Jonathan Poneman

He'd asked for friends' help in circulating the demo and getting college radio airplay, and in doing so, managed to snag the interest of a partner at the newly formed record label Sub Pop.

An excited Jonathan Poneman shared the demo with his less than enthusiastic partner, the more business-minded of the two, Bruce Pavitt.

The enterprising duo discussed whether to finance a single by the scrawny kid who they thought might, on his best day, someday, maybe approach the coolness of their label's BMOC, Mark Arm of Mudhoney.

[upbeat music] So they invited Nirvana to play one of their Sub Pop Sunday shows at the Vogue in Seattle, where Kurt was told they'd have an audience of music executives and representatives.

James gave Modest Mouse singer Isaac Brock an early version of New Slang.

Isaac loved it and passed it to Jonathan Poneman, the president of Sub Pop.

By 2000, The Shins were on the legendary Seattle label Their debut dropped in mid two thousand one, and then it slowly built an audience.

Let's hear from James about what those early days actually looked like.

You know, I think what's known as a fuck band or whatever you want to call them.

Ben was involved, Jonathan Poneman, and the single is also possibly Chris Cornell's first appearance on vinyl.

Self-released, hokey, cow-punk kind of.

They played a total of nine shows, apparently, a mix of covers and originals and dressed... dressed up and you know used props and things it's a curiosity at best but fetches a huge sum of money thanks to chris's involvement there'll be more to talk about once we get to part two of the interview but for now let's get into some tunage

It's this stop-start intro with some serious, serious shredding from Jack.

In 2003, Jack released a comp called The Perfect Lawn, and you can hear a live version of this from a radio show.

And Jonathan Poneman introduces them, and they open their set with this.

Yeah, it's a great one.

I think there's a sense of when Nirvana broke and they were on, you know, that album, Nevermind, is a co-release with Sub Pop and DGC.

David Geffen and Jonathan Poneman had to have a phone call for that album to come out.

And I think there was a sense, kind of like Hollywood in the early 70s, of like, fuck it.

I don't know what works anymore.

True.

And one of the heads, Jonathan Poneman, is in the movie.

He was one of the date people.

And I never realized that until recently re-watching it.

Six months into the band's, you know, start, we're on Sub Pop because they walk into an empty bar.

Jonathan Poneman sees us and says, hey, do you want to record with us? And I'm like, I've never done this.

Yes, I love what you do.

But again, they had no money.

Sub Pop's DIY infrastructure played an integral role, too.

Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Poneman printed flyers on their office photocopier, pressed vinyl in small batches, and sold records directly from the warehouse at 1104 North Lake Drive, all without a traditional distribution arm.

When Mudhoney's EP hit shelves, people had to walk out of Seattle just for a single, so the whole scene was built around these grassroots logistics that turned underground into an international network.

Those early operations proved punk could survive on nothing more than a cheap amp, a busted tape machine, and a handful of committed fans.

Yet by the mid-1990s, management disputes and legal entanglements with artists forced the label to wind down and eventually shutter.

Sub Pop’s founding in Seattle was born from two friends, Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Poneman, who pooled a modest budget to press one hundred copies of a local band’s EP.

They kept a strict no major policy, yet cultivated an aesthetic that turned Seattle into the grunge capital.

Their 1991 signing of Nirvana not only catapulted the label, but also illustrated how a DIY indie could pivot into a mainstream juggernaut without diluting its underground ethos.