10 Minute Warning is not a band that is typically mentioned when discussing the history of the Seattle rock in the 1980s and into the ‘90s. While short-lived, they were the band that bridged the transition between Seattle punk/hardcore scene in the early 1980s and the grunge explosion that eventually took the world by storm.Their earliest beginnings started as a name-change for the Fartz, but that was little more than a preliminary transition: Paul Solger and Blaine Cook (from the aforementioned Fartz) joined forces with Duff McKagan (later of Guns ‘n’ Roses) and Greg Gilmore (later of Mother Love Bone) from the 1982 punk band the Living and brought in a new bass player, David Garrigues to flesh out what would become the true first iteration of the band. A few months into 1983, 10 Minute Warning gave Cook the boot and brought in a new singer—Steve Verwolf—to better fit the direction that the band was consciously trying to move toward, a sound that was darker, more innovative and less punk rock.Verwolf was a larger-than-life psychedelic shaman type with the mesmerizing swagger of Jim Morrison, but pulling more from the Motor City than from the sunny vibes of a late- ‘60s Laurel Canyon. He was not the best “singer” per se, but he possessed a imposing charisma that was undeniable. The band was incendiary; They wore the punk DNA of bands like the Stooges, the MC5 and Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers proudly on their sleeves, but also the dark brooding of the Velvet Underground and a dense psychedelia uncharacteristic of punk-based bands in the early 1980s. Indeed, after opening for Black Flag in August of 1983, Henry Rollins referred to 10 Minute Warning as the “punk rock Hawk-wind.”10 Minute Warning was exploring new musical territory in a city still young in its musical evolution. They created a heavy, swirling serpentine assault, equal parts heroin and LSD. Stone Gossard has famously been quoted as saying that it was 10 Minute Warning that inspired him to learn guitar in the first place. It’s hard to imagine what grunge history would look like had Green River not been one of the primary bands in that history. Late in 1983, both McKagan and Garrigues quit 10 Minute Warning and the band decided to continue but would not be looking to replace McKagan. They would find a new bass player and continue as a four-piece instead of a five-piece band.They enlisted Daniel House, whose Pacific Northwest influence would later be cemented as the co founder, primary songwriter and bassist for Skin Yard, a band that was active from 1985–1991. Between March and September of 1984, 10 Minute Warning recorded an album’s worth of material, but as the record was being finished, everything fell apart and the band broke up. The recording however, captured beautifully the moment and the essence of the band in that final iteration.In 2020, over three decades had passed since the album had been recorded, and it had never seen the light of day. So, during the course of the COVID lockdown, producer extraordinaire, Jack Endino painstakingly remixed and mastered the recordings from the original multitrack tapes, and his efforts shine. C/Z Records is effectively being resurrected to release a limited nine-song vinyl edition of these recordings entitled “This Could be Heaven—The lost 1984 recordings.” It’s the first physical release on the label in two decades. The record captures a critical moment in Seattle’s musical history when things were just beginning to shift, but at a juncture when nobody in the Seattle Scene had any idea of the seismic events that were going to change the course of music history forever.
