My name is Sylvie.

My first album was the Bohemian Rhapsody movie soundtrack.

And that got me really into Queen.

That was like my first introduction.

And, yeah, I got a recor player and I was really excited.

And now I have a lot of Queen albums.

Yeah.

And I'm here to get more.

Hey, Im Brian, my first record I ever physically owned was Shaw by Fleet Foxes.

Hi, my name is Molly.

I've been collecting vinyl records since I was about 18 and my first LP that I inherited was a picture dis of the Jungle Book soundtrack.

Hi, I'm Morgan Zion.

First album I ever bought was Pearl jam ten, and it was so, so sick.

And I still, I think I have it in storage and maybe I need to go an get it and listen to it again.

There's a city in the northwest that is known as the birthplace of a musical revolution.

In the early early 1990s, talking about grunge, post-punk music that came out of this town with a vengeance and with a purpose.

What else am I talking about but the great, great city of Seattle?

And of course, such a town has some amazing independent record stores.

I'm not talking about cookie cutter business.

I'm talking about very unique places.

And we're going to se some of those stores as a road show goes to Seattle, Washington.

Cities around the planet are often known for the music they birth.

The Seattle sound is probably known by the single syllable word grunge.

It's an aggressive and often moody blend of punk rock and heavy metal, in many case angst angry lyrics over control, feedback, and manic rhythm sections that can suddenly evoke emotions running from flat out angst, anger and rebellious freedom.

Starting with Nirvana, Sub Pop was the new rock alternative, quickly creating a strong relationship to the American indie store community, and it helped spread the sound from coast to coast and to Sub Pop's credit.

There are other acts.

We're not mere carbon copies of Nirvana.

The sonic range of their roster went from Soundgarden to Afghan Whigs.

It's arguably the most creative and varied of rock labels in the 1990s.

Starting in the late 1980s and into the 90s, suddenly mainstream Pretty Boy hard rock hair bands were no longe the soundtrack for disaffected teenagers, and soon Seattle bands were heard beyond the American shores.

Grunge was the edgy rock soundtrack in the final years of the 20th century.

By no means did every band in Seattle identified as being grunge, but nonetheless, it's the word most associated with the city's musical scene.

When talking with Matt Vaughn at Easy Streets location in West Seattle, I was floored to learn his store has had some of the most amazing appearances by international stars, a number of whom were from in and around Seattle and had been regular customers of the store.

Well, here we are in west West Seattle in a magnificent record store, and I'm talking to a fellow Rif lifer in the music business, Matt.

Yeah, yeah, I understand that you, worked in record stores when you were a teenager.

Sure.

Yeah, 13, 14 years old, all the way up until I was about 18, 19.

I opened my own store.

Yeah.

I worke at two different record shops, and if I wasn't working at them, I was going in them.

Yeah.

I, I believe you've had the store for 45 years or 37 or what?

Yeah, I'm at 38 years now.

Novembe 87th is when I opened it.

Yeah.

Going on for decades.

Yeah.

So you're in a town where there are a lot of good record stores?

Yeah, yeah, lot of places only have one.

And Seattle has many.

Do you find that, the record store community, are, competitive?

Or cooperative?

Oh, for sure.

You know, everyone's got their niche.

Seattle is a bit like New York, where there's, you know, boroughs everywhere, and it's all spread out.

So we're not all converged in one area, necessarily.

Here's ago.

It may have been that way, over by u-dub.

By the campus.

But, no.

Hi.

Respect for everyone that's doing it.

You know, this isn't, this isn't for the weary.

You, as, you know, this job, it's, you know, definitely, a thing in life that, you know, the race is not for the swift.

It's for those who endure.

True, true, true that that's, a lot of discipline.

And, you got to follow it through, you know?

So when vinyl was being, shall we say, there was an effort to close it out by the music industry.

I assume you kept doing vinyl.

Oh, yeah.

My basement here, which is now my office.

But I had probably 60 or 70,000 records down there.

And, in those early 90s, I had, started to storm down there, and you would, as a customer, you could make an appointment to go down there because they weren't selling enough upstairs.

But, that was a great time to be buying, as you know.

And, you know, it's kind of how I got my start, in those late 80s, going to garage sales and state sales and all that, CD was coming out.

People were trading in their years records, CDs and other traditional CDs for records.

Although CDs making a comeback don't count it out.

This is a good time to buy a CD.

It is, it is.

And I think it's time to strike on DVD is maybe even two.

So, you're one of these stores that, has branched out into having a, cafe so that if somebody had to come i and hadn't had a meal that day, they could get a meal.

And I notice upstairs there's a, place for, libations, a nice little bar.

Yeah.

A full service store.

Sure.

I mean, some of the some of this has been don for selfish reasons, of course.

But, yeah, back in 97, 98, our old friends at Joe' Grill had gone out of business.

They offered it to me.

I didn't know much about, the restaurant business at all.

However my roommate was a chef at the, the Space Needle, and he's.

And so he helped me.

And you can kind of consulted with me to to to, sure.

Ramp it up a little bit.

And, we did our first, recipes, breakfast mainly, with a little bit of lunch and, but it took a, took a whil for people to finally catch on.

It really just kind of fel like a rec center or social club there for a while.

You know, a lot of open tables and, eventually, as you can see you know, it's turned into a, a bustling little business.

But it didn't take me too much to realize that people that love music, they got to eat, too.

You know, first and foremost, the food's got to be good.

The coffee's got to be strong.

Coffee is excellent.

Yeah.

And, that's all.

That's all I knew early on was make sure the coffee's strong and the and th and the bacon is thick, and and, we should be good from ther on, on the side of our building, we have a large mura of the final Chuck Berry album.

Yeah, sure.

Yeah, yeah.

We also have a large mural of Miles Davis.

Yeah.

And when people have wanted to do a mural on our wall, I always say the same thing.

You have to reflect our musical heritage.

And I love the outside of your building.

Yeah, well, we used to.

We used to sell mural spaces similar to probably how you did.

And then, Jeff Ament from Mother Love Bone Pearl jam, he said, hey, man, I really love it.

He lives in West Seattle here.

He said, I'd really love to, honor my old band, my Love Bone, and my old friend, Andy Wood.

Can I can I do something on the side of your building?

And he he he got his mask out.

He was had his, had his cans gone, and, he sprayed it himself, you know, for hours.

And, and I sat back, I was watching him do it.

And I went across the street, and I walked up to him.

I said, this ain't ever coming down as much.

Nothing's ever going over this.

And then the next year he said, I got another one for you.

So I designed a, Chris Cornell, mural for you if you want it.

And I said, absolutely.

Let's go.

So those two are never, never going up.

You can't do that from coast to coast in our country as well as in other nations.

Over the years, we've seen how independent stores create an opportunity for bands to meet and greet their fans in a manner that envelop the community and the musician.

And yes, some stores, due to their location, reputation and just plain circumstance, are able to create once in a lifetime experiences for a performer, the band and those who love their music.

What would you say your notable in stores have been in your mind?

The ones that just oh, is that one right there.

Pearl Jam Live at Easy Street.

That was a, a secret show.

So by the time Seattle's finest had conquered much of the world, lead singer Eddi Vedder was a regular customer.

The band agreed to play for a group of 200 indie store owners and employees, all from around the country.

On April 29th, 2005.

Now the live set was so incredible.

It was released first on CD as an exclusive for indie stores only, and then in 2019 as a red vinyl edition for Record Store Day.

Need I Say More?

Lana Del Rey Really kind of set off th this whole movement that I think we're seeing, with female artists, and, and vinyl.

Born to Die is one of our biggest selling records over the last 10 to 15 years.

Brandi Carlile, we've had six times, in the words of Matt Vaughn, Brandi Carlile, she's our favorite girl.

We've loved her from the beginning.

She lived in West Seattle for a bit, and she stopped in our cafe early on.

Now, her second in-store concert for Easy Street was released on CD and offered to the independent stores Coast to Coast.

And when Brandi made the move from a piano van to a full size tour bus, she donated the old van to her favorite record store, where it's now use for picking up used collections.

So many.

I mean, it goes on and on.

So we've had over 2500 in stores at this point, 2500 in stores Mudhoney, three times, you know, all of the all the most of all the great, northwest artists, they know what's good for them.

Yeah.

Well, and now the eternal question, what was your first record?

First record was a 45 of us, the who squeezebox with the slip kid on the on the flip side.

And Slip Kid became my favorite song.

And I identify as a slip kid.

Slipping through the cracks.

Yeah, I got some records here.

Yeah.

And, all I can say is glory.

Lightnin Slim, Yeah.

All right.

Papa.

Hi, my name is scooter.

My first album I purchased o vinyl was brothers by the Black Keys, made in the first record I remember buying, at least on vinyl, it was, Band of Gypsys, Jimi Hendrix, live album from 1970.

Hi, my name is Sherry.

My first album I bought with my own money was the Bay City Rollers.

And then today my daughter and I stopped in her and found this for my childhood.

So now I'm reliving my childhood.

It's cloudy day in Seattle, which of course is totally unheard of.

Right?

Okay.

Yes, totally.

In her room.

And we were one of the long running records stores in Seattle talking about Sonic Boom.

I'm here with, one of the adults in charge.

Kay, who's going to be talking to Ray?

Soul selector and, how's it going?

And are you having a musical day here?

Very musical day.

Yes.

Okay.

And, what would you say is, the top selling, item you have right now?

Oh, right now, I'm probably the deep sea diver record.

New deep sea diver.

Yeah.

Local band.

Do local band.

And, do you ever have in stores here or.

We do the the stage comes down from the wall back there on to the records.

But they don't.

It doesn't hurt the records, but so as far as what's coming out of the store, what's being bought, what percentage is vinyl now?

What percentage is CD?

That's a good question.

It's, still majority vinyl, I would say, but a lot of, a lot of CDs are being bought again sometime back around, somebody, that had a record store said, I think the reason the younger people are buying CD's is because they're getting their parents car.

Yes.

The CD player.

Yes.

Yes.

Or they're waiting on the vinyl to come back into print.

And let it be said, new CD is cheaper than a download.

It's true How many years we've been here.

I've been here eight years, right?

Yes, it was in 2008 when I first visited.

Yes.

And, here we are, 2025.

Still going strong, brain.

It's crazy to think about.

So there's so many good stores here in Seattle.

Yes.

Do you feel, the competition or do you feel the fact that there are so many good stores, people are just coming into town to check them out?

Yes.

I mean, we get so many people just visiting all the stores and we all have our different niche.

You know, we specialize in all different things and we're all friends, so that makes it even better.

I'm always going to stores on m days off, so it's not that way in Chicago, right?

Well, Chicago, learn to be friends, but I know I you know, when I was, going around and talking to other stores, they would always be mentioning other stores.

Oh, you ought to go.

Oh, yeah.

Go to so-and-so.

Yeah.

So, you know, no rivalry.

Just just home.

It's a lot of home.

A, collective desire to spread the music.

Exactly.

That's how it should be.

Do you feel that, the fact that so much music that is flavor of what I call flavor of the week.

It's not in a physical form.

And it would seem to me that if you're a bean counter with the major labels.

Yeah, you got to love that because, you know, you sell the flavo of the week and then, you know, maybe 90 days later, it' not even in the cloud anymore.

And they don't have to worry about shipping a destroyer like you.

Yeah.

To put people in physical music.

Yeah, I think they're catching on though.

I think they're getting they're getting us more and more physical formats of even the flavor of the week.

And I feel like when social media, that stuff kind of lasts a little bit longer than it used to to.

So.

So, let me ask you this.

What was your first record?

Oh, my first actual record was The Mars Volta.

Was Francis the Mute when I was in high school.

Was, was that on vinyl or CD?

Was on vinyl?

I mean, if we're talking vinyl that was first vinyl for sure.

And, what was the last record you purchased?

Oh my gosh, what did I buy recently?

Well, today I'm buying the new Neil Young, countryside Oceanside.

So that'll be my purchase toda because it came out yesterday.

So, yeah, you know, Neil Young was somebody that, very early on, in his own contrarian way, was very much an advocate for physical music and always has been.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So what was said in 1989 sounds pretty.

Prophetic from him.

Right?

Yeah.

Record Store Day is coming up.

It is.

And do you, do you have any special events or, things planned?

No special events, really, I wish we it just sucks that we don't have more space to have, you know some some more fun stuff happen, but we just always provid donuts and coffee in the morning for all the people lined up around the block, usually.

So, yeah, you just, you know, all the usual special goodies that we can possibly get our hands on.

So do you.

Also, as I hear from a lot of store owners, you know, you often want to know what's your busiest time of year, what's your slowest time of year?

And more and more I'm hearing it's always busy.

That's as you can see, it is a cloudy day and it is stil popping in here on a Saturday.

So would, you want to mak a guess as far as the median age of your customers?

I feel like it's almost like 20s to 40s, but we get a lot of, like, you know, teens from the neighborhood, too, who love to come hang out.

And it's funny, like watching those kids grow from, like, high schoolers to now, like, college.

And then they come back and they're like, my favorite record store.

And it warms my hear because I've been here so long.

I've seen so many people grow up in it.

For your favorite in store, it's sunny.

Oh, honestly, last I think it was last October.

We had not a surf, but it was just Matthew from not a surf and just acoustic and it was lovely.

Packed out and store packed.

It was pretty.

It was pretty busy.

Yeah.

I would say the one that everyone talks about the most is probably M.I.A played here way back, I think like 0708.

But she was standing on that front counter right over there, just there's a very good picture.

If you search hard enough on Google of her standing on the counter.

Well, I know that sonic boom is, undergone, changes in ownership, but, it seems that the basic vibe.

Yeah, the staying constant, the values are still there.

The store in Seattle, independent record store handling the music that the big box retailers never going to touch.

Yeah.

Handling the music that you're not going to be necessarily hearing on the radio unless there' a community station back then.

And I feel like since I've started here, I've made us focus a lot more on local music than we were in the past.

But when you have a great community station, yes, being I want to thank you for allowing our traveling roadshow to come in here on a busy Saturday.

Yeah.

And, may the musical force be with you.

Come back any time.

Thanks.

Thanks.

My name is Cedar Russell.

I can't remember the first record I ever received, but the first record I ever bought was portishead's third album, My Name Is Amy, and one of my first albums was George Michael.

My name is Carmen, and my first album was Avril Lavigne.

We're in a city well, well known for high tech voodoo.

And the name of the city, of course, is Seattle.

But it also has the home of one of the great independent record labels in the United States.

Light in the attic.

And also we're at the light in the attic record store with Travis Ritter.

And we're in a very unusual space for a record store.

Can you tell us about this?

Yeah, this is, it's this is, essentially our flagship store here in Seattle.

We're in the gathering space of, Kexp, the globally renowned nonprofit radio station.

And, they gave us an opportunity to come in here as kind of a pop up in 2016, and here we are in 2025, and we're still pop up.

The pop up persists.

Yes.

And so we've been here since late 2016. we don't have any plans of going anywhere.

Well, you know, the idea of a really great community radio statio being the home of a great label and their record store, yo know, talk about synchronicity.

Yeah, that really works for me.

So we're open seven days a week.

Seven days a week?

Yeah.

We're ten, 10 to 6, Monday through Saturday.

And then we open an hour later on Sunday.

But, open till six, to the public every day.

Well, when you told me, though, that, you had sor of been seasoned for this job.

You were seasoned for this job by the fact that when you were much younger you were a music journalist.

So that's definitely kind of gave you a background.

That's kind of how I met Matt and Josh who co-founded the, the the label.

Because I used to work at Sonic Boom Records.

But I was also, local music journalist.

And so I had review records, but we just kind of built a friendship out of that.

And in 2010, I went and worked for, like, In the Attic for about a year.

And it was when we were in a little office space.

It was befor we got our full size warehouse with the shopfront and that sort of thing.

And so when that Kri Kristofferson record came out, we had pallets of records on a really busy street that we had to unload by hand and get into the office.

So, well, I will always be grateful fo Josh sending me that beautiful, life sized stand up of soul vocalist Betty Davis.

Rest in peace, who?

Really?

Yeah.

So speaking of records, what was your first record?

My first record, was given to me by my babysitter when I was three years old.

It was, Michael Jackson's Thriller.

You know, my big brother was a big influence for me.

He was getting into punk rock and all that sort of stuff.

And so.

And at that time we were into really into skateboarding.

And so Red Hot Chili Peppers were the biggest band in the 80s for skate rock.

And so that was my first tape.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you so much.

And I know you're going to have a musical day.

Oh, I know you will too.

Thank you so much.

Founded in the year 2000, we checked out Seattle' amazing Museum of Pop Culture.

It's 140,000 square foot multi floor visual treasure trove.

This feast for the eyes comes with a 36 by 60ft high def LED screen, a monorai that runs through the building from downtown Seattle to Seattle Center.

There's also an impressive interactive, high tech set of displays, a 36ft sculpture of guitars, computer screen and assorted musical instruments that greets yo when entering the ground floor.

I felt as if we'd entered an extraterrestrial StarCraft with sci fi and horror movie installations, as well as a special focus on Seattle as the birthplace of both Jimi Hendrix and Nirvana.

That Saturday, we were meeting happy and astounded people from all over the world.

I felt this was where visitors from other nations could see some of the best that America has to offer in.

We were welcomed, invited in and given immediate permission to walk about in film.

I can honestly say I've never felt more proud of our nation's contributions musically and creatively in modern art.

The emergence of the band Nirvana out of Seattle dealt a death blow to the genre of hard roc heavy metal called bare metal.

Let's get things.

Here's a very, very first LP on the great independent label subpar.

Here's a 2009 release of their first album, with a bonus LP thrown in by support for one of their live shows in their hometown of Seattle.