Bruce Pavitt in Seattle, 1987

Bruce Pavitt was born 1959 in Chicago IL. At the age of nine, he sold X-mas cards door-to-door in the summer heat, earning enough money to buy his first record player, and soon after, his first record (“Revolution” by the Beatles).

A lifelong passion for music brought him to the Evergreen state college in Olympia, WA, in 1979, where he spent time as a DJ at KAOS-FM. Soon after, he started his own zine named SUB POP, which reviewed hard-to-find independent rock recordings.

In 1983 Bruce moved to Seattle, where he started a SUB POP indie music column for the Rocket magazine, hosted a SUB POP radio show on KCMU-FM, DJ’ed at the infamous Metropolis all ages club, as well as the Vogue and Re-Bar.

In 1984, he co-founded Fallout Records, the first indie record store in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood.

In 1986 he launched the SUB POP record label with the release of a compilation album: SUB POP 100, featuring NY’s Sonic Youth and Seattle’s U-Men.

In 1988, along with business partner Jonathan Poneman, Bruce opened the doors to the SUB POP offices at First and Virginia in downtown Seattle. By the early 90′s SUB POP had released recordings by Nirvana, Soundgarden, Mudhoney, Mark Lanegan, Beat Happening, TAD, The Walkabouts, Steven Jessie Bernstein and helped initiate a global interest in Seattle area music.

In 2012, Bruce released a digital photo journal through iTunes entitled, “Experiencing Nirvana: Grunge in Europe, 1989,” detailing his travel experiences with Sub Pop bands in Europe. A hardcopy version of the book is due out on Bazillion Points in September, 2013.

Bruce currently lives in Ashland, Oregon with his family. He keeps engaged in music by periodically speaking at conferences and festivals, consulting with artists and music labels, and as a DJ. A true music fan, Bruce continues to study music history in every genre.