Published from 1979 until 2000, The Rocket was a music magazine at the forefront of the Pacific Northwest local music scene and was instrumental in chronicling the birth of the “Seattle Sound,” later known as grunge.
The publication championed groups such as Nirvana, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Screaming Trees, Sleater-Kinney, and Mudhoney at the start of their respective careers.
The Rocket began its life in 1979 as additional content to the Seattle Sun, a weekly alternative paper. It was founded by Sun employees Robert McChesney, Robert Ferrigno, and Bob Newman to provide more coverage of local artists.
A mere seven months later, The Rocket had a large enough readership to go fully independent. McChesney initially assumed the debt incurred from getting the publication off the ground. The Rocket staff members joined McChesney in paying off the debt and forwent higher salaries to ensure the paper’s survival.
All three founders had left the magazine by 1986. That year, contributing writer Charles R. Cross became the paper’s editor. Cross remained the editor of The Rocket until the last issue in 2000.
The Rocket expanded in 1991 with a Portland, Oregon edition of the magazine with concert listings for that city. In 1992, the magazine was successful enough to increase publishing to biweekly.
Cross sold The Rocket to the San Francisco publisher BAM (Bay Area Music) Media while continuing to serve as editor. Despite The Rocket thriving with upwards of 90,000 readers, BAM’s mismanagement had drained funding. The Rocket was forced to shutter in 2000.
Thanks to a partnership between The University of Washington’s Government Publications, Maps, Microforms & Newspapers (GMM) and the Washington State Library, the out-of-print paper has been completely digitized. The project started in 2022 with Cross and went public in 2023. The issues are now accessible at washingtondigitalnewspapers.org.