Crocodile Cafe

It’s a shame this place closed down… Great place for indie music.

Bummer. Three days after learning that The Man is constructing a four star hotel across the street from Hattie’s Hat, rumors abound that the best rock club in Seattle is closing. Boo two.

P.S. In totally unrelated news, soft-rock songster Dan Fogelberg died. Clearly, the end is nigh.

I’ve been keeping up with Miho Hatori’s work and collaborations since the breakup of Cibo Matto, so bought tickets right away when I heard that she was coming to Seattle.

She did not disappoint. She played a great show, and it was neat to take a peak inside her thought process.

There is a whole area in the back! There is a bar, it’s loungey and pretty chill. Somehow the first time I went here I missed it completely. Maybe it was closed off.

After the Showbox, the Croc is my next favorite live music venue. Best of all, whenever Mike Watt is in town he plays here. One of the best shows of my life was seeing Watt and the Black Gang Crew a few years back with Joe Baiza (Saccharine Trust, Universal Congress Of) on guitar. The sheer joy on that man’s face when he plays is truly inspiring!

Unfortunately, I can’t really recommend the Reuben sandwich served here. Last one I tried to eat tasted a little fishy…

The Croc is one of my favorite places to see a show – it’s a small space (about 500 max) with a good bar and a creative booker (I’ve seen everything from gypsy punk to swing or hard rock here). They have a fantastic brunch too, with a selection of great scrambles, numerous variations on eggs benedict, and a strong tall $5 mimosa.

Tapes ‘n Tapes put on a great show last night at the Croc, an evening that provided a many faceted lens through which to reflect on my life, the history of music, and the trouble with kids today.

Despite my desire to acquire the habits and attitudes of a grumpy old man, not all these reflections are on things that have changed for the worse. As I was regaling Erik and Maggie in the back bar at the show, when I was a kid, the ladies didn’t use to come out for the punk rock shows. Now-a-days, the ladies fill up the Croc for a show like Tapes ‘n Tapes. Go figure. This is just one of the observations I had. Not profound, but not indisputable apparently.

I say not indisputable because upon saying this, Erik informed me that Tapes ‘n Tapes aren’t punk. This led in to a wide ranging reflection on the history of music in general, and the specific cultural history of a venue like the Crocodile in birthing what the kids today like to call “indie rock” but which simply didn’t exist 16 years ago. In 1990, 2 years after Soundgarden released their third record (their 2nd full LP, and their first on a major label), when Milli Vanilli won the Grammy for Best new artist and Bonnie Raitt, Don Henley, and the Traveling Willburys were pulling down “Best Rock Grammies” in what must have been some sort of high water mark for boomer domination of the culture, and the year before they added an “alternative category” (duly won by REM & Sinead O’Connor in the first 2 years), the Crocodile was a mostly local and mostly punk club. No one in town would have called it grunge or alternative, at least that I recall. That was also the year my brother turned 21, which also meant his ID turned 21, and I could start seeing shows in clubs. Yep, switching back to my old man voice, when I was a kid, the Liquor control Board didn’t let the kids into the clubs with liquor. We had the Gorilla Gardens, and the OK Hotel, and RKCNDY, but the Vogue, The Croc, the Offramp, etc were off limits. Kids today, they have their indie rock in any venue they want, with girls, and booze, and they don’t even know how it happened.

So how do you explain that Tapes ‘n Tapes are a band rooted in the punk aesthetic to a kid who only knows of that aesthetic from VH1 documentaries and social studies text books. Erik’s only 5 years younger than me, but he grew up with alternative rock as a valid category of music, with out having to consider what it was really alternative to. He explained to me that Tapes ‘n Tapes come out of “MTV” not Punk. I’m not even sure what he meant, but I heard a lot of Pixies influence in their music (Joe Goldberg, who was at the show mentioned he’s not a big Pixies fan, and also said he was 7 when Doolittle came out), and I also heard some Pavement, and various other inverters of pop song styling combined with the math rock stop start time changes, that for me recalls some of The Fall, The Swell Maps, and The Velvets. But what do I know? The kids have their own prefabbed Urban Outfitter big sun glasses irony view of things. And history, that’s like the moon landing on the MTV graphic thing from back in the Buggles days.

So let’s just talk about dancing. Is it that the all ages gigs at the Croc are so crowded that the kids today aren’t dancing, or is it uncool to move your body when a band comes to town and blows doors on stage. I saw the Arctic Monkeys play to a sold out Crocodile crowd a few months ago and the kids stood still through the whole thing. Last night, in what was one of the better shows I’ve seen at the Croc, you’d think the kids were listening to the pledge of allegiance, not Tapes ‘n Tapes. Shake you butt folks. It’s supposed to be about having a good time.

I’ve heard good things about The Cops and really like Slender Means’ album.

You can buy tickets online here. Tickets also available at the Crocodile box office or Sonic Boom locations.