Amanda Linnell gets a little help from some local friends to find the many hip experiences this Pacific Northwest city has to offer.
It was the 90s and I was backpacking around Europe when I first met Buzz. This coolest of cats, he was travelling in a Kombi van and we ended up working a ski season with a group of friends in the Pyrenees. He was from Seattle and would tell me tales of weekends spent hiking and skiing in the mountains, hanging out in coffee bars and partying with some of the best bands that made their name in the city.
Ever since, I have dreamed of making it to Seattle — the birthplace of Sub Pop, the record label responsible for most of those 90s grunge bands, and the place where coffee culture began, thanks to Starbucks. Having friends on the ground helped ensure my itinerary was a healthy mix of the expected and the unexpected. Here are some cool things to do:
Buy vinyl ...
Seattle is full of excellent record stores selling a selection of new and used vinyl. It was while chewing the fat about the local music scene with the owner of Singles Going Steady in Belltown (a great store renowned for punk and grime), that I picked up a print-out of a hand-drawn map of where to find the best vinyl. Easy Street Records & Cafe in West Seattle is a cool place to hang, sift through a selection of vinyl, CDs and memorabilia — I left with a beanie, T-shirt and fridge magnet, as well as some brilliant albums. Named by Rolling Stone magazine as one of the US's top record stores; apparently Eddie Vedder worked a shift in 1995 and played on repeat the store's copy of Sonic Youth's new record Washing Machine. Everyone's got a story.
In Ballard (see Make Like A Local…) you'll find Bop Street Records (which apparently has half a million vinyls on the floor-to-ceiling shelves) and Sonic Boom for a good mix of independent records. In Capitol Hill you'll find the vast Everyday Music where you can hang with the hipsters and rifle through the endless rows of records. The coolest of cool in Seattle is, of course, Sub Pop, and its airport store (departure side) means getting to the airport early is a must.