3. "Nivanamania had morphed into grungemania and Seattlemania. For young people caught up in it, grunge meant flannel and long hair accompanied by loud, distorted guitars. The national media effectively altered the definition of grunge. In reality, grunge was more an approach to playing than an actual style of music. Distorted guitars certainly were a prerequisite, but the grunge aesthetic meant passion and fire more than it did hard rock and long hair." (p. 223)
4. When Nirvana made it big and "grunge" became all the rage, "Pearl Jam quickly became the band to hate" in Seattle?? (p. 225) It did? Where was I? I mean, I know I was young, but I didn't know we hated them. ... Okay, yeah, supposedly there was a rift between Kurt Cobain and Eddie Vedder (or maybe just from Cobain to Vedder), but we *all* hated them??

I give this book 3 stars. It's certainly informative as a history of Seattle/northwest music and as an explanation of how punk influenced grunge, and has good interviews with the people involved, I'm just not sure it's a MUST read. But definitely a fine read.

[Dee Vyper · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enthralling narrative of some of Seattle's music history.

I have read quite a few of these "Seattle scene" history books, and this one does a great job turning the details into a welcoming narrative. While skipping the drawn out details of every single show and band that can be found elsewhere, it draws you into the story behind the who and why through the eyes of many of the folks who really lived it using their own words. Though, as all these Seattle music history books do, the work does fall short of outlining most of the more popular and prevalent Heavy Metal scene that ran concurrently to the uprising of "grunge", and fails to mention major acts such as R.I.P., Forced Entry, Sanctuary and the like. It is pretty much expected as it follows the popular story people have come to believe. It does at least touch on a few of the Metal bands that tie directly into the grunge storyline, but not all. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants a look into the grunge segment of Seattle's music heritage. It's a good read for folks like me who were there, but particularly for someone new to the subject looking for an engrossing story arc style narrative to give you some historical background.

[Chris J · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fairly thoughtful book and well-written, the roughest parts being the incoherant quotes he includes of the musicians themselves. "...and I was like, hey man, this sort of like sounds really (expletive) great!" I've read enough biographies of musicians and athletes to know it is obviously more difficult that it appears on the surface. So, congratulations Mr. Tow!

[Faisal · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author clearly did his homework. He crafts a narrative mostly through interviews with various figures from the Seattle scene. Unfortunately, it feels a little disjointed at times. While he goes into depth for certain aspects, others he glosses over. I realize this is likely a result of two things: (1) the author's access (or lack thereof) to interviewees, and (2) his specific interest in what areas to elaborate upon. Tow surely intended to write this to honor his hobby, and not to win awards for historical literature.
I must address a literary pet peeve that I encountered in the text: two successive sentences which both included the word "literally", one of which was used to describe "minds" being "blown". Eh.
At the end of the day though, the book is a good one; my love for the subject made the reading extra enjoyable.

[Natalie · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you’re interested in a nearly shot for shot retelling of more than twenty years of Seattle’s underground music scene, you’ll likely find this book fascinating. From the very first page you’re met with a barrage of information that won’t give you a moment to breathe until the book is over, it kind of leaves you feeling like you’ve just read the world’s longest Wikipedia page. While I was intrigued by the subject matter and certainly learned new things from this book, it’s poorly written/edited, which makes it somewhat challenging to read. There’s a lot to criticize here and this book definitely isn’t for everyone, but if you’re a lover of music history and/or counterculture, I’d say it’s worth a once over.

[Jen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an okay book, and the okay I think is the writing style, it just wasn't very accessible. It was completely researched in a detail that only an academic (which Tow is) could do. But it was written in a sort of academic blog fashion. Each chapter is a bunch of one to two page sections that do not flow together and are really bounded only by the time frame. For that reason I didn't really love it. But, if you want to know what Seattle grunge really is, and where it came from, you'll get it ad nauseum in this book.

[DrimbleWedge · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book was interesting enough, but the writers style irritated me.
He’d often say (in brackets) “this is discussed in chapter 4”, or weirdly “this is discussed in chapter 3” when you’ve already passed that chapter, and are reading chapter 7.
It’s like a collection of magazines articles no one bothered to properly edit into a book.

[David Dewata · Rating 4 out of 5]

Menarik sekali membaca pergerakan dan perkembangan musik di Seattle ini. Terutama sebelum istilah “grunge” ngetop. Sepintas disebut pengaruh film “Singles” ke kota Seattle. Ternyata of ternyata #flanel

Di sini juga pertama kali saya baca Pearl Jam itu tidak berada di lingkaran dalam perkembangan musik “grunge” di Seattle.

[Killian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good scene setter of the birth of the Seattle sound, covering many of the not so leading lights. And it makes me want to go to Seattle

[carmy]

Accidentally read this entire book while researching for a project. Pretty good.

[Marla Katz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book chronicles the history of the early beginnings of grunge, decades before Nirvana blew up. Get first hand accounts from members of the more obscure but extremely creative and entertaining bands, like the Thrown Ups. They were a Sub Pop band who never rehearsed. Probably still the only one of its kind -- they'd do all improvised shows, even the singers words were made up on the spot. They claimed to have invented the whole grunge sound. This book drills down on the archeology of grunge and it may inspire you to start exploring some of the musicians and their music. Really entertaining, and truly a fun read.

[Larry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finished up and liked the "stories", but overall I think this is an uneven book. It often confuses the timeline in the stories and does not delve into the "teen dance ordinance" impact that had on Seattle, but it mentions it out of context. Not a lot of details on the clubs and the Lake City RR and I would have liked more details on the scene that formed the metal and punk scenes, but still minor stuff and the book is worth a read.

[Brian Beatty · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this up in the airport in Seattle, and glad I did. Though not thrilling or terribly surprising, it's nice to have become familiar with the music scene that led to a musical style that mattered to me at a pivotal age. Growing up in Gaibesville, FL, I saw similar things occur, and it's interesting to see how Seattle went through something similar in the years preceding the similar era in Gainesville.

[Shane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Got this from my wife and loved it. I was in bands most of my life starting from about age 15, except I was in Detroit. I love reading about "scenes" and the history of music "movements". My only complaints about this book would be maybe that it went into too much detail about a few bands when there were probably tons of bands never mentioned, so it made it seem kind of "small".

I would really like to see something like this about Detroit from the 60's to now.

[Kristi]

A blast to the past. Roosevelt High School, The U-men, the U district, artsy kids, beer fueled parties, and many of my old teenage stomping grounds of the early 80's all mentioned here. The book focuses on mostly boy bands, (riot grrls hadn't happened quite yet) so I was glad the author at least makes note of and takes time to interview the iconic Fastbacks.

[Mike Balsom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent history of the grunge explosion in the late 80s/early 90s in Seattle. Fills in a lot of blank spaces in what went in to building up this city's music scene to one that broke big on the worldwide stage. For anyone into grunge or punk or the Seattle scene itself, the book concludes with a list of 20 essential Seattle release worth trying to hunt down.

[James Curtin · Rating 5 out of 5]

great book about the seattle music scene in the 80s. wonderful author who i hope to read more from.

[Justin D. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easily a five star rating. This book gives a great look at the Seattle music scene before most people knew it existed.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

good read with lots of information. Introduced me to a few bands i'd never heard of but greatly enjoy now.

certainly recommend this to any music lover whether your into alternative music or not