The Glamour & The Squalor: 10th Anniversary
December 4, 2025
Seattle DJ Marco Collins stars in this unflinching documentary about media fame and addiction, which tracks his rise, fall, and resurrection as an influential promoter of grunge, alternative rock, and electronic dance music. One-night-only 10th anniversary screening.
Filmmakers, subject Marco Collins, and very special guests scheduled to attend.
The Glamour & The Squalor provides an apt title for this unflinching profile of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame disc jockey Marco Collins, who became a radio star in the 1990s and battled drug addiction in the 2000s (the film’s title comes from a show he did on San Diego's 91X). Collins served as the inaugural music director at Seattle's commercial alternative station, 107.7 The End, and helped to break world-renowned acts like Nirvana and Beck. In the film, he travels back to Southern California, where his lack of interest in sports attracted bullying from classmates and disappointment from his father, a narrow-minded policeman, but where he found punk rock, which led him to radio. In 1991, he found his way to the Seattle radio station KNDD just as grunge was starting to rise to the surface. Mike McCready (Pearl Jam), Ben Gibbard (Death Cab for Cutie), and numerous others credit him for getting the word out about their bands. He was also gay at a time when the music scene wasn't quite as accepting. After leaving The End, Marco plunged into a less glamorous world of odd jobs, stints in rehab, and profound losses. In this stirring portrait, he emerges bloodied but not unbowed.
- Director: Marq Evans
- Country: USA
- Year: 2015
- Running Time: 80 min.
- Producer: Marq Evans, Andy Mininger, Michelle Quisenberry, Jennifer Reibman
- Screenplay: Marq Evans, Jeff Gilbert
- Cinematographers: Tadd Sackville-West
- Editors: Jeff Gilbert
- Music: Mike McCready
- Language: English