The Coma Collective

Post-punk/garage band, Red Hex. Photo: Will Collins

When it comes to music, Tacoma is a squirming, embryonic creature; one with a flesh-mop of iridescent tentacles but a still-evolving central nervous system to guide it. The intention of  the musicians who make up The Coma Collective is to provide a guiding intelligence “to galvanize Tacoma’s music scene,” according to co-founder Sam Olsen. “What we’re trying to do with the project is create some kind of unity within the scene, so there actually is one.”

Spaceworks Tacoma is supporting The Coma Collective‘s initiative with a three-month creative residency. The two bands currently manning the ship – Slushy and Red Hex – will energize the local scene by operating a record label, Invisible Records, and producing a new T-town music compilation at the beginning of each month. In addition, plans are in the works for debuting a new ‘zine, filming live performances, booking concert dates, and screen printing bread-and-butter tees and flyers at CC headquarters at 1114 Pacific Avenue.

The shape of things to come? The scene at the Peabody Waldorf Gallery.

The collective’s aim is to establish a viable T-town music presence, especially one accessible to the sub-21 crowd. “If Tacoma wants to grow and become a cultural hub, we must find ways to keep good artists and creative thinkers living here,” says Olsen, a 2009 graduate of Tacoma’s School of the Arts. “The city itself is perfect for aspiring musicians. It’s beautiful and big, and right in between Seattle and Olympia, two cities well-known for being the birth spots of popular bands over the past couple decades. The support from the community is here, too, but all these great aspects aren’t being utilized to the extend that they should be.” The Coma Collective aims to advance local endeavors by starting a record label for Tacoma-based bands, “to inspire young musicians and show them the potential for growth here….and to build a new reputation for Tacoma music.”

Putting it out there - the local lineup at Bobs Java Jive.

An articulate musicologist, Olsen describes the vision behind The Coma Collective as homegrown, less inspired by the Andy Warhol Factory model than the experiments of the U.S.-based Elephant 6 Recording Company. ”Personally, I am not a Warhol fan or a big Velvet Underground fan. I find the art that came out of the Factory to be very emotionless and plastic. That’s city slicker stuff, and my soul belongs to the woods,” he says. “The [U.S.-based] Elephant 6 music collective is a better example of what I think will come of the project – but who knows what it will turn into….There will be many artistic mediums at work.”

Musical diversity will be at the fore: “Slushy and Red Hex are the groups involved currently and we all play very different kinds of music. “Slushy is good – just really good songwriting with rock instrumentation and a lot of energy. My band, Red Hex, is on the darker end of  the spectrum, I guess….We come from a punk/garage background.” Check out the offerings from these bands and more from The Coma Collective. For more information: samolsen13@gmail.com. The Coma Collective, 1114 Pacific Avenue, through June 30, 2011.

Sam Olsen Wants Your Ear

“I’ve lived in T-Town my whole life, I’ve been playing punk rock for 7 years, my hair is turning gray and I’m only 19 years old,” writes Sam Olsen in his Facebook profile. We believe him, and not just because we believe everything we read on the Internet. Olsen is a presence in Tacoma, a 2009 graduate of the School of the Arts who began playing in garage bands years before he got a driver’s license. At the ripe age of 15, he began recording bands and publishing a ‘zine under the Trash Town Records and Magazine label. Last month, he made his big-screen debut with a role in the locally made feature-length film, Quiet Shoes. Not only that, but his music (he heads a psychedelic punk band, Red Hex) made it onto the movie’s soundtrack, beside groups including Girl Trouble.

What’s next? Sam Olsen wants your ear. He is the recipient of a Spaceworks Tacoma Creative Enterprise award which will enable him to explore the possibilities of hosting an all-ages music venue, or individual concerts – as soon as the right space becomes available (he is on a waiting list). Olsen evangelizes, quite convincingly, about the need for an underage music club because “there are a great number of talented kids in Tacoma who have no place to show, and I want to change that.” Ideally, the venue would provide not only a showcase for upcoming musical talent, but sell local records, tapes, underground publications and art.  It would be “a place for kids to get together, hear good music and get excited about where they live and what’s going on,” he says.

A student of local music history, Olsen hopes to link to the tradition of showcases such as the legendary Community World Theatre, an underage club where Nirvana and a stream of soon-to-be-famous bands played in the ’80s.  “Tacoma has a long history with garage rock,” he says, citing early innovators the Sonics and the Wailers. “In fact, many people in that community, all over the world, consider Tacoma, Washington, to be the birthplace of garage punk….My concept is aimed at keeping the traditional music of Tacoma alive in Tacoma.”

Olsen notes that an all-ages club would “bring in people from out of town. Confirm a music scene for young people. Give kids something to do downtown. Bring in acts from out of town that people actually want to see, in a space that kids – the real music fans – could actually attend.” Legally. He easily envisions “spending the time to be the promoter-booker-soundman myself, and make [the club] the best I can. Really, it’s all about knowing what line-ups would draw a crowd and having the connections to book said groups. I can deliver that.“ We believe him. Trash Town Records & Magazine, http://www.myspace.com/trashtownempire