Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Empty Records article from Glass Onion

The early '90s were a great time for Seattle's music scene. Not only because of the grunge explosion, but because there was a total DIY/indie explosion going on. All-ages shows started happening regularly around town, tons of new zines and alternative publications started or were going strong, indie labels were thriving, there were a bunch of cool bars, clubs, record stores, you name it. Everyone was getting involved or starting a band or zine or something, there was an exciting feeling in the air. And while it may be hard to imagine today, the University of Washington actually had a decent role in it, from it's 4 Bands for 4 Bucks shows, to bands playing in frats and dorms (Girl Trouble at Terry-Lander = awesome!), to the UW Daily actually having it's finger somewhat on the pulse of what was going on in the local music scene. For those not in the know, The Daily is the UW's student newspaper, it's pretty suckworthy now, but back in the day it was actually pretty good. From 1991-1993 the Daily's weekly arts and music supplement was called The Glass Onion. Here's an article from January 3, 1993 they did on Empty Records (click the photos for the full-sized readable files):



2 comments:

Deevious Silvertongue said...

This is a great historical artifact. It brought me back to my teen years. Whatever happened to eMpTy? The last I heard from them, they were getting sued by Musical Tragedies, and I never heard how that turned out. Did that lawsuit shut them down?

Dan 10Things said...

They settled the suit and became Empty Records USA. Blake moved to Portland and continued the label, but recently decided to call it quits. He's got more info on his website about it: http://www.emptyrecords.com. Empty was my favorite Northwest label, Blake put out a ton of releases I still love to this day!