Fadedflannel.com keeps the flame for grunge

After Rick Lambert left Seattle for Washington, D.C., he coped with homesickness by working on a Web site that hailed back to his golden days.

For the past 10 years, he's been piecing together fadedflannel.com, a one-stop shop for grunge music. As the former program director for The End (KNDD-FM), Lambert was a part of the scene that put Seattle on the map, following bands that rose from small clubs to notoriety.

"It was one of the high points of my life," said Lambert, now in his 50s and still loving rock 'n' roll. Lambert worked at The End since its beginning, when it started playing alternative music in 1991. And he was there through 1996, when Viacom sold the station to Entercom.

Lambert had all sorts of grandiose ideas for the grunge site, from a Web radio station to reunion tours. So in the past year, he put in around 250 hours, compiling biographies, photos and merchandise for '80s and '90s Seattle bands — starting with The Accused down to Young Fresh Fellows. Each band has its own page with a complete discography, along with album covers.

Besides culling information from record labels and MySpace, the self-professed pack rat dug through his own files — finding old publicity shots and press releases. Then he spent a lot of time making sure he didn't infringe on any copyrights.

"I've been itchy over the past couple years, not being near the mountains and my favorite kind of music, so every little spare time in the weekends, I'd add a page, and do another band," said Lambert, who now programs a classic alternative channel for XM Satellite Radio in D.C.

Last year, Lambert brought together some old friends to help reconstruct that period for the site. They included The End's old music director Marco Collins, Jon Auer of The Posies, Kim Warnick of the Fastbacks and Jack Endino, who produced Nirvana's first album, "Bleach."

"He's a legend," said Lambert, about Endino. "He's a god in producing bands in Seattle and had his hands in half of the bands on the site."

The site for Lambert is a labor of love, more for passion than profit. Besides the albums, there are all sorts of flannel shirts, linked from Amazon. He chose the company for convenience rather than payoff. (Lambert gets 4 percent of the sales that come through his Web site.) Plus, the homesick Seattleite adds that Amazon is based in his hometown.

In the future, he hopes to add Collins as a columnist to the site. He also wants to add more bands and a chat board.

But one of his favorite features of the site are the Seattle Web cams, linked from various transportation and weather sites. There are photos from downtown Seattle all the way to Sherman Pass, 325 miles out. Lambert looks at the Web cams daily to remind him of home.

He still owns a house in West Seattle and is already planning some camping trips in the mountains during spring.

"I look forward to the day I return ... to hit those trails!"

Marian Liu: 206-464-3825 or mliu@seattletimes.com