There are a billion things that are fucked beyond fucked about the holiday season, but even my most ignoble consumerist longings are deadened by the simple, terrible fact that one month after the holiday where we give thanks for what we have, we celebrate another that covets everything we don’t. I was going to use this week’s space for a coarse appraisal of how elitist, fashion-oriented, and vacuous Seattle’s music scene has becomethen graciously propose a litany of timely New Year’s resolutions as a tourniquet. Instead, I made the mistake of attempting to write said column during a weeklong vacation in and around Cleveland, Ohio.
Let me try to put my “sabbatical” in perspective: After we spent 10 minutes rent-a-Cavaliering through the Mistake by the Lake, my friend Sean suggested that the federal government air-drop all of the country’s hard-core convicts into the downtown area and wall the city off, à la Escape From New York. Instead of chuckling, I began to seriously contemplate how I could galvanize a citizens group into petitioning Congress to make the proposal a reality.
Cleveland has the color, aroma, and spirit of an oat bran bowel movement. The first and last song its radio serenaded me with was Seven Mary Three‘s “Cumbersome,” and Jon Bon Jovi comprised much of the meat between the buns. The Euclid Tavern, the city’s last truly vital indie-rock venuein its prime even more enchantingly decrepit than Graceland or Zak’sis long gone, and the silver and bronze medalists (the Grog Shop and Peabody’s Down Under) have lost their charm and mojo via relocation. Not counting reconvened punk godfathers Rocket From the Tombs, the latest band to get spins beyond Lake Erie is nü-metal melodramatics Mushroomhead, probably by virtue of keeping their nightmare alive for an entire decade. The few counterculture boutiques still standing have begun to suspiciously resemble Hot Topic. I’ve repeatedly asked friends who’ve lived in northeast Ohio their entire lives what they do for fun in the city, and I have been met with meek, genuinely clueless shrugs.
Yeplooks like that “Tee-hee, let’s deconstruct Seattle” Mixtape is officially on the long-term back burner. For all the empty repartee, pretense, and dispassion that I encounter and propagate in this burg . . . shit, folks, at least I have a burg to propagate it in. We’re lucky to have glad-handing. We’re lucky to have intrascene sniping. We’re lucky to have assholes who care enough to be assholes. In fact, let’s consider four assets we have that, oh, let’s say, Clevelanda metropolis with a comparable population, impact on rock and roll history, and goofy, touristy, “architecturally striking” music museumdoes not:
1. By this time in March, Seattle will be back to its comfortable average of three to four potentially exceptional shows to select from almost every night. The pool of original, acclaimed, beloved local bands that will open for often not nearly as good national touring acts from spring to autumn holds its own against any in the country.
2. We now have two classic alternative stations vying for our attention during lunch hour. Um, this is a problem? Couple these refreshing format modifications with still-influential KEXP and compare our situation to no less than five classic and/or commercial rock stations in Cleveland. What would you rather hear five times a day: “It’s Been Awhile” or “Where Is My Mind?”
3. Our all-ages scene is almost entirely reliant on word of mouth, yet keeps on truckin’, Duel-style. The Old Firehouse and Ground Zero get teens rocked (and even politically mobilized) in the burbs, while the VERA Project is a must-stop on a weekend field trip downtown, even after countless location changes. Cleveland’s Speak in Tongues, a tour standby for many adored mid-’90s Midwest emo outfits, has gone the way of the Euc. Alternates are sorely lacking.
4. Seattle’s outlying neighborhoods are at least relatively safe and clean, and offer just the right amount of taste segregation for bar hoppers. The indie enthusiasts have Capitol Hill, the sporty and stylin’ have Belltown, college kids can roughhouse on the Ave in the U District (which, admittedly, has fallen off since the Paradox croaked), the weekend warriors can bump and grind in Pioneer Square, and the aging hipsters can bitch over PBRs in Ballard. Even Cleveland’s most reliable hot spotsLakewood, Coventry, and the Flatsare dark, sparse, and bereft of anything resembling a healthy scene.
Remember the part in The Hours where Nicole Kidman declares, “I choose not the suffocating anesthetic of the suburbs, but the violent jolt of the capital!” Remember the part on that shitty Cinderella album where Tom Keifer shrieks, “Don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone!” Now give Seattle a free pass for a week. You know all you did was get fat and wasted this Thanksgiving anyway.
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