This page is Point of Interest page 2 of the Alternative Rock, Grunge and Seattle Tour,

click here to access the main tour page and introduction.

OK Hotel Apartments.

The OK Hotel, located just on the edge of Pioneer Square opened up in January of 1990 as a coffee shop and a live music venue. This venue was very significant to the Seattle music community because in the early 1990s it became the center for a resurgence of concerts that were open to people of all ages.

In 1985, the Teen Dance Ordinance was established. This law required any Seattle venue holding an all-ages show to post a prohibitively expensive bond to insure against damages, effectively putting a cap on the young developing music community. The law also required venues to be a minimum size in order to be in effect, but because the OK Hotel was small enough, it was able to get around the law. Teenagers were very important to underground music community, and so the OK Hotel helped keep young people part of the music.

The OK Hotel was damaged from an earthquake in 2001, but it was repaired and converted into apartments and art studio spaces. However, it didn't have a coffee shop or live music anymore. But back in the early 1990s, it was a hotbed for the emerging alternative rock scene as well as touring rock acts.

By the 1990s, 'grunge' became a blanket term for alternative rock bands coming out of Seattle, and many bands had been labelled "grunge", whether they liked it or not. The OK Hotel hosted a number of local bands referred to as such, including Mudhoney, Tad, Soundgarden, Nirvana, and Mother Love Bone. Many Seattle-area bands shared a guitar heavy sound, but all were unique and different in their own way, and so the catch-all term wasn't necessarily a very accurate label, obscuring the creative diversity of bands.

The OK Hotel was damaged from an earthquake in 2001, but it was repaired and converted into apartments and art studio spaces. However, it didn't have a coffee shop or live music anymore. But back in the early 1990s, it was a hotbed for the emerging alternative rock scene as well as touring rock acts.

By the 1990s, 'grunge' became a blanket term for alternative rock bands coming out of Seattle, and many bands had been labelled "grunge", whether they liked it or not. The OK Hotel hosted a number of local bands referred to as such, including Mudhoney, Tad, Soundgarden, Nirvana, and Mother Love Bone. Many Seattle-area bands shared a guitar heavy sound, but all were unique and different in their own way, and so the catch-all term wasn't necessarily a very accurate label, obscuring the creative diversity of bands.

Many people consider Nevermind to be the album which singlehandedly allowed grunge to break through into the mainstream, but a few critical events preceded this and were an important part of the process.

Soundgarden signed with A&M and released Louder Than Love on September 5th, 1989, starting the major-label hunt for talent in Seattle. Alice in Chains released their first full length album Facelift on August 21st, 1990 with major label Columbia. Their recording "Man in the Box" broke down the first barriers for alternative rock, or "grunge". The song started playing regularly on radio in early 1991, and the highly-influential MTV opted to play the "Man in the Box" music video instead of playing a music video by the hair metal band called Thunder.

The music video and the lyrics were quite dark, the antithesis of what a lot of what MTV was playing. But Alice in Chains was something new and attractive to listeners, and so this song marked an increase in the popularity of alternative rock. These events were significant, as they paved the way for Nirvana, who broke right through to mainstream audiences with the release of Nevermind in September of 1991.

We're going to move on to the next point of interest on the tour, the Terminal Sales Building – which was the original headquarters of the influential record label Sub Pop, which handled many of the most important Seattle grunge bands. Continue walking along Alaskan Way South.

Blecha, P. (2014). Nirvana debuts brand-new grunge-rock anthem "Smells Like Teen Spirit" at Seattle's OK Hotel all-ages club on April 17, 1991. HistoryLink.org. Retrieved from http://www.historylink.org/File/11002.

Facelift (album). (2017). Retrieved (May 6, 2017) from the Facelift (album) Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facelift_(album

Godfrey, P. (2013). Seattle, Washington. In Howells, T (Eds.), Late Century Dream (109-155). London, United Kingdom: Black Dog Publishing Limited.

Henderson, J. (2010). Grunge Seattle. California, United States of America: Roaring Forties Press.Godfrey, P. (2013). Seattle, Washington. In Howells, T (Eds.), Late Century Dream (109-155). London, United Kingdom: Black Dog Publishing Limited.

Yarm, M. (2011). Everybody loves our town. Crown Publishing: New York, USA

This work was created by Kyle Huisman

Contact: seattlerock@outlook.com