Hey there, it's Kathy. I just wanted to let you know that you can listen to History of the 90s

early and ad-free on Amazon Music, included with Prime.

When Bruce Pavett, the head of Seattle indie label Subpop, came up with the idea for a concert

that would showcase three of the city's hottest bands, people thought he was nuts.

Local Seattle bands in the late 80s played dingy basement clubs for an audience of 20 or 30 people,

not big theaters that could hold 1,400 people.

But Pavett pushed ahead with the show he called Lamefest, which he ironically described as Seattle's

lamest bands in a one-night orgy of sweat and insanity. Much to everyone's surprise, Lamefest featuring

Nirvana, Tad, and Mudhoney completely sold out. And if anyone was paying attention outside of Seattle,

it might have been a signal that a new type of music

was about to come crashing onto the scene.

I'm Kathy Kinsora, and this is History of the 90s,

a podcast about a decade that changed the world.

On this episode, part one of a two-part series

on the rise and fall of the generation-defining musical revolution

known as grunge.

For the uninitiated, grunge begins and ends with Kurt Cobain and Nirvana.

Maybe sprinkle in a little pearl jam or sound

garden and a few flannels, and that's Grunge. A moment in time that has long passed, but

frozen in our memories because of Cobain's early death. But Grunge is so much more than one band

and one singer, who yes had an outsized impact on the movement,

but was just one piece of an entire genre of music and an attitude that captivated the world

...