By Patrick Robinson

Matt Vaughan has owned Easy Street Records,in the West Seattle Junction seemingly forever, since he has been part of the Seattle music industry for over four decades. Westside Seattle spoke with him recently about his career, how he's become friends with so many music stars and how he and the store have evolved over time. For a dozen years, Easy Street had a second location in lower Queen Anne but rent increases and lease terms forced its closure. Today the store in the junction continues to thrive with its popular cafe, vast collection of vinyl and CD's and numerous in-store live performances. In the past those performances have included such luminaries as Pearl Jam. Macklemore, Lou Reed, Elvis Costello, Kings of Leon, Brandi Carlile, Patti Smith, Paul Westerberg, Franz Ferdinand, Lana Del Rey, Dierks Bentley, Robyn, Jack Johnson, Jurassic 5, Wanda Jackson, Steve Earle, Regina Spektor, John Doe, Dick Dale, My Morning Jacket and many others.

 

 

Westside Seattle

You started in the music industry before you ever owned Easy Street Records, and you were on tour with Queensrÿche. Is that right? How did that happen? 

Matt

Yeah, my mom had been an independent radio promoter in the 70s and into the 80s, and as she was moving out of that, she wanted to stake her own claim, do something on her own in the music business. And she took my sister and I to the Lake Hills Skating Rink, which was near Bel Red Road, and they had a battle of the bands there and there was one band called Myth that was playing that had a phenomenal 5 octave singer and another band called The Mob that had this twin guitar attack, and one amazing drummer. They were all young, 17 years old. They were on the same baseball team so they had been friends since they were kids and this other guy he was a little bit older was from Tacoma. Somehow my mom got him in the parking lot and got him talking about maybe he could go with that band and she basically formed the band Queensryche. I think they knew each other through some older brothers and knew the scene a little bit, but the short story is that she ended up getting them a record deal with EMI Records before they'd even played their first show. 

Their first show actually was coming up and they went by the name Queensrÿche because the hit song they had was called "Queen of the Reich" and they needed to come up with a name real quick. 

There were a handful of bands around that time, Shadow being one which was Mike McCready's band, The Friel Brothers, TKO and Rail so there was a good hesher scene out there.

You know BMX bikes and and Mopar and sitting on your #2 pencil all day long. I mean this was an "Over the Edge" feel kind of scene.  If you ever saw that movie, that suburbia metal scene that they were in, so they get signed and their first show was to open for a band called Zebra and it was presented as a KISW heavy metal "Rising Star" show. 

I believe it was at the Moore or the Paramount and Queensryche blew them off the stage... and that was their first official show.

Dio heard about it (Ronnie James Dio) who was an American singer, phenomenal musician in his own right, but everyone always assumed he was English because he was the lead singer of Rainbow  and later Black Sabbath.

He heard about them and he was a supporter of anything that was American Metal that was different and he took them under his wing and put them on tour and that was the beginning of the band. At the age of 13 and all through my high school years, I was the water boy, photographer, stagehand and a young voice of reason for Queensrÿche, who are are great guys and still not that old.

I mean they got started at such a young age. Not sure what the status of the group is currently.

So my mom was in the music business and I had a soon to be stepdad that was a record collector and my father was in the Navy, soon to be Admiral and working at the Pentagon. My new stepdad Kim worked at and co-owned a record shop called Campus Music in the 70s. 

He wasn't my stepdad, yet at that time, but that's the background he came from and he arrived on our doorstep one rainy night in 1979 with a hefty bag and his long hair, he never left.

The following week, how I really kind of got to know this soon to be step Dad was him asking me to help him alphabetize all his records. He had 12,000 records and so it was my job to alphabetize the collection and I flourished in it because I was a baseball card collector. I was used to doing all of that, you know? Alphabetizing and putting them in categories.

There was a lot of old rockabilly that popped out and Bowie and Velvet Underground and Doors and prior to all these records coming in the house my mom would take my sister and I to the shows that she was promoting, and the bands and the songs that she was promoting. 

For example, The Who comes into town 1978. That was my favorite band. She takes my sister and I. And that was a game changer for me. It was phenomenal.

Back then they were in the Guinness Book of World Records as the loudest band in the world and my mom and her friend are just sitting up in the rafters and letting me roam around by myself and the moment I remember the most from that particular show, it wasn't the mic that Daltrey was whipping around or Pete Townshend's windmill guitar or Keith Moon knocking over his drum set for the third time. It was this. These two older kids handed me a joint and I'm 10 years old. I looked back at my mom and she just starts laughing, (gestures shaking her finger to mean "no"). The Fleetwood Mac  tour she took me to that and SuperTramp, Barry Manilow, KISS and the Bay City Rollers... I mean all of this. 

Westside Seattle

That's quite a range. 

Matt 

All of these kind of bands were around in the late 70s and I've got to hand it to her for initiating me into the music world. She had a handful of records like Songs in the Key of Life (Stevie Wonder) and we heard all these classic records.

It was her emotion with music and her desire to turn people on to the songs which she was working. Her claim to fame was, she was the first person, man or woman to get Bob Marley on commercial radio and that happened here at KJR with Rastaman Vibration.

Westside Seattle

What is it about West Seattle and the music business?

Matt

There are still a great amount of people here in the music industry from the 70s to today that's never changed.

Westside Seattle

Why is that? 

Matt

Some of the radio stations were close by. KJR for example... so you have guys like the DeeJay, Gary Crow living out here.

ABC Music was in Georgetown which was kind of the distro-promo headquarters for the city. So you had all these label reps and every label had a branch. Now they don't have that today other than SubPop.

I think one reason we have so many musicians here in West Seattle is because of it being a bedroom community.

There's a good amount of people that are still kind of punk rock in nature out here in West Seattle. 

Westside Seattle

In terms of their attitude?

Matt 

Yeah so people give more allowance towards, you know, jamming in your basement.  It's no surprise that garage rock comes out of West Seattle. You know, with the Sonics and later Mudhoney  and it's just not going to stop. 

 

There's actually some folks in town that are working on a documentary. A major producer and director are getting ready to release it. They got the green light from a major cable company to do the story on Seattle music. I think their working title is "Seattle: The last great music revolution."

 

Westside Seattle

Are you going to be part of that? 

Matt 

I'm consulting a little bit helping them out. You know, tracking people down.

Westside Seattle

Well, you have a lot of connections and that makes a difference. So you grew up essentially in the music business, at least ancillary parts of it. You're exposed to a lot of music, went to a lot of shows. But then you got a job at a place called Penny Lane. In the West Seattle junction and there are a lot of stories about Penny lane. 

Matt

There were a handful of firsts there. So yeah, I was a Capitol Hill rat kid. I went to elementary school all the way through high school there and then in my sophomore year, Queensryche was doing so well because my mother and my stepfather were the managers of the band and that band was taking off. They were soon to have a platinum selling record, soon to win their first Grammy. Headlining their own tours, they were just about to put out what would be considered one of the greatest metal records of all time. Operation Mindcrime.

And we as a family, as a band, everyone is making money and all of a sudden I find us going from this modest two-bedroom home on lower Capitol Hill to this Beach Drive life. But I was going to Seattle Prep, which was across the street from my house, which was really the only reason I went to that school. Now it's taking three buses and 90 minutes to get to school. 

I went to Garfield for one day. My grandmother drove me there and then she said 'We're taking you to the school across the street with the Big Cross on it.'

That's where I played baseball and basketball, but I never thought I'd actually get inside. But that was when it had gone from all boys to a Co-Ed school. 

It was a tough school. I wasn't ready for it, but I stuck with it and we moved my sophomore year. I needed to get a job and I was going to the record store up here called Penny Lane. Before I knew it, I had the six to nine shift, five days a week and the owner there, Willie McKay, turned out be a great mentor for me and the guys that were working. And now I say guys, because we could only have guys. Men, boys working there because we didn't have a bathroom. That store where Virago currently is, there's wasn't a bathroom there before, so you just used bottles. 

Willie wasn't as sexist as it sounds. It was out of practicality. So I became friends with the folks at West Seattle Speedway and Hobby so I could use their bathroom. But what happened there after a couple of years there at Penny Lane was that Willie's wife was having an affair with someone working at the shop and he really wanted nothing to do with the store anymore and he was a big ski bum anyways and had a job waiting for him at Crystal Mountain. 

He's like 'I'm done with my wife and I'm done with the store.' Wow, that's quite a pivot.

The name Easy Street came about because at the very same time during those years I was working for my stepdad who had opened his own store on the east side called Easy Street Records and it was a really cool kind of short lived (79 to 86) store and it was going out of business right around the same time as Penny Lane and I would work at both stores, one completely on the other end of town being Bellevue and then the other being all the way over here. So neither one saw competition. You know, to have this guy work both stores no problem. 

Well, through that I was able to put the two guys together as my stepdad was closing his store. He went into rehab, out of rehab, back in rehab and the landlord had shut the store down. Locked it up. All the product was still in there. 

So it was kind of my job to find a way out of this mess for him while he was in rehab. I'm still in high school or had just graduated. Willie was going through his marital problem and I presented an idea 'Why don't I find a way to work it out with your landlord out here in Bellevue... Get your product out. Unlock the door. I'll keep the lease over here in West Seattle. Willie can go his own way."

There was a year and a half left on the lease in West Seattle. 

And Willie agreed to it. So Kim my stepdad and I were essentially going to be partners.

And we did that for about six months and we called it Easy Street and didn't need a business license that way. Penny Lane was kind of a generic term for a record store. There was a lot of Penny Lanes around the country. 

Plus, I didn't want to be known as five and dime, you know, Penny Lane kind of store? 

Westside Seattle

But down the street was another record store called Turnabout? 

Matt 

Turnabout Dave, yeah. 

Westside Seattle

Was he competition for you at that point? 

Matt

A little bit. I say it was 50/50. Plus he had all the Harley stuff. He had all the leathers and you know he had the movies. So after about six months my stepdad moved to California and they were no longer managing Queensryche so they essentially had to get out of town. 

They lost the house, lost everything and the family moved away. They were going to close it down. And I didn't want to. 

Westside Seattle

How was Penny Lane doing at that time? Were you selling records? 

Matt 

Well, there were a lot of record shops that were closing around that time. That was the time where CD's were coming out and if you remember that even now it's surprising to think that was about 1983 to 84. 

They had just started to come out around the 84-85-86. It was a cassette CD driven market. By 87- 88 most definitely so. 

You know, I say that the store opened in 1988 because that's when I kind of officially took it over and the lease was in my name. But there was six months or so to a year prior to that where no one really knew who was manning the store, who owned the store? Did Willie still own it? Any of the guys that were working for Willie? Were they involved? Did Kim own it?

No one really knew and it appeared as though it was going to take the fate of so many other record shops. The CD's were $18.99 if you remember Dire Straits, Sade, Terence Trent D'arby. I mean these were $18.99 CD's and on top of that you had to reformat your store or figure out a way to get them into your record bins. 

The old timers had already gone through 8 tracks and vinyl of course. If they were into video it was laser discs and you know, VHS, Betamax, all this... so many different formats. They kind of threw their hands up like, hey, 'I've had a nice run. I'm out.' They weren't buying into this new format again that the record companies were pushing.

Westside Seattle

But vinyl was still selling at that time. 

Matt 

Well it was. but it was soon to be at .001% of the market  shortly after that. Yeah, it never officially died. It rose its hand out of the dirt. 

Westside Seattle

Because CD's really took over. Well, since then it's made a resurgence. So you were still in the location where Virago is, and then you moved the store to the corner location. How'd that come about? 

Matt 

In August of 89. If you remember, that location was a bit of a taboo corner, not unlike the old Godfather's Pizza Place where Great American Diner is currently... who seems to be doing a great job.

People's Drugs had gotten shut down for selling Valium over the counter. Russell's Shoes came and went. Also the Hamm Building was known for terrible floods. There was another one that came and went. They were turning them out every year. 

Westside Seattle

But that's the Hamm Building which is a historical building now. 

Matt 

Yeah, Thank you. So I opened it there where it still stands today in August, 1989 with predominantly CD's, and a wall of cassettes. Now cassettes sold as well as CD's for me for number of years. You know a lot of staff that I have currently, were kids coming in buying their first cassette. A lot of that's because of all the high schools around and the cars and the boom boxes and so with all the young people around, we sold a lot of cassettes, especially hip hop. This would be in the Sir Mix-A-Lot era.

Westside Seattle

It makes sense, with what you were hearing on the radio.

Matt

Yeah yeah, cassette singles, right? But yeah, vinyl still was important to me. It was a passion for me. I was still a crate digger. I was still out junking around. I was still buying records at  estate sales and garage sales.

Westside Seattle

So when did you start buying records? 

Matt

Penny Lane had a pretty good following with that. 

Westside Seattle 

Goes all the way back to then? 

Matt

Yeah, and if you remember a lot of the old timers might recall right at the front door it was just a trough, it was like a bird feeder. Really for all the vinyl heads and everything was, you know, under $5 for the most part.

People were giving away their records to get CD's. So that was around the time when I started the CD Club, which is still what? 34 years strong? The card I think looks the same as it ever has and you know bring your records in trade them for CD's. Get your stamps. Get half stamps for used and that's how I was able to gain enough revenue to get into the CD game and actually purchase new CDs, you know. They were costing me 10 bucks a pop, you know?  The CD Club was based off all the coffee carts around town, coffee cards you’d have at your favorite coffee spots.

And I didn't have the market share or the relationships yet to get any kind of discounts. But before I knew it, I had a basement full of vinyl and you know, I had maybe 3 bins upstairs of vinyl and the main people that were purchasing were the vinyl heads that have always been around but also a lot of the young DJ's and hip hop kids and so we kind of became a crate digging palace for a lot of them and then you could get in by appointment, you could go down in the basement. It was a free for all and it was just records stacked everywhere, nothing was in order. 

In 1998, the Beastie Boys got a hold of me through a mutual friend and had me open the shop up the night before their Key Arena show. They were there until you heard birds chirping outside and sun was coming up. That’s the kind of place it was. That’s what some people, the real crate diggers would go through to find records back then. We were that place and I think a lot of our credibility in this whole vinyl craze is based on the fact that we never let go of it, we aren’t on some bandwagon, we are the wagon.

And the basement is still there. It's now my office, but it's where all of it went down.

Westside Seattle

When people go to a look for a used record are there specific genres that are more aggressive that drive your business more? In other words, I'm looking for a Run DMC record, right? Are there genres that are more commercial drivers for you? 

Matt

We're not ones to just donate records away or certainly not toss them in the landfills you know. A Sinatra record might be a dollar somewhere else but come on, that’s the Chairman of The Board, give it the respect it deserves, $1... please.

Westside Seattle 

What about an old Slim Whitman record? Can it be easy for you to find it? 

Matt 

You might, you might find it in the in the $5 or the three for $10 bin. We do have that. I mean we do have cheap records everywhere and after a while we got to turn them over. That's when we donate to lifelong.org .They have a thrift shop over on Broadway, and are great people.

Westside Seattle

What about rare records that are there, where very few were made, or very few were sold, but now they've gained popularity and everybody wants it. What do you do with those? 

Matt

They go in the glass case  We have a Miles Davis Bitches Brew in there currently you know, first pressing of that. We have Nirvana - Nevermind first pressing but you know we'll throw a Dolly Parton record in there too. 

We're not ones that put it on online first and foremost, and only if it's something that is more regional elsewhere will we do that. We are a people place, our customers will always get first crack at it.

I'm in the Easy Street business. I'm not as much in the record business necessarily. I believe that we just we need to be a destination. And if I'm just going to be throwing everything online, well, then it becomes not as fun for me and remember the audience, right? It's not as fun for the staff either.

Westside Seattle

The obvious question, how does a record store that sells the physical medium survive in a world where everybody's streaming things to their phone. It's the instant gratification. It's the two opposing worlds. How do you survive? 

Matt

Well, there's two ways to survive. Either you can be a destination, or you can be a warehouse. And your record store can turn into a mail order online marketplace place. And they're out there. They're out there, they're out there in this city, you know, you might go into stores and wonder how they afford the rent. Well, they got three people in the back churning out packages and their best customer is the UPS man. 

Westside Seattle

Is there a mystique around Easy Street?  Have you consciously built up its aura? Why do rock stars want to perform there?  What makes it a destination? 

Matt  

In Easy Street's case it's West Seattle and it's that location. You know that it's pretty poetic to have and there's a sense of duty having a corner location, especially in a building like that, on a crossroads like that and the Walk All Ways. 

You know I was inspired by folks like David Bowie or Johnny Cash, Prince and Curtis Mayfield. People that could innovate throughout their career and in a way, I feel as though I have to do that as a small businessman. I had heard Andy Warhol once say, "The greatest form of artistry can be owning your own business," when he opened up his Factory.

Westside Seattle

Have you reinvented yourself over time and was it easy for you to reinvent the store?

Matt

Well, we've gone from being a vinyl store, to a cassette and CD store to. well, back to a vinyl store, a cafe, a bar and a performance place. 

My first job was working at Montlake Rec. Center, so I mean I have this, that's still part of me of being the you know Boys and Girls Club of West Seattle and we hope to be the identity of West Seattle or the hopes of what the identity of West Seattle is and why we are still here after all these years.

34 years on that corner. It has a lot to do with so many families living here. Yes, young people growing up through Easy Street. Then they have families. It's a safe place for kids to come. There's not a lot of safe places out on the street, you know. 

Westside Seattle

Not all of them are places that appeal to a huge range of ages. And the music industry does. Kids don't want to go into a gift shop for women, they don't want to shop for ladies clothes, that's not their thing, but music is. 

Matt

You need to talk to my daughter. She's only 9 and she might disagree.

Westside Seattle

Everybody can come in Easy Street and find something they like. 

Matt  

Yeah, and that's why we carry all genres and you know to your point of what genre people are looking for or what constitutes a rare record, I mean jazz, for one is always going to sound better, on vinyl, but I don't listen to jazz streaming. I can't, it's just not the same. Those are becoming harder and harder to find. You know original Blue Note or even Verve. CTI label there. American Music. You know our art form as Americans is comprised of Jazz music, Blues, Country and Western. Grunge, you know? And it's my responsibility I feel, and I've always felt this way. It's my responsibility to always be kind to those American art forms and those genres, absolutely. Even if they're not selling during a period of time, because they will come back.

Westside Seattle

There's a lot of chatter online and elsewhere about how music has either not evolved or has evolved. It seems to be they say, eating its own tail when you're doing the resampling. These kinds of things I've heard other people say that. That's just another kind of instrument where you take a beat from one record and plug it into your new one. What's your take on what's happening to the state of music? 

Matt

Well, have you ever tried to sample or use a drum machine? ... I mean, it's hard to do, it's very creative and you could say that you know even having a guitar is cheating. I mean we all strum it, you know, for the most part, the same way. You need an instrument to create your music. Every year I find new bands and new artists that I fall in love with and that hasn't waned at all. So anyone that would say that... The glory days are behind us when it comes to music... then they're just too old. They're not listening to Phoebe Bridgers. They're they're not listening to Steve Lacy. Today the new R&B and soul that's out there is on par with anything we've ever seen, and I think if you if you blink, you might miss it because It's all happening right now and you have predominantly female driven music with artists like SZA and Jazmine Sullivan and Jorja Smith and I think you're going to see some really aggressive heavy punk rock coming up.

From what I've been hearing, there are some really great bands. There's a band Turnstile, they've been around for a couple of years. My favorite band in the last few years. 

Yeah, there's a band called Show Me The Body that I love. No, I disagree with that completely. Yeah I mean yes, classic rock is over. Yes, that's true and that it has become essentially the new jazz. 

Westside Seattle

Well, it's still selling. 

Matt

I'm sure. So is Miles Davis and so is John Coltrane. 

People are coming in and buying new copies of Sketches of Spain, Kind of Blue, A Love Supreme. Those are consistently going to be in my top 100. And they're still selling every year. They still sell. Yeah, as does Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and The Doors LA Woman. I mean it's yes but by the same token though, Mazzy Star sells really well. Interpol, Arcade Fire. These are somewhat recent catalog releases, but they're considered modern catalog sellers, not classic rock , but classic Gen Z modern rock.

These are catalog records that are going to be in the pantheon as well and will always be top 500 sellers for us. 

Westside Seattle

What about bands like Porcupine Tree and progressive rock of that kind?

Matt 

Man, when you're a fan of that, it's hard to ever get out of that I’m sorry, but yes absolutely.

Westside Seattle 

Is there anybody that you're still starstruck by? 

Matt

I've been starstruck, yeah. 

Westside Seattle

By who? 

Matt  

David Bowie. Erykah Badu...

I had gone over to Vedder's house one time and we were listening to the new Springsteen record a couple years back and he didn't tell me he was going to have any friends over and I walk in and there he was playing Pickle Ball with John McEnroe. I love Johnny Mac, but that was more just kind of surprised than being starstruck ...turned into a really fun night. 

 

 

 

 

Westside Seattle

You're very close friends with Eddie Vedder. And he wore an Easy Street shirt during World Series, so he likes to honor and promote you too. 

Matt 

Well, yeah it goes both ways. You know I'd walk through hell with a bucket of gasoline for any member of Pearl Jam, or for that matter, Soundgarden. And Alice In Chains.

 

Westside Seattle

How'd you get to be close friends with those guys? What what do they mean to you? 

Matt  

I've always lived in Seattle is part of it. I have a similar upbringing, school system, bus routes, paper routes, you know played in the same soccer, baseball, basketball leagues, kicked the can on the same streets, maybe had the same girlfriend. Went through Mt St Helens eruption, lived through the Ted Bundy and Green River Killer era, celebrated the Supersonics winning the NBA Championship. Yeah, don't have too many enemies. There's a bit of trust that goes back and forth. I supported them from the beginning, in some cases before they were signed. Back when they were consigning records you know, Head and the Heart and Macklemore are s great examples of bands that you know needed a bit of a handout or even advice and so you help them. 

 

Matt 

A lot of record stores these days tend to be a little bit more "used centric". You know that's where your profit margin is going to be and we most definitely are a used vinyl store too, absolutely. Still you know that's where we got our start. But I love breaking bands in Seattle out of Seattle. It's good for our economy and it's good for our youth and gives our young people and even our trained musicians some hope to believe that they too can make it, or at least feel welcomed. 

And part of the scene and in West Seattle alone I'm going to guess you have probably 2000 to 3000 quality musicians with a good amount of them making a living at it. On top of that, you have another thousand or so in the music business.

They may have retired, but have made a living from it. There's nowhere else in King County or maybe even in the Northwest that could ever say that? 

Westside Seattle

What about Brandi Carlile? She used to appear at Salty's on Alki in the 90's  

Matt

First met her when I first opened the cafe and there would be this young girl, probably a teenager then yeah, just probably writing lyrics, drinking a cup of coffee, maybe a slice of bacon and that was it and didn't know anybody. But we knew each other just from her coming in. She knew a few other folks too, but that was  back when you could just sit in a cafe and have a cup of coffee and that was it and stay there for a couple of hours.

Then when I had my Queen Anne store I had heard of this girl that was playing up the street at the Paragon and was doing a residency up there and we'd have customers coming down. asking  'Do you have Brandi Carlile's music? Then we heard that enough times that we heard that she had gotten a demo deal from a small company called Red Ink. We were, you know, supposed to bring her to the shop and give her, her first "in store." Then I realized, oh my God, that’s that little girl that used to come into the cafe!

And then we met up, and put a date together.

I believe it was a street date of her EP, just small, just a handful of songs. That was the first thing that anyone could buy from her. You know, as far as hard goods go. 

We've had six in-stores since. Amazing? Yeah.. Her and Tim and Phil have become very good friends and I can't say I'm surprised with her success and she just played on Saturday Night Live. I've always believed in her and this is where she needs to be. You know she needs to be a superstar. What she's done for young women especially, you know. Those in the gay and queer community. I mean, she's made it normal, you know.

Westside Seattle

Well, she's a genius. I mean that helps. 

Matt 

Yeah, well yeah. And the twins have been with her the whole time. 

 

 

Westside Seattle

Yeah, incredible talents, but we were told she bought you a van. 

Matt 

Well, it was her old touring van. It was the van that they did their first three tours in and there was 180,000 miles on it. If you remember at the very start of the pandemic, I was delivering music. I was in the old Easy Street van parked right there and it's not moving. 

Hasn't moved for six months and I had to eliminate doing the deliveries because I lost the muffler and it got broken into and it was down to you know a 3 cylinder and we were having issues with it. I had to suspend all services and I had done some deliveries out to Maple Valley for Brandi.

Westside Seattle

You're taking records to her?

Matt 

I did that for Eddie and McCready and a handful of people. I was all over town. I did almost 1000 deliveries.

They call you up and say, 'hey, I need this record.'

Well, you could do it. It was online. It was an online service and I could do up to about 30 a day. It helped us get through the early stages of the pandemic in 2020. And I did that for about five months, until finally I just couldn't do it anymore. With the van being in the sorry state that it was, I get a call from Tim Hanseroth and he says, 'Hey, can you do one more delivery for us? They all live on the same block in the same neighborhood in Maple Valley. 

"And can you just put it all in one box and we'll sift through it. And can you, just, you know, maybe drive your family car and we heard that you suspended all services." 

I bring my son with me. We get out there and they're out there with chocolate chip cookies, freshly baked, and there's a van off in the corner with all its doors open, a white van and they got some Merle Haggard or something playing on the stereo and they said, 'What do you think of the van?' and I'm just kind of rolling my eyes and I go 'Don't rub it in. I  don't have the money for a van right now.' Their kids are running around naked throwing snakes at each other and my son is just standing there with a chocolate chip cookie in his mouth, hiding behind this van.

And they walk me towards it. Put me inside it, hand me the keys. Start it up. And then said, 'You know years ago they used to let you in King County buy a van for a dollar. Remember that? Used to be able to buy a used vehicle for a dollar.'

They said, 'Well, they've changed the rules on it. It's now $10. That's it... I drove it away. I still owe them $10.

Westside Seattle

But it recently got stolen

Matt 

It did recently get stolen and then found just three blocks away from where I was born over by Providence Hospital. 

Westside Seattle

Did Brandi hear about this? 

Matt

Yeah, they posted about it and with her posts and a handful of others, including yourself, eventually it got found. 

Westside Seattle

So what's the most memorable in- store performance you've had?

Matt 

Yeah, I get asked that question a lot. But you know, we came off just just a couple of weeks ago having one of the most memorable with the Head and the Heart. ReignWolf is one that comes to mind. Pearl Jam, The Sonics, and Orville Peck are all memorable.

Brandi Carlile, of course. Now in that case, what was special about the last time she performed was, it was for the record. "By the Way, I Forgive You"  and the only way to get in was to purchase the record and we capped it you know, at a few 100 people was all we could get in. We eventually opened the garage door so the whole block could take it in, but that one was extra special because she was playing the record in its entirety. No one had heard it. It was brand new and it drew people to tears. I mean, it was clear that this was a groundbreaking record for her and was going to put her on a whole other level, which it did. 

Yeah, so she went from being, you know, a Northwest darling having a nice career and going from one label to another, you know, bouncing around, to where she is today. And it starts with that day... it starts with that release date. 

I'm so proud of her and so, so proud of what they've accomplished. 

And when I say I'm an observer or bit of a surveyor, I get more out of the success that others are having or even the joy that someone gets from a record that I may not see again. You know a rare record. There's so many record stores guys like myself that have these amazing record collections and at times I have too. It's my duty and my responsibility to sell records. I've got to let the fish out, you know. 

Westside Seattle

Well, that that being said, do you have any records that you'll never sell of yours? 

Matt  

I have a Velvet Underground and Nico's first pressing that's signed by Lou Reed and, you know, I got to spend the day with Lou and so it brings back a lot of memories. 

He performed at the old Queen Anne store.

Westside Seattle

Tell us about the experience of Black Lives Matter the day that it it had the demonstration in West Seattle. It was remarkable for a number of reasons it was peaceful. It was deeply emotional.

Matt

Yeah, that is one of the most special moments that's ever occurred outside and inside our doors for sure. I was inspired by some postings that I was seeing online with some kids just talking that 'we're looking to march and protest' based on what had recently happened with the tragedy of George Floyd and all that was happening around that time and Breonna Taylor of course too, and one thing that I saw was it said  'We're hoping to end the march in front of Easy Street in the middle of the junction'... I was like. Wait a second now. You know, we all believe in peaceful protests, but we've seen what can happen over the years and we saw it here. 

Westside Seattle

On Capitol Hill with the CHOP.

Matt

And all through downtown, yes, and so there was a reason for pause. The more I stayed on task with what they were talking about and following their feed. I was able to get in touch with a parent that was of one of the kids. And I said, 'hey, let's meet up". And so we, the parent, and I met up at the shop and discussed. How we can make this peaceful? Ensure that it's peaceful. We know what their intent is, but this can go another way and we've seen it go another way, quickly and violently.

We only had 48 hours. He was on board with me to ensure that it was going to be safe. How we were going to do that?  I said, well, let me call Dow. Let them know what's about ready to happen, yeah? 

Westside Seattle

Dow Constantine, King County Executive. 

Matt 

And Dow met up with me the next morning. And I say, 'hey, we need we need security, but we don't need force. He's like I'm all on board.' He said, 'We're going to need staging. We're going to need some guest speakers,' and he implored me to run with it.

You know he certainly has other things at hand, but he was very much in in touch with me about it all and I said well, I'd like to have Donald Watts and Ayron Jones and they're both on board, and we have a girl named Erica who's never spoken in front of a large group. But she is from the Boren school and she's going to be reading a poem,' and there was a handful of others as well. But you know, those were our headliners. He was certainly on board with all of that, and to our surprise there were 5000 people or so that came through the junction that day and was arguably the most peaceful march and protest that King County saw throughout that entire time. 

 

Westside Seattle

But not just that time, but I can't think of another sizable demonstration that was as peaceful as well organized as emotionally driven as that one so. 

Matt

And we had Derek Moon deejaying, and turned into a little bit of a party afterwards, and you know you got to have your music. 

Westside Seattle

Music's always had some sort of a political bent from Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, and the protest songs of the 60s up through Tax Man with The Beatles and many others, of course. So where do you think that's headed? Is it hip hop doing that for us?

Matt 

Most definitely, hip-hop and punk rock and alternative music. You know you're seeing it even with jazz having a bit of a revival. Not surprised that we've been so taken by so many female artists over the last few years. And I think it's because we are in this emotive state of being as people, and I don't know if it's maternal or big sister or whatever it might be, but overall, it's honesty. It's authenticity. We're seeing some beautiful music by so many.

I won't be surprised again if our top five sellers have at least three or four women in the band or leading the band, or solo artists themselves. That's what happened last year.

Westside Seattle

So how does that tie into people's belief systems and ways of thinking about the world? Is it that we we're drawn to a more feminine sound because we want more empathy, what is it? What's driving it? 

Matt

Well, some of the angriest people artists tend to be the older ones. I don't know if you've listened to Neil Young lately, but I mean they have a lot to say and some of that, I think, is possibly that they see themselves as mentors or looking to bridge a gap between the two generations... Propel some of the young artists. And like I said, I think you're going to see some phenomenal punk rock come out of this. You know you look back on 1976 in London. You know, with the Sex Pistols and the Clash and the Damned and all that. And you know, great music, coming out of that and the strife that was happening. 

Then the whole New York CBGB scene with the Ramones and Talking Heads and Blondie and Johnny Thunders and the rest of it.

With my Gen X generation, we of course had the Seattle scene, but a lot of that comes out of there not being jobs, we also had to contend with the Teen Dance Ordinance…it was almost like a Footloose society here in Seattle at that time, we had this sarcastic view of the world, we were anti-establishment, anything that appeared fake or greedy, we wanted nothing to do with, They called us slackers, but really we just weren’t listening to our elders, we didn’t trust them too much. We were going to do what we wanted to do we were going to do it together and we were going to take over the world. The music from Seattle… Nirvana, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, TAD, Gruntruck, Mudhoney…they reinforced those attitudes. West Seattle had a lot to do with it, in many ways it was ground central, we were about as grung-ey as it gets.

You know we're coming through a period that is one of serious concern. One that has got us all looking inside. We need confidence as a people and then women's voices can lead us that way. I feel that that's what's happening. Yeah, Mother Teresa is leading the band now.