Organic Intelligence LVI: The US West Coast Early 00s Underground

In this month’s antidote to the algorithm, Chris Pugmire takes us to the radical, experimental, queer racket of the USA’s Pacific seaboard – including Erase Errata (pictured), Tracy & The Plastics, Get Hustle and more

The U.S. West Coast underground in the early 2000s was orogenic, jutting out from the collisional dynamics of predecessor scenes with both the brute confidence and flexibility of fresh igneous rock. Sidestepping orthodoxy, its participants generally seemed to forgo the internecine battles of the 90s in favour of a queered politic of mischievous possibility, deep weirdness and all-together-now sense of play. Each major city and university town seemed to suddenly be restocked with a cultural vanguard of cool ruler lesbians, visionary trans zine-philosophers, gay and bi bois in thrall to No Wave as much as John Waters, omnivorously outstanding women, and guys who grew up loving Bikini Kill rather than being threatened by them. Surrounding these archetypes, and occasionally coalescing as anti-neoliberal/neocon popular waves, was a febrile network of outsider artists, green and Situationist-inspired anarchists, food redistributors, Black urban farmers, biodiesel mechanics, Butoh masters, pirate radio broadcasters, crip activists, psychic warlords, feminist chain letter videographers, weed trimmers, Oblomovists, radical goths, DIY fashion mavens, train surfers, b-boys, Gramscian librarians, taggers, nihilist bike messengers, psychedelic cosmonauts, four-track mad scientists, and so much more.

Coursing through these networks was an as yet un-gamed and algorithmic internet typified by Indymedia and blogs that replaced tape-trading, breathing second lives into once impossible-to-find music, allowing groups like The Slits, DNA and more obscure variants to be re-heard and re-contextualised into outré rock and experimental forms. Cultural adversaries, e.g. indie sleaze hordes chortling at Vice magazine, seemed somehow more avoidable and were rightfully snorted at as hopelessly retrograde, a (barely) alternative mirror of the Spectacular overground. This was one of the last underground scenes before Myspace, its antecedents and later streaming services lured artists wholesale from self-production/distribution into too-large ponds and commodity/content/productivity fish traps. It can therefore can provide maps for weirdos seeking both refuge from prescriptive cults and blueprints for what an underground can be. Scratch the surface of this West Coast (and its endless older reincarnations) and one will find its pulse still burns underneath layers of gentrification and Trumpist and Silicon Valley-led counter-revolution.

At the turn of the century, Olympia still served as a radical cultural incubator, with legendary events like Homo-a-Go-Go, the original Ladyfest and the Need’s mighty community opera The Transfused. Gossip were still in Olympia at what was arguably their no-wave twang/swing/stomp peak circa Movement. One also found fellow queer paragons The Need and singer/drummer Rachel Carns’ subsequent King Cobra/TWIN projects, Tracy and the Plastics, BK/Frumpies offshoot Spider and the Webs, Joey Casio, Anna Oxygen, Growing, and The Punks. Portland had Sleetmute Nightmute, Get Hustle, Yellow Swans, Monitor Bats, and the first and best incarnation of Glass Candy (the 1999 to 2002 Shattered Theatre era with several great drummers including Mark Evan Burden, Avalon Kalin and Ginger Peach).

Seattle had the fabulously combustible and lurching early Chromatics lineups (the first of which morphed into Shoplifting, which included this writer), Talbot Tagora, Filthy Details, Mikaela’s Fiend, and Display (actually from Everett). Sacramento had Antennas Erupt!, Outhud and Marnie Stern. San Franciso and Oakland had seemingly endless rainbows of dazzling bands including Erase Errata, Subtonix, Numbers, K.I.T., Gravy Train!!!!, The Lowdown, Deerhoof, Dynasty Handbag, Coachwhips, Heart of Snow, Panty Raid and Pink & Brown. Los Angeles had Mika Miko, Shady Ladies of Emily’s Sassy Lime/Skinned Teen/Petty Crime pedigree, Southern transplants XBXRX, BARR, Silver Daggers, Godzik Pink, Young People, and Wives. San Diego had The Peppermints and Kill Me Tomorrow. North in Vancouver and Victoria B.C., one found Channels 3x4, Shearing Pinx, and Mutators, alongside which, glided the ever-relevant people’s music of Mecca Normal.

Please note this guide is both subjective and decidedly incomplete and meant purely to connect a few dots before one’s own investigation. Happy spelunking!