Pip: BandCam is the kind of site that treats local music history like it actually matters — which, given what we’re covering today, turns out to be a eulogy as much as a recap.
Mara: Today we’re looking at the Seattle music scene through one departure that says something much larger — about infrastructure, about who gets supported, and about what a city owes its artists. Let’s start with Glenn Cannon leaving the building.
Seattle Music Dead? Glenn Cannon Has Left the Building
Pip: The question the post is asking isn’t really rhetorical — it’s using one musician’s departure from Seattle to interrogate whether the city has quietly stopped being a place where original rock talent can survive.
Mara: The post opens with Windowpane’s frontman Glenn Cannon, who spent many years here after the band dissolved, leading Glenn Cannon and the Damage Done — and it frames his exit with this: “I feel horrible that the Seattle area has done so horribly to support and nurture our local talent.”
Pip: That’s not a complaint about one bad venue or one missed booking. That’s an indictment of an entire ecosystem failing the people who built its reputation.
Mara: The reasons cited for Cannon’s move to Cumberland, Maryland are concrete — decline in the industry, lack of opportunity, and what the post calls “ridiculous inflation and cost of living in our area.” He still has family back east, and the post is clear it doesn’t blame him.
Pip: There’s a video featured here called “You All Stopped Listening,” performed with another local legend Rane Stone — and if a song title has ever done the editorial work for you, that one earns its keep.
Mara: The post also notes Cannon recently returned briefly to accept a Local Legend award from the Washington State Independent Music Awards — which is a genuinely well-deserved recognition, even if the timing lands as bittersweet given the circumstances.
Pip: Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready gets a mention too, for aid programs aimed at local musicians — and the post’s verdict on that effort is “day late dollar short.”
Mara: There’s also a documentary flagged in an edit at the bottom — “No Such Thing as Record Label Fairy” — which the post makes sure listeners don’t miss. The closing note is a direct apology, on behalf of Seattle, for what it calls “rampant decrepitude and decay of all its supporting infrastructure.”
Pip: When a city hands someone a legend award and a moving van in the same season, the award stops feeling like a celebration.
Mara: The infrastructure question the post raises doesn’t go away when one artist leaves — it gets louder.
Pip: Next time, we’ll see what else BandCam is watching from the PNW trenches.
Add comment