Fallout Records and Skateboards opened on Olive Street in Seattle's Capitol Hill nieghborhood during the Summer of 1984. It was originally opened by Russ Battaglia and Bruce Pavitt, who left the business later and started Sub Pop Records. I remember going to Fallout the first time probably in 1985 to buy tickets to see Agent Orange at Washington Hall. I'd previously been to Time Travelers downtown on my forays into the city record shopping, but Fallout was way cooler, they seemed to have lots more local stuff, plus tons of zines and a wall full of skateboards. Russ bought the first ad in 10 Things when I started my zine, he was a total stand up guy that ran Seattle's best record store, along with his wife Janet, throughout the '80s and '90s. Wez Lundry, Tim Hayes, Paula Senn and a number of other great people from the music scene also worked the shop. Eventually in 1999 Tim Hayes bought out Russ, who went on to start a bakery. Tim ran the store until it closed in 2003. For more info about the history and photos from some of the great in-store band appearances, check out falloutrecords.com. Tim is now a co-owner of the excellent Ballard bar Tigertail (there's a link to the right for it). Fallout is the home of so many great memories and musical discoveries for me... it's sadly missed both as an entity and the community that built up around it.
