Charles R. Cross (1957-2024): Seattle Music Writer and Art House Film Aficionado

Charles R. Cross, known informally as Charley, passed away peacefully, if unexpectedly, on Friday, August 9. Like many people, I found out on Sunday when Jim Emerson, a colleague from Charley's days at the UW Daily and The Rocket, posted the news on Facebook. It would be confirmed later that day by Charley's agent.

Here is an extended version of a remembrance I sent to Chase Hutchinson, when he reached out to me about Charley that evening for his Seattle Times obituary. Charley was also a contributor to the Times and to Crosscut, which was part of Cascade Public Media (formerly KCTS 9), where I've worked since 2008. 

Chase, a fellow Seattle Film Critics Society board member, knew I was friendly with Charley, because I had invited him to join me and a few other board members for a get-together at Saint John's last December, and that's when I introduced the two. I was on my way to an SFCS-sponsored Fantasy A Gets a Mattress screening at the Egyptian, and Charley was on his way to a launch party for a new book about Estrus Records at Fantagraphics.

Knowing I didn't drive, he said he would be happy to give me a ride, and it was on his way, so a win-win. In retrospect, I wish I'd accompanied him to the Estrus event--though I enjoyed Fantasy A--since I worked with Estrus founder Dave Crider at Cellophane Square in the late-1980s. In any case, Charley had time to kill, so I thought it would be fun to introduce someone I knew as a film fan--and not just a music writer--to some film writers. He later thanked me for introducing him to my "equally smart friends."

I first became aware of Charley when I was a student at Whitman College in Walla Walla. I visited Seattle whenever I could, where I discovered The Rocket, which he edited and for which he wrote--and wrote well. 

Over the years, I would meet, and in some cases, befriend several Rocket writers, even though I never contributed myself. I met Jeff Gilbert (host of metal show "Brain Pain") and Glen Boyd (co-host of hiphop show "Rap Attack") through KCMU, future No Depression writer Peter Blackstock through fellow Cellophaner Kels Koch, and Gillian Gaar, also known as The Rocket's Johnny Renton, though mutual friends, in addition to her Seattle International Film Festival coverage (over the years, we would also write for some of the same websites, including this one). I met Jim Emerson, one of the nation's finest film writers, through other mutuals. Fine writers all and, in some cases, fine broadcasters, too.

The Rocket was one of the country's premiere alt-weeklies. It held its own with the more widely celebrated Village Voice--most recently chronicled in Tricia Romano's great oral history--and had an outsized influence on my taste in music and film. After I graduated, I returned to Anchorage to work for a year to pay off some debt and earn enough money to move to Seattle. 

All the while, I subscribed to The Rocket, so I would know what was going on in the city. That was how I became aware of Green River, the progenitor to Mudhoney and Pearl Jam, and other grunge and proto-grunge bands. I was already aware of pop bands, like the Young Fresh Fellows and Pure Joy, through my radio show at Whitman station KWCW, which had a selection of independent--mostly Popllama--records from the Pacific Northwest.

A few years later, once I had secured a job at Cellophane, Charley would often stop by to chat with manager Hugh Jones, with whom I worked at the University District store from 1989-1992. Hugh, publisher of the Led Zeppelin fanzine Proximity, would collaborate with Charley, as a researcher, for a now-collectible 1991 book about the band. I knew who Charley was, and I was a little intimidated, so I don't recall that we exchanged many words at the time, and to be frank, Charley had a cool demeanor. It always felt as if he was more warm and friendly, with me at least, through his writing. In 2021, he interviewed me for this Crosscut article about Cellophane vs. the "fresh and glossy" new Sub Pop store.  

All the while I was working at Cellophane on the Ave, after a year at the Bellevue Mall store, I was music director at KCMU (now KEXP), which he surely knew, since he would mention the station often in his writing, including in his acclaimed 2001 Kurt Cobain biography, Heavier Than Heaven, in which he recounts the time Kurt brought a demo tape to the station, returned to his car, and turned on the radio, expecting whoever was on the air at the time to play it right away. They didn't, of course, but Nirvana would end up getting a lot of play at the station--they still do--and Charley wrote that Kurt was thrilled the first time he heard his band, his voice, on KCMU. It was a dream come true for the kid from Aberdeen. 

I would love to say I had something to do with it, but Nirvana premiered on Audioasis, the local music show. If I'm not mistaken, Scotty Vanderpool was host at the time, so props to Scotty, a musician himself, for recognizing talent when he heard it. (When I first arrived at the station in 1988, Scotty co-hosted with Jonathan Poneman, who left when Sub Pop took off.)

The first substantial conversation I ever had with Charley was at the reopening party for the Crocodile in 2009 after a remodel (the venue has since moved four blocks away). It was a chance to chat, off the record, about his work. I'm pretty sure writer and publicist Chris Estey, a great connector of like-minded human beings, officially introduced us. 

I had a lot of questions, and Charley was very forthcoming. I think he figured out pretty quickly that I was, by this point, just as invested in film as music, and one of the things we talked about was the optioning of Heavier Than Heaven. At the time, it looked like Game of Thrones co-creator David Benioff would be working on an adaptation for Universal, but it never came to pass. Later, in a Facebook chat, he said it was up to Courtney Love, and not him, as to what happens with the book. He didn't seem too stressed--and I'm sure he got paid for the option.

More recently, we talked about actor and Sleater-Kinney member Carrie Brownstein's upcoming biopic about Heart, an adaptation of his 2012 biography, Kicking and Dreaming: A Story of Heart, Soul, and Rock and Roll. I regret that he won't get the chance to see what she does with it, and possibly even to serve as a consultant, if there was interest on his part.

Clearly, Hollywood was aware of Charley's work, and vice versa. I remember running into him after a preview screening of John Ridley's 2013 Jimi Hendrix biopic, All Is By My Side, and he was absolutely livid. In addition to Nirvana and Heart, Charley had written a bestselling 2005 biography, Hendrix, Room Full of Mirrors: A Biography of Jimi Hendrix, and he was justifiably upset that Jimi (played by André Benjamin) was depicted as a domestic abuser. Charley, known far and wide for his thorough research, insisted there was no evidence of such a thing. Though Ridley has done fine work over the years, particularly as a screenwriter, I'm inclined to side with Charley, who surely spoke with everyone about Jimi he possibly could.

I reconnected with him in more recent years over a shared love of film. In checking my Facebook messages--he was a steady presence there--I see that he first reached out through Messenger in 2017, some time after I had attended The Rocket's 25th anniversary bash at Jeff Gilbert's Feedback Lounge in West Seattle. 

A regular correspondence ensued. Around that time, his son, Ashland, started to follow me on Twitter (now X), though I'm not certain if there was any connection. I mentioned it to Charley, who was an infrequent presence on the platform, both before and after  Elon Musk, but he said it wasn't really his thing. As of this writing, I haven't met Ashland, who Charley mentioned often, always enthusiastically. He was truly devoted to that kid.

Charley was a social animal, and in reading through the remembrances of friends, it's clear that I was one of dozens of people he chatted with often, whether in-person, online, or both. He was always quick to reach out if he saw or heard anything he thought might interest me, or that I might not know about, quickly adding, "You probably already saw this, but..."

Like many music writers I've known, I suspect Charley was always interested in film, purely as a fan, but it seemed to me it had really become a passion. He would often message me about some film or film-related event, asking what I thought, and he would engage with most anything I posted about film to Facebook. Charley was a dedicated supporter of the Seattle International Film Festival, and he was also good friends with programmer Greg Olson, and attended as many of his film series as possible, first at the Seattle Art Museum and more recently at SIFF. 

Seeing a Fellini film on the big screen was Charley's idea of heaven. He once estimated that he had seen 8 1/2 10 times. Like Charley, I appreciated Olson's film programming at SAM, which included appearances from such cinematic legends as John Woo, Werner Herzog, and Claire Denis. The late filmmaker Lynn Shelton often cited Denis's 2002 appearance at SAM with Friday Night for inspiring her to make the move from shorts to features. 

More recently, I had secured extra passes, through my work, to last year's Noir City series at the Egyptian. Charley was quick to take them from my hands--he was also the recipient of the hefty box set I received from Netflix last year in support of Bradley Cooper's Maestro (and wasn't exactly bowled over by the film).

Though he was interested in new films, Charley was mostly a classic film buff. As author and former Stranger editor David Schmader wrote on Facebook, he was "a totally approachable figurehead, an inexhaustible fan of the work of others, and an invaluable writer and editor." Added David: "Also, an A+ conversationalist, who once met me at a Queen Anne coffeehouse for an hour-long discussion of our mutual love for Joan Blondell." 

In looking through our Facebook chats and text messages, I found threads about Howard Hawks, Éric Rohmer, Agnès Varda, Jane Campion, Wong Kar-wai, Kelly Reichardt, Todd Haynes, Terrence Malick, Alfred Hitchcock, and Japanese noir (A Colt Is My Passport knocked him out). About Hitch's Rope, he wrote, "Do yourself a favor: Never Google 'rope screening seattle' as you will get stuff you can't unsee," adding, "I'm sure I've seen more of his films than any other director." He felt they were perfect for family viewing when Ashland was a teenager. About Reichardt, he enthused, "Kelly's my favorite Northwest filmmaker." He was also fond of Lynn Shelton, both as a person and as a filmmaker. As he noted, during the height of the pandemic, "Movies are the only thing that have kept me going in this time (and music)."

Last summer, he even introduced a screening of the Coen brothers' The Big Lebowski at the Egyptian. I wouldn't say he was nervous, but he really wanted it to be good. It isn't exactly a music film, but I'm sorry I missed his introduction, because it gave him the chance to talk about Jeff Dowd--the inspiration behind Jeff Bridges' robe-sporting character the Dude--and his connection to Seattle. So many "if only's..."

All that said, the only film Charley and I ever saw together was Greta Gerwig's 2023 Barbie, which we both enjoyed. "You always have the best taste," he said in a message from 2022. I was flattered and humbled, and I'll miss chatting with him about music and film. And everything else, really. 

I'll also miss Charley for his big heart, and for his concern for others. He was always sympathetic whenever something wasn't going right in my life--though I tried to keep complaints to a minimum--and even offered to help if needed. I never took him up on the offer. His sudden, shocking passing is a huge loss for his many friends, for the Pacific Northwest as a whole--​a region he knew intimately and loved dearly--​​and for anyone who loves music, film, literature, and life even half as much as he did. 

Images: 1) Charley's Facebook ("I shot my own senior photo in black and white"), 2) A favorite Rocket cover from the archives (Charles Burns, Jan 1, 1983), 3) Internet Archive (Led Zeppelin: Heaven and Hell, Harmony Books, 1991), 4) Charley's Facebook ("I still think one of the best covers we ever did at The Rocket was shooting Mudhoney in our 'Nevermind' parody in March 1992), 5) Amazon (Room Full of Mirrors: A Biography of Jimi Hendrix, Hachette paperback, 2006), 6) The Criterion Collection (8 1/2, Federico Fellini, 1963), 7) Rio Theater (Jeff Bridges in The Big Lebowski, Joel and Ethan Coen, 1998), and 8) Charley's Facebook (father and son, Mar 1, 2024).