I recently wrote about island son Jonathan Evison’s fast rise in the Northwest literary world. See my story here for more on Evison winning the Washington State Book Award last month and the couple decades he spent skateboarding, earning poor grades and working some pretty odd odd jobs (i.e. “road kill cutter-upper”).

In the story, I mentioned in passing that one of his “jobs” was as singer/screamer of the pre-grunge band March of Crimes. The band is noted in several histories of the grunge genre as a launch pad for the likes of fellow islander Ben Shepherd, who went on to play bass for Soundgarden, and Stone Gossard, who remains a guitarist for Pearl Jam.

“I kicked Stoney out of the band,” Evison said with a tinge of pride when I interviewed him late last month.

March of Crimes’ songs were simple and fast. Gossard, according to Evison, was a fan of layered guitar-work and the complicated fret-board stylings popular with heavy metal bands. Basically, Gossard was too skilled for the March of Crimes, Evison said.

The band, which lasted for about three years in the early to mid-1980s, never scored a record deal, but strong showings in Seattle’s underground clubs left a mark on a music scene that would take over MTV and Top-40 radio in the early 1990s.

To hear Evison belt out “Soup Line” back in the 80s, click the March of Crimes Myspace page, here.