I don't remember the exact first time I played the Crocodile. I'd been there so many times as a customer and concertgoer that those early years are a dim smear of bleach smell and cigarette ash across my memory. But I remember distinctly a time BEFORE I ever played the old, pre-renovation Crocodile, when it was still my highest ambition to get a show there, and I remember submitting my cassette-tape demos in manila envelopes with hand-drawn cover art and One Hour Photo press kits. And I remember not hearing back from Christine, the booker, and calling her and leaving messages, and not having my calls returned. And calling again. And again.
Illustration by John Ritter
Doctor and the Bird.
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MEET THE BANDS:
- Doctor and the Bird
- Ole Tinder
- Posse
- Three Ninjas
- Motopony
- Legendary Oaks
- Fly Moon Royalty
- Solvents
WHERE TO SEE THE TUESDAY-NIGHT CLASS:
Skylark Cafe & Club, 3803 Delridge Way S.W., 935-2111, skylarkcafe.com
April 5 Call Me Morning, the Local Strangers, Katrina Charles. 8 p.m. free.
April 12 Roy, Ben Fisher. 8 p.m.
May 3 Scarlet Season. 9 p.m.
May 10 Brendan Jackson, This Ambition. 9 p.m.
May 31 Alice Evans, Tai Shan. 9 p.m.
High Dive, 513 N. 36th St., 632-0212, highdiveseattle.com
April 5 Dust & Bourbon, Stephen Nielsen, The Americana Band. 8 p.m. $5.
April 12 Perfect Weather, John Brodeur, Stereo Upstairs. 8 p.m. $6
April 19 Den U Ma, Kevin Long. 8 p.m. $5.
April 26 Gashcat, Elephant Apple, Engine. 8 p.m. $7.
May 3 Statewide Emergency, Autonomous. 8 p.m. $6.
Comet Tavern, 922 E. Pike St., 323-9853, myspace.com/thecomettavern
April 5 Zebra Mirrors, Brad Loomis & The Resonance, Guthrie Scarr, Quinton Kakaley. 9 p.m. $6.
April 12 Syas, The Shrine, The Bad Apple Blues Band, Lena Lou. 9 p.m. $6.
April 19 The Shallows, Love Songs From the Hated, Thankless Dogs. 9 p.m. $5.
April 26 Pangea, Haunting the Disconnect, White City Graves. 9 p.m. $5.
May 3 Eddie & The Hotrods, Prima Donna, the First Times. 9 p.m. $12.
Sunset Tavern, 5433 Ballard Ave. N.W., 784-4880, sunsettavern.com
April 5 Fox and the Law, Tommy and the High Pilots, Keaton Collective. 9:30 p.m. $6.
April 12 Pert Near Sandstone, Spare Rib and the Bluegrass Sauce. 9:30 p.m. $7.
April 19 Maserati, Sleepy Eyes of Death. 9:30 p.m. $10.
For more listings for Tuesday—and every other night of the week—see seattleweekly.com.music.Related Content
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So although I don't remember the actual first time I played the Croc, I remember pining for it and dreaming of it, certain that it must be the finest feeling, that there was no surer sign of arrival, of belonging. And when I finally did play that first show, it was on a Tuesday night, as the first of three bands, to a virtually empty house, a smattering of supportive friends and the supportive friends of our fellow striving bands. And we played our asses off, startled that we could hear ourselves in the monitors, half-aware that somewhere in the shadows maybe Sub Pop's Jonathan Poneman was watching, or maybe R.E.M.'s Peter Buck was sauntering through his wife's club, and maybe they'd be impressed by our dedication and "chops," and we'd get signed. I remember all those feelings, and in Seattle in the 1990s, the gateway to the other side was Tuesday night at the Croc.
Tuesday night was when they started you if they'd never heard of you, if you didn't have any famous friends, if you weren't drinking buddies with someone, or sleeping with someone, and in many cases even if you were. Everybody started by playing a Tuesday night at the Croc, and the only reason it was Tuesday is that the Croc wasn't open on Monday. I know Modest Mouse did it, Death Cab did it, Harvey Danger, Murder City Devils, Band of Horses, Pedro the Lion, Blood Brothers, 764-HERO, Elliott Smith, the Decemberists, and ten thousand other bands did it. Everybody started there, Tuesday night, first of three, and from there your fortunes rose or fell determined largely by your own merit. It was an exceptionally level playing field. Though there were as many clubs in town then as there are now, though there were almost as many musical styles, there was one aperture through which everyone eventually tried to squeeze.
Admittedly, some bands were introduced to the Crocodile stage soon after their first show, propelled by early buzz or the helping hand of a powerful friend, while others played dozens upon dozens of house parties and shows at the Rendezvous, the Lake Union Pub, the Storeroom—the beer-soaked viscera of Seattle—before landing their first Croc show. And to be sure, hundreds of bands never did play the Croc, looking askance at it even then, dismissing it as a hipster hangout before the word was common, contemptuous of the tightfisted booking policies and bitter over the cliquishness of the Seattle scene. Plenty of bands with vibrant local careers hardly played there at all, content to be the masters of their own circuit, ill-suited for the slightly more downtown vibe of Second and Blanchard.
But for those of us intoxicated by the idea that banging on a guitar could sweep you up and out into the wider world, a Tuesday night at the Crocodile was the first in a long string of narrow, swaying, unsafe bridges you would have to cross. Once you'd played your Tuesday—almost always a disappointment, no crowd, no pay, no screaming girls, no Jonathan Poneman or Peter Buck, not even enough drink tickets to catch a buzz—the rest was kind of up to you.
It took me a long time to understand that media coverage didn't work the same way. The music sections of the Weekly and The Stranger made no references to bands just breaking into the scene. I naively assumed any band that could land a Tuesday night at the Croc was worth a few column inches, a capsule review, or a little star, but week after week the papers were silent. It sounds slightly ridiculous now, but I felt like things were happening, man, that affected people's lives! The clubs were the proving grounds where experiments were happening and mistakes were being made. I'd never been so excited before in my life as in those early years of seeing a dozen bands a week. There were spectacular failures, sure, but even they were instructive and hilarious. I kept thinking "Where is everybody? Why aren't these Tuesday-night shows sold out, week after week?" The newspapers focused on their buzz bands, or "up and coming" bands, and ignored the rest of the scene as you would glance over moldy cheese in the back of your refrigerator. Sure, a newspaper is going to anoint certain bands and slam others—that's only natural—but how could they so blithely ignore whole swaths of the city's various scenes, and make almost no attempt to have their music sections present what was happening in the city at large? Conspiracy! Infamy! My young heart surged with outrage.
