Words + Photos By: Delaney Staack
Last Saturday night, 90s twee-pop fans gathered alongside new-gen Pacific Northwest hipsters in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle, WA for a rare concert by The Softies, All Girl Summer Fun Band, Mo Troper, and Tony Molina. I was a lone Floridian trying my best to fit in, wearing black Doc Martens with white socks and curling my fringe with my fingers because it suddenly felt much too long. But we were all united, East and West, baby bangs and curtain bangs, by the misty phenomenon of a once-in-a-lifetime lineup. These four artists came together for a four-night, four-city tour (444 is indeed an angel number) beginning in Eugene, OR and ending in Vancouver, BC with stops in Portland and Seattle. Collectively, they represent a West Coast music scene spanning decades.
In 1994, Rose Melberg joined Jen Sbragia to form The Softies, and the pair released their debut album, It’s Love, with K Records the following year. They became known for their minimal instrumentation and intricate harmonies, often described with adjectives of simplicity and sentimentality. They performed on various tours—including as an opener for Elliott Smith in 1996—collecting acclaim and honing their signature sound until the year of their final release, Holiday in Rhode Island, in 2000.
Two years prior, Sbragia was approached by Kim Baxter after one of The Softies’ shows. Baxter and Sbragia went on that summer of 1998 to launch All Girl Summer Fun Band, an aptly-named group with additional members Kathy Foster and Ari Douangpanya. The group also joined K Records after releasing a few singles and EPs, eventually putting out an eponymous debut album in 2002. The overlapping timelines between these bands can be attributed to the intimacy of the PNW scene in those days. In fact, The Softies’ members also met at concerts for their previous groups.
As for Mo Troper, who was still crawling when The Softies were first shaking hands, a new sound can be heard. His most recent album, MTV, features 15 songs averaging around two minutes each in length. In those short bursts, he displays a breadth of creativity, sometimes delivering a carefully-crafted pop structure, other times veering into the experimental with pitch shifts, mid-song breaks, and intense guitar distortion. Still, he grew up listening to Portland alt-rock radio in the 90s, and the influence of his predecessors is apparent in certain melodic choices and lo-fi production quality.
Tony Molina is the only artist of the four who doesn’t technically come from the PNW—he’s from Northern California. Admittedly, he is also the only artist I was aware of prior to this show. Similar to Mo Troper, his discography is composed of minute-long songs, almost vignettes, which range from dreamy ballads accompanied by finger-picked acoustic guitar to hardcore rock songs with explicit, angsty titles. Years ago, I heard “Wrong Town” for the first time, a track off of his 2018 album, Kill the Lights. It struck me quite immediately as something special. It was vulnerable, it was fleeting, it was there, breaking my heart, and then it was gone with a whisper. I was left with a feeling of being homesick and sick of home all at once. And I was a fan. For years to follow, I heard my unvoiced thoughts reflected in his lyrics, carried overhead in the reverberations of a sorrowfully played riff, or hanging around in the empty space of a fade-out. There were times I tried finding some kind of internet presence to latch onto, someone to follow or look at or maybe message. But Tony Molina is nearly invisible in this sense. It’s for the best, I realized. His music took on an ethereal quality, and I decided it belonged to me inside my head anyway—not a tangible world.
A few months ago, after receiving my tax refund, I finally booked the solo trip I had been wanting to take for years. In my itinerary-planning process, I browsed events in Seattle during the dates of my visit. And there, listed among three names I didn’t recognize, was Tony Molina. In anticipation for the show, I familiarized myself with the other performers and became fans of theirs, too. My research revealed the concert to be a unique occurrence—one of only four nights when symbols of a region-specific sound would take the stage, many for the first time in years, some even performing in more than one band.
The Sunset Tavern on Ballard Avenue hosted the event. My older coworker, Frances, used to live in Seattle, and when I told her where I would be attending a concert, she recalled the place with a visible fondness. Everyone who knows the Pacific Northwest music scene knows The Sunset, she said. I arrived far, far too early—I ate dinner at a restaurant with warnings of at least a two-hour wait and scheduled accordingly, but there was no wait at all—and settled into a red bar stool in The Sunset’s front room. I didn’t want to get drunk, so I ordered an old-fashioned. Whiskey takes me longer to sip. While I waited, I eavesdropped intently on conversations around me. It seemed a lot of the people in attendance knew each other, and many knew the musicians personally. I couldn’t help but wonder if people were verbally asserting their connection to the artists in competitive efforts of coolness. Sincere or not, it created a thread throughout the crowd, traveling among watchers and performers, intertwining everyone and filling the air with a sense of closeness.
By the time the doors to the stage room opened, I was off three old-fashioneds and feeling, despite myself, a bit drunk. Under the light of a disco ball, a line formed in front of the merch table. The hot items of the night were cassette tapes of The Softies and Tony Molina covering each other’s songs. I bought one for myself, though I don’t have a way to listen to it. Oh well. I feel glad it’s in my possession. As the crowd filled the room, I had to shake off a slight case of imposter syndrome, worrying my being from Florida made me an intruder. But no, as soon as the music began, I knew I belonged.
All Girl Summer Fun Band kicked off the concert with a fast-sung, fast-played set of cute songs with nod-along rhythms. There was a guy in the front row pounding his fists with every beat. They were followed by Mo Troper, sporting a sweater and thick-rimmed glasses and singing cynical lyrics overtop guitar-driven melodies. Next, The Softies. What impressed me most about their performance was the overall cleanliness and pure precision in harmonies. Melberg especially, I must say, awed me with her pitch—every note crystal-clear and exactly where it should be. If there was a winner of the night—which there doesn’t need to be, but I’m choosing one—it would be The Softies. Apologies to Tony. It’s not that his set wasn’t amazing. It was. I had just hoped to hear some particular favorites live for the first time, which happen to be from the slower, sadder side of his discography. Instead, he played more hardcore tracks. Maybe I should be grateful. With no reality to bring them down, those unplayed songs remain inside of my head as if I wrote them myself, proving how personal music can be.
Once the show ended and the crowd began to scatter, I finished the final sips of my fifth (or sixth) drink. I looked to my left and saw Tony having a conversation in front of the stage. So, I lingered strangely, waiting for a moment to talk to him myself. When I saw him shifting to leave, I seized the opportunity. The way I remember it, I made a slight fool of myself—I introduced myself as a fan from Florida, told him how much his songs meant to me, said how happy I felt to watch him play, just babbling on and on. He didn’t seem to want to talk to me, probably because I had an old-fashioned look in my eye. To fill a moment of silence, I asked with a sarcastic tinge, Do you think you’ll ever perform in Florida? To which he replied, No.
I feel very lucky.
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