Seattle Times
Hard to believe Googling the phrase “Melvins invented grunge” only calls up 160 returns. This is supposed to be common knowledge, people! The second-most famous band from Aberdeen, the Melvins were a huge influence on a teenage Kurt Cobain. “They played faster than I ever imagined music could be played and with more energy than my Iron Maiden records could provide. This I what I was looking for,” he wrote in his journal after seeing them for the first time behind a Thriftway in Montesano in 1983. Twenty-five years later, they celebrate their improbable longevity with back-to-back concerts at Showbox at the Market. Over those two and a half decades, the Melvins have teetered between succinct-but-loud-as-the-sun rock and mad, punishing noise experiments, treated alternately as toxic outsiders and revered innovators.