(Feature Song: Ground Zero by Bam Bam (1984/Buttocks Productions/Seattle, WA)

Is there really still an appetite for this shit?

One of the catalysts for Punk Rock History w/Thomas Pynchon was when another user asked me what Grunge is. I gave a long-winded answer, and wondered if there was a way to make it shorter. Eventually I got it down to 2 words: Seattle Hardcore.

Prior to the internet, the Pacific Northwest had always been a bit adrift from the rest of the country sonically speaking (pun intended). The reason for this is mostly down to geography. The nearest metropolitan areas are San Francisco, which is a 12 hour drive to the South, and Minneapolis, which is a 24 hour drive East. So unless your band had the financial backing to send you and your road crew by plane, you weren’t playing Seattle. Unless you happened to be based somewhere nearby. Somewhere like, say Vancouver, Br*tish Columbia.

The underground music scene in Seattle loved the various Hardcore acts who regularly visited from over the border. D.O.A., The Subhumans, Dayglo Abortions, and the like. These kids would go on to form bands like 10 Minute Warning and U-Men and, uhh…The Fartz. All these bands were very much in the same vein as the Hardcore bands from Canada, until something strange happened. While the rest of Punk was trying to go faster, the folks in Seattle decided to start going slower. Why is that? Well, it might again be down to geography. Seattle is situated in just the perfect place to get a whole lot of rain and overcast days. It’s a place with a real gloomy atmosphere that lends itself more to Goth and early Metal than it does to high-energy Hardcore Punk. Incidentally, this is what a lot of the kids who were going to those shows were listening to.

Tina Bell came from an enormous family in Seattle. Third of ten siblings and the Bells’ oldest daughter, she was introduced to singing at church. Her first great love was the theater, and she got her first stage experience at the Langston Hughes Theater. In the late 70’s, she was involved in a production that required her to sing in French, and so she looked through classified ads for a tutor. This is how she met guitarist Tommy Martin, the man she eventually married. In 1983 they decided to start a band, which they called Bam Bam after their surnames (Bell And Martin). An ad in The Rocket connected them to bassist Scott Ledgerwood, and a chance encounter at a show would bring them into contact with Matt Cameron (later of Soundgarden and Pearl Jam) while he was drumming for a cover band called Mercenaries.

They quickly got to writing music together, incorporating all of their disparate influences (Patti Smith, Metallica, Dead Kennedys, X Ray Specs, Johnny Cash, and Aretha Franklin) into a sound that would come to define the Pacific Northwest. They played at venues like Weathered Wall and The Off Ramp, gaining attention not only for their unique sound but for the mystique of their singer. Tina was only 5’2" but dressed like Chrissie Hynde and sang in a low, smoky voice more befitting of someone much larger.

In 1984, they recorded their only EP, Villains (Also Wear White). The title track alludes to the racism Tina experienced across her career but also to a very real incident involving some racist skinheads at The Metropolis. Other tracks include Stress and Curses in The Dark. Bam Bam often shared stages with the likes of Soundgarden and Green River who were building on the sound that Bam Bam introduced. However, record labels never seemed interested in the group (likely due to Bell being black) and as the years went on, Bell and Martin began to lose faith in their outfit. In the late 80’s, they moved to England, hoping to find a more receptive fanbase. But nothing came of it, and in 1990, Bell quietly retired from the music industry and retreated from public life, battling depression and alcoholism.

Tina Bell died of cirrhosis on October 10th, 2012. When her son, director TJ Martin arrived at her apartment in Las Vegas, he found that almost all of her belongings (including all her writings and recordings of Bam Bam) had been thrown out without notification. This is in keeping with a long history of writers choosing to neglect Tina’s contributions to music. Indeed, it wasn’t until 2019 that her story finally started to come out.

Next time: Whatever I feel like writing about. I think I can make more of these more consistently if I stop giving a damn about chronology.