John Roderick is the singer and songwriter responsible for Seattle's the Long Winters. Send your questions to jroderick@seattleweekly.com.

​John: Many music folks, myself included, have left Seattle. What keeps you there?--Krist Novoselic is the founding bassist of Nirvana and a Reverb contributor.

Roderick: I'm loyal to the city because I keep thinking how much better it would be for Seattle if everybody cool didn't move out to Grays Harbor County and become chairman of their local Grange Hall. I'm not divorced, so there's no reason to move to Oregon, and I can't move to Los Angeles because my teeth aren't weird enough. The only other reasonable option would be New York, where I could enjoy the sound of people screaming at each other through my apartment walls while the smell of frying cat entrails comes in through my air conditioner, but I'm not wealthy enough.

Read Roderick's entire Q&A column -- featuring queries from Aimee Man, Duff McKagan, Luke Burbank, and Cupcake Royale's Jody Hall -- in the new issue of SW's Reverb Monthly.

Krist Novoselic (left), seen here with Steven Reynolds, was the founding bassist in Nirvana, and is the chairman of Fair Vote.

​Editor's Note: This is the second post in a series from SW contributor Krist Novoselic. The first post, "How Occupy Wall Street Can Occupy the Ballot Box," ran last month.

Occupy Wall Street has an extraordinary opportunity with next month's special election for Oregon's U.S. House District 1. One of the four candidates on the ballot that voters will receive in the mail is Steven Reynolds, the nominee of the Oregon Progressive Party. This group's platform is a virtual mirror of OWS issues. It's all there: anti-corporate personhood, controls on banking, and an equitable democratic system, among other proposals.

Since there are four candidates running, Reynolds could conceivably win the race with a little more than 25 percent of the vote. But even a strong second or third place could also send a variety of messages to the movement across the nation about engaging electoral politics. This isn't just an opportunity for voters in Portland, it's a chance for Occupy Wall Street to storm the halls of congress through the democratic system.

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Krist Novoselic is the chairman of FairVote and the founding bassist of Nirvana.

​It's clear that Occupy Wall Street has established itself in the popular imagination--at least for now. The protests and encampments served to propel Occupy Wall Street, and local variations of the phrase, into a brand name. Things are at a turning point as police are clearing the Occupy encampments in various cities. If OWS is being forced to move out, it might as well move up! By this I mean the time has come to engage electoral politics. Washington's unique election rules make the state a natural breeding ground for grass-roots groups like Occupy Wall Street to get their party on the ballot and representatives who share their values into office.

Most states have what's called a plurality voting system, in which the candidate with the most votes wins. With these rules, most voters will not vote for a third party or independent candidate because they're afraid of splitting the vote and electing their least-favored candidate. But recent changes in election rules have moved the Evergreen State toward a majority winner ballot system, in which candidates of every party run in the SAME primary and the top two vote-getters then run off in the general election.* Candidates for office can pick ANY party they like as a banner to run under. And voters can pick any candidate in the primary. Gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi, for example, ran under the "Prefers GOP" flag rather than "Republican" in his bid for governor in 2008.

So, how about PREFERS #OWS PARTY next to a candidate's name on the ballot? How about PREFERS Occupy Wall St PARTY or even PREFERS Occupy Seattle PARTY? There are no ballot access barriers like petitions--just pay a filing fee and you're on the ballot. So what does a candidate get for their money? How about having the OWS brand name on every ballot in a district or even the state? In addition, every voter receives in the mail a state funded Voters' Guide that includes a candidate's statement from each person on the ballot. Seems like a nifty place to advocate OWS principles.

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​Our old friend Krist Novoselic--the former Nirvana bassist who wrote about music and politics for the Weekly and Reverb for several years--is still penning op-eds about election reform.

The McClatchey wire service picked up a piece he co-wrote with Bob Richie--Novoselic's associate at FairVote--that is running in the Sacramento Bee, Newsday, and the Bellingham Herald, among others. In it, the authors advocate for election reforms that would give independent and third-party candidates--and their supporters--a greater chance to have a voice in office.

Despite a long history of use in our elections, proportional voting is new to many Americans. The concept is simple: Like-minded voters can pool their votes together to elect representatives in proportion to their level of support. The result is multi-seat legislative districts with lawmakers who can represent the majority AND the minority of voters."

Check it out!

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Fellow Bassist: Mike Huckabee, a potential 2012 GOP presidential nominee, busts out some riffs!

​Governor Chris Gregoire and Secretary of State Sam Reed are supporting a bill that would cancel the 2012 presidential primary election. This is a good idea, because the primary doesn't do much for the money--about $10 million--that it costs our cash-strapped state.


States started holding primaries in the early 20th century as a reform to make nominations accessible to more people than just party insiders. Even though most states administer and fund their presidential primaries, nominations are essentially the affairs of private organizations. The parties use the public vote totals to allocate delegates according to their party rules.


Washington state didn't have a presidential primary election until 1992. The backstory: In 1988, Democratic activists nominated Jesse Jackson, and the GOP nominated Pat Robertson. Since so few people participated in the caucuses, the most committed party members dominated, choosing candidates from polar ends of the spectrum. This prompted a successful ballot initiative establishing presidential primaries in Washington.


But this didn't mean the end of the caucus. Recall the bit about the private organizations. The state can't force parties to comply with the primary. Our state's Democratic party has always ignored the primary ballot results and kept the caucus results. In 2008, the GOP allocated half its delegates from the primary and the other half from a caucus. This meant that the primary was little more than a beauty contest. However meaningless the ballots were, the cost to the state was still high.


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Krist Novoselic's column debuted on the Daily Weekly on November 7, 2007, and later migrated to Reverb. He is the former bassist for Nirvana and the chairman of FairVote.

​It's with a heavy heart I tell you that I will no longer be writing this column for Seattle Weekly. Just like George Harrison says, "All things must pass."

It was in November 2007 that Chris Kornelis invited me to do a weekly column, and I have to say that it's been a great experience. During my time here, I never dared say I was a journalist, for two reasons: First, I was never trained as one, and second, not taking on that honorable moniker kept the pressure off the rock bassist-turned-columnist / blogger. It was like, "Hey, I'm not a journalist, so cut me some slack!"

Big thanks to Chris for all the great help he did with editing. Thanks to the folks at Village Voice Media for sticking with me for so long. I want to also thank all the readers who came here every week. I'm one of you now, somebody who'll keep coming back to this site that's so good at keeping one up to speed with what's happening.

What's up with the future? I'm working toward a degree. I need to pick up from 1984. This isn't some kind of Orwellian reference--that's the year I graduated from high school, so there's much work to do. I also plan on blogging at the FairVote site. There won't be any writing about music there, just focusing on policy along the lines of democratic participation and election reform. And even though I will no longer be a weekly contributor to Reverb, I'll still be contributing on occasion to the Weekly in print and online.

Again, thanks to you all!

Krist Novoselic's column on music and politics runs every Tuesday on Reverb. Check back on Friday when he writes about what he's been listening to.

​In 2008, the political atmosphere was about change. Voters wanted something new and the Obama For America campaign promised a political transformation. The election results signaled a realignment towards Democratic Party policies. That was a mere two years ago. Follow the current polling with subsequent reportage and it's apparently time for another political reworking with the data showing people running back to the GOP.

Didn't voters in 2008 choose a government centered approach to fixing the economy? Shouldn't that play itself out before we do a 180? In 2010 the notion of change hangs in the air like some kind of stagnant odor. It's a shallow sentiment, cheap words that prop the illusion that things are going to get better in Washington DC. I mean, people want this supposed change but they still vote for one of the entrenched parties in Washington DC?

This reminds me of being a 16-year-old living in Yugoslavia. There were only two television channels available--both controlled by the state. Now don't get me wrong, my adolescent mind thought the broadcast of the unedited version of Last Tango in Paris was great, but there were nights when the choice was between two bad programs. That meant it was time to pick up a book or listen to my new Bijelo Dugme cassette. And it's this dynamic that has the political prognosticators pondering how many people will tune out the November election.

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Fern Hoodie

​Here are some tunes for Friday:

Camper Van Beethoven - "Abundance". It's easy to dance with reckless abandon to this song. If you have a vinyl copy of this record - it's called II & III. On the disc there's a side 2 and side B.

Everly Brothers - "What Am I Living For?" Beat & Soul These two are the sweetest singing duo ever. Listen to this tune while holding your sweetie's hand.

REM "Fall On Me" Life's Rich Pageant This is a masterpiece pop song. Hook verse, hook bridge and hook big chorus. It's got it all!

Krist Novoselic's column on music and politics runs every week on Reverb.

​San Francisco was known as the place for peace and love in the late '60s. The music wasn't all about "flowers in your hair," though. There was another side to the scene--people were burned out from all the dope. A heavy band emerged from this dystopia with a sound that has left its mark on later generations.

Blue Cheer was a heavy power trio comprising bassist /vocalist Dickie Peterson, guitarist Leigh Stephens, and drummer Paul Whaley. The band's sound is seminal hard rock--the branch of music known as grunge leads straight back to this important band. The tune "Out of Focus" is a great representation of what Blue Cheer does: big riffs and heavy drums with biting guitar licks. Then there's the alienation in the lyric "Won't somebody tell me what's wrong with me?" They do a cover of "Parchment Farm," a tune about life in a Mississippi prison. Peters sings, "All I did was shoot my arm." Well, that's a cautionary tale, but the band's sound itself is intoxicating, and music is about its relationship with the listener. The basic message to the aspiring rocker is simple--go forth and be heavy!

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​I usually host a program on my local community radio station. I'm on every other Saturday from 8 to midnight (Pacific USA). I play mostly vinyl that includes all kinds of genres. I even spin spoken word records. With all of the hustle of late summer, I have been unable to make my shows. Fortunately I have been able to find a great substitute - Mr. Jack Endino.

It was over 20 years ago that I met the man when he recorded the first Nirvana demo. To this day we stay connected through music, except for the time we take to tinker on motorcycles. Jack has a pretty good-sized record collection. It's quite the trove of Hard Rock records. I've never seen more Ulrich Roth solo albums in one place!

He helped with my last show and here's a sample of what he played.

Blue Cheer "Fruit and Icebergs" from New Improved. The band came out of San Francisco in the late sixties. Instead of peace and love, this power trio served up some of the heaviest music ever. I was like three years old when this proto-grunge music hit the scene. The band is owed a lot.

Deep Purple "No One Came" from Fireball. These British heavies funk it up here. You can hear the sound come together on Fireball for their next monster record Machine Head.

Soundgarden "Ugly Truth" from Louder Than Love Jack's keeping the heavy rock multigenerational. He's also holding it close as he's recorded this band too.

Here's the entire set list of the last show. Jack's on Saturday night, 10 to midnight. (That's 5 Sep.10 - 0500 to 0700 GMT)