Indie Rock Interconnections Map

February 24, 2005 9:36 AM

About five years ago I stumbled across a website that contained a terrific "map" of the various Olympia-based post-grunge indie rock bands (such as Sleater-Kinney,Cadallaca, The Softies, Quasi, Sarah Dougher), and the interrelations between them (for instance Sarah Dougher has been a vocalist for both Cadallaca and the Crabs; Corin Tucker is a member of Sleater-Kinney and was also in Cadallaca with Sarah Dougher"). But now, for the life of me, I can't find that site, despite using all of my google-hacking skills. Does anyone else know where that page, or a page like it is?
posted by jrieffel to media & arts (12 comments total)

Check out BandToBand.com, a sort of "six degrees of seperation" for bands and their members. They probably don't currently have the lesser known indie rock bands you're talking about, but their database is growing.
posted by nitsuj at 9:45 AM on February 24, 2005

Yes, that's a start - from the looks of BandToBand I can't add/edit additional bands. pity.
posted by jrieffel at 9:54 AM on February 24, 2005

MusicPlasma
posted by ericb at 10:08 AM on February 24, 2005

Was the initial one editable? How map-like was it? Commercial venture or a DIY page? I'm on the lookout now, I like this question.

A friend of mine did a tree of everyone in the Pacific Northwest that he knew was in a band during the 90s and had that online for awhile. It started in Tacoma and only went so far as the relationships he could map and the energy he could muster. Here's more of a Who's Who attempt of "Seattle" bands. Its got good chronological stretch, but a quick check on Corin Tucker reveals it's not complete. I love that Cadallaca album.
posted by safetyfork at 10:14 AM on February 24, 2005

A Google search on Calvin Johnson doesn't turn up much either, but he, Beat Happening, and K Records were basically the start of the whole Olympia scene. I think all the information you're looking for is out there; it just needs to be compiled.
posted by LionIndex at 11:02 AM on February 24, 2005

I thought I'd seen this in print in the now-defunct PNW newspaper The Rocket, are you sure it was online? I remember being surprised when I saw it because I had never even heard of Green River before.
posted by jessamyn at 11:08 AM on February 24, 2005

I did some fairly thorough sifting through google results around general terms like "bands" "family tree" "maps" and others with the site delimiter set on site:www.olywa.net and site:www.seanet.com in case it was hosted on a local ISP. I quickly breezed through similarly doing site:www.evergreen.edu but figured if this was years ago, it might've migrated as it sounds like something a student might host (instead of faculty or program). I also did some searches on artists in the scene who would be less likely to return the number of results that Calvin Johnson or Sleater-Kinney would but who would still be on any credible map IMHO (e.g. Kicking Giant), with no luck. My guess, it's probably offline now, maybe you'll be the one to recreate it? If so, update us!
posted by safetyfork at 12:47 PM on February 24, 2005

Hmm. You know, I think I saw this list years and years ago (actually, if it's the web of bands I think it is, I might be on it, strangely enough). Anyway, I'll ask around and see if anyone here still has it.

In the mean time, you could try asking on the K Records board.
posted by Captain_Tenille at 12:59 PM on February 24, 2005

killrockstars.com

You'll need to click on "factsheets"
posted by wezelboy at 2:19 PM on February 24, 2005

Hm. I believe it was interactive, but not editable. I don't think it was flash-based, but I think it did have some fancy scripting. I can narrow down when I saw it to Summer of 2001.

MusicPlasma.com looks similar, but more general that what I remember, and it has very few olympia bands. The different line colors didn't seem to specify the exact relation betwen the bands.
posted by jrieffel at 4:02 PM on February 24, 2005

Graphviz would be a good tool for this if you wanted to do your own local band genealogy.
posted by craniac at 5:00 PM on February 24, 2005

I had the same confusion about MusicPlasma, jreiffel. It linked Sarah Dougher to Fountains of Wayne, which seemed more than unlikely.

As it turns out, "Data is grouped according to interests, style, epoch and other criteria...." I think If enough members list two bands on their list of favorites, those two bands get connected with a line.

P.S. - A search for Sarah Dougher comes up empty handed, but you can reach her map by searching for Team Dresch and then clicking through Kaia (who also doesn't come up in seach).
posted by nobody at 7:59 AM on February 25, 2005