NOTE FROM CARRIE BROWNSTEIN TO CALVIN JOHNSON SLEATER-KINNEY OLYMPIA 1990’s
I’ve made my share of bloopers, boners, and blunders in my time but hanging onto this scrap of paper wasn’t one of them.
What did I know that few others knew when I saved this? After all, Carrie and Corin had likely only just settled on the name of their band when this note was written. I once did my best to convince Carrie that the two of them could do better than “Sleater-Kinney” for a name. I mean it would sound kind of like a law firm to anyone not intimately familiar with the freeway exits in Lacey WA. right? It wasn’t very punk sounding. They should’ve listened to me. It all could have turned out so much better for them if they’d gone with “Estrogenocide” which was one of the joke names that I lobbed their way.
What could’ve been…
The practice place Carrie is asking Calvin to use is, I’m almost totally sure, the “big room” that would become Dub Narcotic Studio above one of K Records former locations in Olympia.
Also, dig the pre-cell phone “I’m going to Seattle…leave me a message” part of the note. This reminds me of another fun fact I just remembered: the first time I recall speaking with someone who was on a cell phone was a time I spoke to Corin when S-K was on the road somewhere. I remember finding the idea that she was calling from a phone in a car that was being driven very trippy. Funny.
Scrap of paper from my personal archives
