doing a thing called the crocodile rock

10Sep08

I can’t think of a Seattle venue or club in my lifetime with a more storied and beloved past as the Crocodile. Old-timers will fondly recall places of yesteryear that don’t get nearly the amount of attention — spots like the Ditto, the Metropolis, Gorilla Gardens, and the old Eagles Hippodrome. Those places were, without doubt, key players in the birth of what became commonly known as the Seattle Music Scene.

Or, as we oldies like to cluck, the Grunge Years (TM).

Admittedly, none of those places had the staying power that the Crocodile did, nor did they have the wealth of talent that graced the stage down there on 2nd and Blanchard.

The Croc opened in 1991, which was perfect timing for the venue. Seattle was a very different place then. It doesn’t seem that long ago — I can easily recall the feel of those times, and conjure images of the people, places, and events that made the early ’90’s such a cultural explosion in our fair town.

I didn’t start working at Sub Pop until 1993, and, by then, I was a seasoned regular at the Crocodile. If you had any interest in music, there was no way you could avoid the Croc. And, really, why would you want to? It was Belltown’s rec-room.

The very block the clubs sits on already held a dear spot in my heart, long before it became a bustling hub of nightlife. It was the first place I ever ordered a drink, thanks to a little spot called La Rive Gauche.

Located where Tula’s Jazz Club sits now, La Rive Gauche seemed very exciting and sophisticated to me at the time. They served food, and Italian sodas, and, even though it wasn’t a club, bands would play.

I was in high school when I first started going there with my friend Peter, who later became an Anarchist and changed his name to Pitter Patter. We would sit at a table outside, and smoke clove cigarettes, and wear elaborate outfits, and feel like the entire world was ours. I really felt like I was getting away with murder that day I ordered a pint of Guinness and the waitress didn’t bat an eye.

I was eighteen.

The block still plays host to a restaurant that I have been eating in since I was a teenager — Mama’s Mexican Kitchen, where I have had more Chicken Screamers over the decades than I care to even try to count. Longtime waitress Eileen still serves up plates of cheesy Mexican hangover food, and remembers me from those years so long ago. To this day, she never fails to greet me with a hug.

When my friend Larry Reid started working on a bar located two doors down, I knew we all had a new clubhouse. Mike had known Larry since the ’80’s, and had been instrumental in the formation of the old Buzz Scooter Club. Larry had already been responsible for a plethora of good times — punk rock shows, gallery openings, and drunken madness.

If you ever get the chance to talk to Larry about his days managing the U-Men, take it. The U-Men were the first Seattle band of those times to tour across country, all the way to New York City, and in a pink school bus, no less. The first U-Men show I ever saw took place in a sweaty basement in a giant, glass-sided house by Northgate Mall.

I was fifteen, and it was amazing.

A few years later, the U-Men gave me, and a whole bunch of other folks, one of the top rock and roll moments of all time when they set the moat on fire at the Mural Amphitheatre during Bumbershoot. As incredible as that was, the backstory is just as good. If you can get Larry to tell you about the practice run, which took place in the bathroom of a Capitol Hill apartment, you will not regret it.

That dude can really tell a story.

The Center Of Contemporary Art (COCA) has never been better than when Larry ran it, and their opening parties are legendary. Bands would play, beer would spill, and every weirdo in town would come out for a night of debauchery.

I will never forget seeing a woman at the Modern Primitives show, her bare back displaying a serpentine pattern of little hypodermic needles piercing her skin, all neatly aligned and looking like a zipper gone mad.

The Lava Lounge took over the spot that formerly housed Hawaii West, one of the sketchiest bars I’ve ever been in. There was still a slew of good old dives going strong in those days, particularly in Belltown. The Frontier Room was a favorite haunt, even though Nina yelled at me on my 21st birthday. I had been going there for awhile by then, with a fake I.D., and she was not pleased to learn that I was finally legal that day in May.

She still bought me a drink, though.

The Rendezvous was always a freak show, filled with toothless degenerates and booze bags slumped over their rocks glasses of swill. Its most famous bartender, Dodi, didn’t take any shit from anyone, and I often would wish that she secretly had a knife tucked into her magnificent beehive hairdo.

My favorite story from that joint is one that still makes my stomach churn when I think of it. Young Danny Ryan was bellied up to the bar with Javad, already half in the bag from band practice. After a couple of rounds, Javad excused himself for a little relief in the men’s room.

The bathrooms there were toxic, and it wasn’t uncommon to find a desperate couple having sex in the ladies, or a haggard junkie shooting up in a stall. As Javad stood there at the urinal, he glanced over at the filled-to-the-rim trash can. There, on the top of all sorts of poisonous garbage, was a filthy, soiled, stinking diaper.

“Jesus, you should see the diaper in the men’s room,” Javad reported, upon his return to the dark bar. “That thing is fully loaded. What is that baby eating, and who the hell would bring a kid into this dump?”

Dan stared at him for a minute, took a sip of his whiskey, and broke the bad news to his buddy.

“Dude. That’s not from a baby. They don’t allow kids in here.”

I think it is safe to say that the image of a grown man’s discarded diaper, in a bar that he regularly drank at, scarred Javad for life.

So, yeah, the neighborhood had already won my heart by the time the Crocodile opened its doors and started stamping my wrist. I could seriously write for days about the times we had, and I still wouldn’t be finished. To be in your 20’s in those years was magic. Things were always happening, and the easy economics of the city were conducive to good music, good art, and good times.

It is impossible for me to compile a list of bands I saw at the Crocodile. My memory isn’t strong enough, and there are just too many to recall. A bunch stand out, of course, notable for their performance, or the funny times associated with the night.

Supergrass is still one of my favorites, and not just because they were such fun boys. Gas Huffer always murdered it, it was a mistake to miss Mudhoney, and the Supersuckers never failed to knock it out of the park.

Seeing R.E.M. there reminded me why I had loved that band so much to begin with, and anyone that attended one of the three consecutive nights of Cheap Trick will agree that they still rocked. The White Stripes blew my mind, as always, and I will forever carry the Murder City Devils shows in my heart. There’s a recording of an early Band of Horses performance where you can hear me laughing between songs, thanks to the fine sound prowess of Phil Ek.

And, of course, Thee Headcoats.

Thee Headcoats hardly ever played, so anticipation was high that summer. It was the Friday before SeaFair Sunday, a fact I remember only because of the unfortunate position I ended up in.

I had a busy day at the Terminal Sales Building, and decided to just work late and head over to the Croc afterward. Billy Childish and I had a good working relationship going at the time, and had become friendly over the phone. I could hardly wait to see him perform with one of my all-time favorite bands to ever release a record on Sub Pop.

I had grabbed a late lunch from a deli on First Avenue, a deli that is blessedly no longer there. It was a snooty, high end sandwich joint, and the turkey and havarti number they served me ended up being my downfall.

I was feeling queasy by the time I arrived at the club, and thought that, perhaps, a cold bottle of Budweiser would calm me down. The place was packed to the rafters, no doubt oversold, and stifling hot. Feeling dizzy, I sat down in the lounge and took a sip of my beer.

Within minutes, I was hurrying to the bathroom, where a giant line snaked out the door. My stomach rumbled and my legs felt shaky. I tried to politely get to the front of the line, telling the girls before me that I was going to be sick. Some total bitch started in with a lecture about drinking too much, and refused to budge.

Just as I started to protest, weakly, that I hadn’t even had a beer yet, my self-control gave out. Right there, in the middle of the ladies bathroom, I started violently puking. It was horrifying. I felt like I was going to faint, as a kind-hearted stranger gently led me to a sink. I turned that bathroom into a vomitorium, and I felt bad about it for years.

I did not feel bad that the mean girl was splattered with the remains of that lethal sandwich.

Even though I felt like I was going to die, I stayed for Thee Headcoats. Come on. Like I’m gonna miss that. It was a great show, even though it almost killed me. All weekend long, the Blue Angels buzzed our apartment on Queen Anne while I tried to shake off the worst case of food poisoning I’ve ever had.

I met Marcus Charles almost ten years ago, and we’ve worked on a lot of things together over the years. We really hit our stride when I was working for Miller, and started hosting the VIP Lounge at the Capitol Hill Block Party. As one of the event’s producers, Marcus has spent a huge amount of time trying to make that summer event great.

It has worked.

We started talking about the Crocodile a few months ago, when plans were heating up for the reincarnation of the space. It’s been a work in progress, this project to reopen the club, and I was happy when he approached me about getting involved. We just needed to figure out how to make it happen, and what I wanted to do.

After a lot of good ideas, and some pretty great offers, we settled on a role I am really comfortable with. You see, as much as I love a good rock club, and as much as I support the new venue, I don’t want to run it. I had enough of that with Chop Suey. A live music venue takes a huge amount of dedication, and is most definitely a labor of love.

I will always love rock and roll, but I can’t be married to it. I’ve got a bunch of other stuff going on.

We finally came to a good conclusion: I will be handling all of the PR for the Crocodile, along with some other super fun stuff. It’s a pretty good pairing, I think, and I am really excited about the project. The ink had not even dried on our deal yesterday when the first call of the day had to be returned.

Hannah Levin has got a nose for news, and she sniffed out the story in quick order. By early afternoon, the phone lines were going bonkers and the internet was abuzz with the news: the Crocodile is reopening. The pole is going away. Jim is back behind the sound board. All is right with the world.

And that photo of Kurt, the one that Bruce had me make copies of for that night so long ago, when the Sub Pop 6th Anniversary Party had the misfortune to land a day after his lifeless body had been found?

The photo that I had spent much of the morning working on, tracking down Alice Wheeler, getting copies of it and others made, so we could somehow, some way, acknowledge the friend that so many had lost?

It has hung above the bar since that April night in 1994. It is still there. I am going to keep it, if I can.

All of these photos are courtesy of Invisible Hour, and you can find the full set here.

There is a bunch of stuff online about the club’s reopening, if you are interested. Hannah had the hot dirt at the Weekly first, and Gene Stout at the P-I dished up one of the day’s most comprehensive pieces:

Seattle Weekly
Seattle Times
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
The Stranger
Seattle Met Blogs
Three Imaginary Girls

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