The life of Olympia band Mocket was perhaps too short; the band self-destructed during tour duties for their last album, 1999’s Pro Forma. On the other hand, perhaps they got out just in time; it wouldn’t be long before the rest of the Olympia scene, best represented by regional labels like Kill Rock Stars and K, started to scatter to the four winds, leaving a ghost of its former self. But back to the beginning.

It’s hard to say whether Mocket started first, or if Matt Steinke’s other project, Satisfact, was the real beginning; I’ve seen both described as “side projects,” another occupational hazard of playing music in the Pacific Northwest around that time. Evidence suggests that Mocket was Steinke’s main concern, though. In any case, Mocket began life as a hard-charging yet completely harmless post-punk band, with Audrey Marrs providing riot-grrl vocals and the keyboard to Steinke’s guitar and deadpan voice. You can hear the similarities to Satisfact on their second release, Fanfare, though Mocket’s modus operandi sacrificed nuance and variety for a concise, almost clinical approach to rocking out; where Satisfact’s first release is a bit meandering and experimental, Fanfare hits its target with every track. Perhaps it’s the dueling vocals of Steinke and Marrs, each with their own take on the irony-laden punk deadpan singing style. Or maybe it’s just that the songs are better, free of the slow tempos and experimental wankery that occasionally marred Satisfact’s work. In any case, Mocket had fashioned a pretty respectable album that, in the grand Olympia tradition, went unheard outside the Pacific Northwest.

1999’s Pro Forma changed a couple of things. While Marrs and Steinke stayed on, the rest of the band (Carolyn Rue and Danny Sasaki) disappeared, replaced by members of the Need. The sound changed, too; while Satisfact continued to play with electronic sounds, Mocket went even further and became a snarling punk electronica outfit. Around the same time, Kathleen Hanna started playing with Casios and released a one-off album under the name of Julie Ruin, work that would eventually lead to Hanna’s second coming in the form of Le Tigre. Maybe if Mocket had stuck around, their buzzsaw guitars and noisy electronics would’ve made it big as well; hell, they already had the toneless ironic vocals down. But something happened at the turn of the century; by 2000, the band had split company. The semi-official word from Marrs, on the Kill Rock Stars site: “matt’s turned into a robot so we can no longer communicate.” The Stranger, a Seattle alternative weekly, had a different take: during the band’s tour in Europe, Steinke quit the band suddenly over a parking ticket that threatened to decimate their already-thin touring budget, leaving Marr to pick up the pieces (including an irate French promoter, who threatened to “smash your face if don’t pay”).

Since then, Marrs has played with a bunch of local bands, most notably touring and recording with Bratmobile in 2002. Steinke kept up his third, even more experimental project, Octant, with girlfriend Tassy Zimmerman until 2000’s Car Alarms and Crickets. Then the couple packed up their bags and left for the midwest. No one involved seems to have given any thought to Mocket or Satisfact ever since, though Octant may one day resurface in Chicago. A slice of Olympia history, then, to be dug up and pondered occasionally before being buried again for someone else to discover.