Strange Pulse

As someone who grew up as a teen in the Seattle grunge heyday, you’d think my favorite local bands to go see would’ve been Nirvana, Mudhoney, Mother Love Bone, or even the U-Men or Skin Yard.

But no. It was, of course, Soundgarden.

But after Soundgarden, it was definitely the Young Fresh Fellows.

A lot of people don’t realize that while Seattle had the thriving grunge scene, it also had a thriving pop scene, and the Fellows were the best of it. They were goofy, funny, intelligent. They rocked.

And they were just *so* much fun live.

We saw them live more than any other Seattle band. Couldn’t tell you how many times. I saw them open for the Replacements. Within a couple weeks I also saw them open for the Hoodoo Gurus. Two of my favorite shows, ever. Perfect line ups. The Hoodoo Gurus show is the only show I’ve ever been to where I knew the words to every song that was played, by both opening band and headliner. (Except for one song the HG’s did that I think was a Kiss cover—but it doesn’t really count, since the only lyric was the word “yeah!”)

Once I saw the Young Fresh Fellows play at Green River Community College, my husband (then just my brother’s friend) was also there. He jumped on stage and sang along in the singer’s mic to “Where is Groovy Town?”

I wish there was someplace we could go where
We could do anything that we wanted to
Nobody to put us down
Nobody to push us around and not hear
I don’t like what you do, or what you think, or what you say
Hey hey hey

Another time we saw them play at the mural amphitheater at the Seattle Center—an outdoor venue, just a stage with a sloping lawn. Probably saw them multiple times there, but this one time in particular, some guys from the Smithereens where there, and one of them sat in on drums for a song. They played the Smithereens’ one hit, “Blood and Roses,” but the singer of the Fellows changed it to “Bloody Noses.”

A lot of people were taking pictures down front, and I was off to the side with someone else’s camera. Daniel came up and asked me if I wanted a really up-close shot. I said ok. He stood nose-to-nose with me and told me to focus the camera on him. I started to explain that that wasn’t right when he grabbed it from me, handed it to my friend Colin and had him do it. Then Daniel jumped on stage, got right in the singer’s face, and snapped a shot. It was really funny.

Unfortunately it wasn’t my camera, and I never got to see if the shot turned out or not.

The Fellows used to do a song called “Hank, Karen and Elvis,” which of course is about Hank Williams, Karen Carpenter, and Elvis Presley. They also used to do a version of the Carpenter’s “Close to You.” The drummer would put on a bad wig and sing, “Why do fish swim in the sea, when they could be in a can of tuna?”

You how when we were kids we’d have flagpoles on the back of our bikes, made out of flexible fiberglass, and it’d flap around in the wind when you rode really fast? The drummer used to have a cymbal on one of those poles and whenever he’d hit it, it’d go flying all over the place. So when he needed to hit it again, it was always a challenge to aim at it just right, since it was bobbing back and forth.

They also used to do this tribute to disco in the middle of the song “Amy Grant,” which included having the audience all get down on their knees to pay homage. So awesome.

I’ve always loved the lyrics to Amy Grant:

When she first met Jesus, didn’t know what to say
But he gave her a guitar and he told her what to play
He said, Amy don’t you play no modern jazz, don’t you play none of that hard rock
What the people want to hear is pure, unadulterated schlock

This pics were taken just before Daniel and I got married (he was 19, I was 18):

I’ll post some of my favorite Fellows songs on the radio.blog.