Michael Lavine is a New York-based photographer who spent years immersed in the music culture of the Pacific Northwest, capturing the “kids” that created grunge; his work has appeared widely in national magazines. Thurston Moore is the co-author of New York No Wave, (Abrams) Punk House, (Abrams Image) and Mix Tape: The Art of Cassette Culture (Universe). He is also the leader singer and guitarist of Sonic Youth.
About ‘GRUNGE’:
The term “Grounge” (also called Seattle Sound) goes to indicate a genre of alternative rock music, mainly produced in the US state of Washington, particularly in Seattle, from the second half of the 1980s.
Michael Lavine’s black and white photographs reveal a unique and unbelievable era in music and fashion. During the era when Grunge developed, Michael Lavine was one of the two major photographers engaged by the label to capture the bands that gave birth to this movement.Michael has immortalized the genesis of grunge in the late ’80s and early’ 90s, while living in Olympia.His images are not just the aspects that would affect fashion all over the world, but the spirit of music and the people who created it, through portraits and impressive shots.
Bands featured in GRUNGE include Mudhoney, Beat Happening, Smashing Pumpkins, Boss Hog, and of course Nirvana. Given ample space too are the grunge “kids” who were arguably more important to the subculture than any platinum selling artist. Many of the photographs included in GRUNGE have never before been published. Thurston Moore (who introduced Kurt Cobain to David Geffen, resulting in the release of Nevermind) writes about Seattle punk youth, the seminal bands that defined the movement, as well as the death of his longtime friend, Kurt Cobain.
Originally, grunge was born as a movement to reunite friends in intimate and personal situations, not as a national movement aimed at catapulting local stars into the world of the famous.The known plaid flannel shirt that came to be synonymous with grunge was in fact a sensible response to the chill of Northwest weather. The term “grunge” was nothing more than a quickly coined term that a Sub Pop records employee came up with while giving off-the-cuff responses to an interview. In the end it was the genre’s dependence on intimacy that both gave it credibility, and served as its demise.
This project, tells the story of an era, a historical and musical moment as it had never happened before.
