Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Fallout Records



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.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

did green river open that washington hall show?

Anonymous said...

Best record store ever. Not day goes by that I don't miss it.

Dan 10Things said...

Honestly Howard, I don't know. We ended up selling our tickets to someone outside the show and then we bought drugs with the money. Kinda pathetic, I didn't actually see the show.

Anonymous said...

oh man! too bad! if its the show im thinking of mark arm came out with a salmon stuffed down the front of his pants, good times!

Anonymous said...

Back in like '85, I used to have my mom drive me from Puyallup to Seattle and she'd wait in the car while I went to both Time Travelers and Fallout. Still got a bunch of those 7". RIP Fallout

Anonymous said...

I moved to Ballard Seattle in 1987 from Eugene, Oregon and Fallout Skates was the only real good shop to go for records and equipment. I used to Skate with Shawn Martin and this cat named Miles when in Oregon, they were doing tricks back then that still burn in my mind today. Street style is still in my mind the core of skateboarding,Concrete Jungle (good company back in the day)use of the environment available,curbs,handrails,benches,loading docks. Drop Acid,listen to Locust Abortion technician and Skate till you Fellout!