The Rocket exhibit: The Rocket Staff: Writers & Editors

Ann Powers currently works as NPR’s music critic and correspondent, having been there since 2011. Previously, Powers worked as a chief pop critic for the Los Angeles Times, a pop critic for The New York Times, a senior editor at Village Voice, and editor and columnist at the San Francisco Weekly. Powers was also a senior curator at the Experience Music Project in Seattle, which later became the Museum of Pop Culture.

Having grown up in Seattle, Powers stayed close to home for one of her first writing jobs at the The Daily newspaper at the University of Washington in the 1980s. Shortly after, Powers started writing for The Rocket, her first professional writing job. During her time at The Rocket, Powers covered bands in the pre-grunge era, such as the Cowboys, the Heats, and the Girls.

Outside of The Rocket, Powers earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in creative writing from San Francisco State University before receiving her Master of Arts degree from the University of California, Berkeley. Throughout her post-graduate career, Powers has focused her writing on the roles of gender and race in pop music. She has written numerous books such as Good Booty: Love and Sex, Black and White, Body and Soul in American Music, and, most recently, Traveling: On the Path of Joni Mitchell.

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Charles R. Cross, long-time editor-in-chief and owner of The Rocket, wrote non-fiction. He was a journalist and biographer who would playfully tell his family that he wished he could write fiction. He seemed to feel that he would really be someone if he wrote fiction.

Cross died of natural causes in his home in Shoreline, Washington on August 9, 2024. The tributes published in the wake of his death show that he truly was someone whose generosity of spirit and time, as a father, friend, mentor, collaborator, journalist, writer, and editor stretched far beyond his beloved Pacific Northwest.

Cross grew up in Pullman, WA and moved to Seattle to attend the University of Washington. Cross gave up his dream to be an architect when he was told on his first day of freshman year that two years of science classes were required. Later that day, he “walked into The Daily, and my life was changed.” He was an editor at his high school newspaper “and caused a bunch of hell there. But the day I walked into The Daily, I got a new worldview” (UW Magazine, June 2024).

While Cross’ journalism professors taught traditional reporting—focusing on who, what, when, where, and why—Cross leaned into New Journalism which combined news gathering with techniques of fiction writing to tell stories about real-life events. “The writer, at times, was part of the story” Cross told UW Magazine.

Cross carried this over to The Rocket, where everyone was encouraged to incorporate their own voice, their own point of view, into their work.

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Craig Tomashoff is an American producer and writer who worked at The Rocket as a contributing writer. Tomashoff is known for his work on television shows such as Behind the Music, The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn, and The Queen Latifah Show.

After graduating from the University of Washington with degrees in media studies and communications, Tomashoff pursued a career in journalism. Tomashoff now has over 20 years of journalistic experience, writing for publications such as The Hollywood Reporter, Los Angeles Times, Magazine, and The New York Times. Tomashoff has also written multiple books like The Can't-idates: Running For President When Nobody Knows Your Name (2015).

Besides writing, Tomashoff has also worked as an executive editor for TV Guide Magazine and as an associate bureau chief for People Magazine. Tomashoff is currently a senior producer on The Kelly Clarkson Show.

Dennis Eichhorn attended the University of Idaho on a football scholarship and edited the school’s comic The Moscow Duck Review. In the 1980s after graduating and moving to Seattle, Eichhorn joined The Rocket as a senior editor and writer.

At The Rocket, Eichhorn wrote about counterculture figures such as Hunter S. Thompson and Abbie Hoffman. Besides his writing, Eichhorn was also known for telling incredible stories about his life and childhood struggles with substance abuse. While working at the paper, Eichhorn met people who wanted to create comic strips about those stories. In 1990, this led to the publication of Eichhorn’s autobiographical comic book series Real Stuff by Fantagraphics Books.

Real Stuff was illustrated by cartoonists such as Peter Bagge, Michael Dougan, Julie Doucet, and Mary Fleener, some of whom also illustrated for The Rocket. In the mid-1990s, Real Stuff ended when Eichhorn fell out with Fantagraphics. After, Eichhorn self-financed more comic books and reprint collections of his work. In 2015, Eichhorn passed away from pneumonia.

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Gillian G. Gaar is a Seattle-based author and writer specializing in music, entertainment, and travel. She has written 15 books including She’s a Rebel: The History of Women in Rock & Roll (2002), Entertain Us: The Rise of Nirvana (2012), Return of the King: Elvis Presley’s Great Comeback (2010), and World Domination: The Sub Pop Records Story (2018). During her time at The Rocket, Gaar was a writer and editor.

Gaar has written for publications including Mojo, Rolling Stone, and Goldmine. Gaar was also a project consultant and liner note writer for Nirvana’s box set “With the Lights Out” and has written liner notes for collections by Pat Benatar, Paula Cole, Judy Collins, and Laurie Anderson.

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American writer Grant Alden is best known for co-founding the “alternative country bimonthly” music magazine No Depression in 1995. Before No Depression, Alden attended the University of Washington where he wrote for the The Daily. After graduating, Alden worked for The Rocket as a writer and editor.

Alden was No Depression’s co-editor and art director until the magazine’s end in 2008. The publication was named one of the “50 Best Magazines in Print” by the Chicago Tribune. Although No Depression is no longer published in print, it is currently active online.

Alden has also written for Rolling Stone magazine and Raygun Publishing. Currently, Alden is an author, art director, and creative director for Note Oppression Industries, which is his umbrella company for his freelance work.

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Born in Seattle, Jim Emerson is a Seattle-based writer and film critic who has written for publications such as The Seattle Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Sun-Times, Amazon.com, and Film Comment.

After graduating from the University of Washington, Emerson joined The Rocket staff as a writer who primarily wrote film reviews. After The Rocket, Emerson became a film critic for The Orange County Register.

Emerson has a background in comedy, having worked as a member of the improvisation group The Groundlings and as a guest writer for Saturday Night Live. While with The Groundlings, Emerson met actors Julia Sweeney and Stephen Hibbert. The three coauthored the play “Mea’s Big Apology” as well as the screenplay for “It’s Pat: The Movie” based on Sweeney’s SNL character. Besides writing, Emerson was a programmer/director of the Seattle International Film Festival and a founding editor-in-chief of RogerEbert.com, the website of renowned American film critic Roger Ebert.

Growing up in Seward Park in Seattle, John Keister went to Franklin High School along with fellow Rocket alum Lynda Barry. Keister attended the University of Washington where he wrote for the student newspaper, The Daily, and graduated with a degree in communications.

Keister joined The Rocket staff in 1979 and described the experience as “a few years interviewing comatose rockstars backstage.” He wrote for the magazine through 1985, served as senior co-editor with Charles Cross in 1984, produced “The Rocket Report” for King-TV’s REV as a music reviewer, then moved to Almost Live!, a local comedy program where he performed sketches and interviewed celebrities. Keister became the host in 1988 and won twelve local Emmy Awards. After Almost Live! ended in 1999, Keister wrote for various television series such as Eyes of Nye, Bizkid$, and his own comedy show The 206. Keister performed standup comedy for years culminating with his last show, “Living and Dying in Seattle” at Benaroya Hall in September 2017.

At The Rocket, Keister wrote the popular “Lip Service” column under the pseudonym Johnny Renton, as a “Confidential Reporter.” He also penned many articles under his own name featuring musicians, highlighting music venues, and many a critique including “Who’s Killing Seattle Rock And Roll?” in which he asked “Who’s responsible for the sorry state of local music?”

Peter Blecha is a historian, musician, curator, author, and essayist primarily known for his research related to the music history of the Pacific Northwest. Blecha was raised in Beacon Hill in Seattle and attended the University of Washington where he graduated with degrees in art and art history. Blecha formed the Northwest Music Archives in 1982 as an “independent historical preservation project” to document record labels in the Pacific Northwest.

A year later, Blecha began writing the “Northwest Archives” history column in The Rocket, educating readers about the history of music and the recording industry in the PNW. After his time at The Rocket, Blecha served for about eight years as a senior curator at the Experience Music Project (known today as the Museum of Pop Culture/MoPop). In 2000, Blecha created three inaugural exhibits for the MoPop’s grand opening, including an exhibit centered on Jimi Hendrix.

Blecha has written and published multiple books, his most recent being Stomp and Shout: R&B and the Origins of Northwest Rock and Roll (2023). He has also written feature essays for publications such as The Seattle Times, Seattle Weekly, No Depression, Seattle Magazine, Life, and Seattle Metropolitan. Since 2001, Blecha has served as a Staff Historian and Contributing Editor for the website HistoryLink.org, an online encyclopedia of Washington State history.

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Originally from Seattle, Washington, Sharon Knolle is a Los Angeles-based entertainment journalist. With over 20 years of experience, Knolle has written for publications such as IMDb, USA Today, Variety, US Weekly, Entertainment Weekly, PBS, and the Sundance Institute.

Knolle knew she wanted to write for The Rocket after graduating from the University of Washington. She wrote a concert review that then-editor Charles Cross liked enough to invite her to join the staff. During her time at The Rocket, Knolle wrote music and film reviews, including a review of Pure Joy’s Carnivore LP that angered some readers of the paper who believed Knolle was accusing Pure Joy of trying to copy Nirvana.

Currently, Knolle is an award-winning television reporter for TheWrap.

Robert Ferrigno is an author who wrote the first issue of The Rocket and served as the publication’s first editor-in-chief. After studying philosophy, film-making, and creative writing in college, Ferrigno began working as an art editor at the Seattle Sun newspaper. Ferrigno and his colleague Robert Newman were frustrated that the editor refused to cover Seattle’s new emerging music scene. In 1979, Ferrigno and Newman started The Rocket as a supplement to the Sun, but separated from the Sun in 1980.

Building on his success at The Rocket, Ferrigno became a feature writer at The Orange County Register but left to pursue a career writing crime and thriller novels. He wrote his first novel The Horse Latitudes, in 1991 and has written 13 novels since, including the acclaimed Assassin trilogy.

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Robert W. McChesney is currently a research professor at the University of Illinois. His work focuses on the political economy and history of communication, emphasizing the role of media in democratic and capitalist societies. McChesney graduated from Evergreen State College with degrees in political economy and history, then went on to earn his Ph.D in communications from the University of Washington.

In 1979, McChesney helped Robert Ferrigno and Robert Newman raise enough money to separate The Rocket from the Seattle Sun, an alternative newspaper that initially published The Rocket as a supplement. After serving as the paper’s first publisher, McChesney left The Rocket in 1983.

McChesney has written and edited many books, including the award-winning Telecommunications, Mass Media, and Democracy: The Battle for the Control of U.S. Broadcasting (1993). He has also written for numerous publications and served on the editorial boards for several journals. From 2002 to 2012, McChesney hosted the “Media Matters” radio program every Sunday on WILL-AM radio.

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