The Fellows went on to have a respectable career as indie-rock darlings, but there were only a few thousand fans buying their albums in the mid-'80s, not a few million. When the band in question actually was reviewed in Rolling Stone - something very unusual at the time for any indie band, much less one from the sleepy Northwest - it seemed inevitable that massive success was just around the corner.īut sadly the year was 1986, Sub Pop was still a cassette fanzine, 'grunge' was something you found under your fingernails and the musician in question was Scott McCaughey of the Young Fresh Fellows. He was a talented songwriter and guitarist from Seattle who wrote unforgettable songs he had a mop of hair that was perennially in his face, providing the aloofness required for stardom his band's independently released debut scored good reviews virtually everyone who saw the group in concert agreed they'd seen one of the most fun bands in the world and, most important, those notices were beginning to bring the first national attention to the Northwest rock scene since Heart.
During one distinct point of the 1980s, I became convinced - as did everyone I knew who considered themselves alternative music aficionados - that the Northwest finally had produced a certifiable new rock star.
