Olympia Music History Project: John Foster

It’s been a minute since I’ve put out a new show, and so I thought maybe I’d let you in on what has been keeping me so busy. A couple years ago, I started working on an oral history project funded by the city- appropriately titled The Olympia Music History Project. We (myself, Mariella Luz and Kelsey Smith) have since broken off from the city into our own nonprofit organization, and I’m excited to announce that we are launching olympiamusichistory.org on New Year’s Day, 2025!

So let me tell you about what this is: I was a part of a team that interviewed 30 people who were doing significant things in Olympia’s legendary indie music scene between 1980-2002. We spoke with folks from globally revered bands like Bikini Kill, Sleater-Kinney and The Gossip, as well as hometown heroes including Young Pioneers, The Noses, Fitz of Depression, even Olympia’s only known ska band of that era, Engine 54. I’ve learned so much working on this project- and I’ve heard all the interviews several times, because I’m the guy who edited them. Have you ever seen that T-Shirt that says “Reading is Sexy?” That was designed by Sarah Utter, the singer and guitarist from The Bangs. Allegedly Patrick Swayze lived here at some point, but I don’t know if he ever got out to any punk shows. And yeah, Nirvana was a part of our scene for a while too, I forget what happened after they moved to Seattle.  And there were all these festivals- International Pop Underground Convention in 1991, The YoYo A Go Go festivals after that, Ladyfest- which became an international series- and a groundbreaking, grassroots rock opera called The Transfused. All these things happened in that 22-year window.  My interview with a guy named John Foster focuses on a couple of crucial things happening, that the scene- at least in part- owes its existence.  The first one is the enactment of the Green Line Policy at KAOS- that’s KAOS, 89.3 FM, Olympia- a game-changing move making it against the rules to play any less than 80% independently released music. That had a huge impact on a lot of creative people that tuned in. The second is the publication of OP Magazine, a dense zine focused on independent music of every kind, and featured contributing writers like Matt Groening, Eugene Chadbourne, Jonathan Richman, on and on. This magazine was globally distributed from right here in Olympia, and served as a regularly updated encyclopedia of indie music- and where to get it. Basically, it was like a precursor to something in-between Pitchfork and Bandcamp, in the pre-internet dark ages. John Foster was at the helm for both of these endeavors, and he was one of the people I interviewed for the Olympia Music History Project, and here is our conversation, recorded in the historic Rockway-Leland building downtown.