Loser: The Real Seattle Music Story

Once upon a time, in a modest backwoods city, a handful of creative boys and girls played in anonymous rock bands. Despite the city's pervasive white-bread, middlebrow disapproval of such antics--or, perhaps, because of it--the local alternative music scene thrived within the city's borders. But then a couple of local bands hit the big time, rich record label reps raided the city to sign everyone else to lucrative contracts, and the once insular scene was fragmented by an influx of rock star wanna-bes and the media. This, succinctly, is Loser's story of the Seattle music community. Author Humphrey and designer Art Chantry have compiled a comprehensive anthology, capturing in words and images alternative Seattle--people, posters and platters. Though headliners Nirvana and Soundgarden garner their share of attention, Loser's ``real Seattle music scene'' is a pre-grunge, tight-knit collection of oddball scenesters who feel like old friends after only a few chapters. Don't mistake Loser for a trenchant analysis of the Seattle music phenomenon, however. Humphrey, a longtime Seattle resident, music fan and fanzine writer, drenches the reader with minutiae but shies away from questions such as ``Why Seattle?'' ``Why Nirvana?'' and ``Why flannel?'' Loser shines, though, as an encyclopedic record of Seattle's pre-grunge musical history and as a testament to the pursuit of creativity for its own sake. (Dec.)