Fallout Records

As a result of this meme going around about deceased record stores and writing about the comic “Hate", my thoughts drifted to the late great Fallout Records up on Seattle's Capitol Hill. I have never encountered a cooler record store in all of my days. I suppose Fallout has a special place for me because my patronage there coincides with a time in my life where I was bored and was in desperate need for change. One side was devoted to punk and garage vinyl and the other was devoted to comics and zines. Had they sold food and beer (and, ahem, a few other things), they would've covered all of my basic needs back in the 90s.

One thing I will credit Fallout for is for re-kindling my interest in comics. My current interest in alternative comics started with the shelves at Fallout. As a kid I grew up on Marvel superheros but by my early teens, I had stopped reading as those stories no longer held sway for me. It was at Fallout where I discovered the world of Fantagraphics Comics and people like Peter Bagge, Daniel Clowes, and Los Bros Hernandez. The characters and lifestyles those artists brought to life were a much better reflection of where I was at than the universe of Marvel (though I have since come back to the fold).

My musical tastes also undertook a major permanent shift at Fallout. That's where I learned about labels like Crypt Records and Norton Records and had my mind blown by bands like The Gories and Dead Moon. The free live shows that took place in that cramped space are etched in the memories of those that were fortunate enough to have experienced them. Much of what I listen to today is based upon what I found at Fallout and expanded upon later as the internet grew and facilitated my musical detective work.

All of this rumination makes me really miss the sense of community that indie shops like Fallout were able to create and sustain. I'm pretty sure that lots of people who hung out at Fallout back then would share the same sentiment. Sure, the internet has its upsides in terms of discovery and distribution but it's way cooler to walk in the door of a physical store, hear something new, and chat up the person behind the counter about it (especially the young petite female that I was infatuated with). The ability to easily Google something takes away the sense of accomplishment of having found something by getting your hands dirty.

I still have some of the best vinyl I bought there as well as all 30 issues of the original “Hate” (some of which had to be supplemented years later outside of Seattle). Recently, I found a Joe Coleman book I picked up at Fallout that has a caricature of me drawn by Coleman as we talked about a minor police riot that took place on Capitol Hill that weekend. I've been shlepping some of these items around for a long time and as I've been getting ready to move once again, these artifacts from Fallout are coming along for the ride.

**Photo courtesy of the great Ten Things zine.  Read it today (but after you're done here).