Music of Washington (state) - Punk Rock

Punk Rock

Seattle's punk rock scene was always limited, but is important for its influence on the development of grunge. In the 1970s, Ze Whiz Kidz made a unique and bizarre variety of confrontational music and helped launch a hardcore punk scene that included ZEKE, The Mentors, RPA, The Rejectors, The Lewd, Pod Six, The Enemy and, most influentially, Solger and The Fartz, and New Wave bands like The Heats, The Cowboys, The Meyce, The Telepaths, Visible Targets, Chinas Comidas and X-15 (band). Hardcore skinhead bands like Extreme Hate, The Boot Boys and Firing Squad also gained a following. Green River, a punk rock band that splintered into Mudhoney and Mother Love Bone, were one of the first grunge bands. Also drawing on the punk rock scene were The Melvins, Soundgarden, Nirvana, and Fitz of Depression of Olympia. Musician Duff McKagan also made his entry into the global rock scene starting in the punk rock scene in his hometown Seattle. On the other side of the state, Spokane had an insular but vibrant punk and new wave scene in the 1980s as chronicled in the documentary film SpokAnarchy! In the early 2000s Washington proved to be the breeding ground of a prominent experimental punk rock scene, with bands such as Pretty Girls Make Graves, These Arms Are Snakes, The Fall of Troy, Jaguar Love, and The Blood Brothers achieving dedicated cult followings.