Not so in the 21-and-over world. While Seattle is loaded with clubs that offer live bands, and each popular neighborhood boasts several clubs of varying focus and clientele, the arrival of a new venue causes understandable anxiety within the existing club scene, especially among the few local clubs that cater to touring and national acts. Apropos of that, it's been interesting to observe reactions to the announcement that Chop Suey, a new rock club owned by the proprietors of successful Pike/Pine watering holes Linda's, the Baltic Room, and the Cha Cha, is opening in the old Breakroom space at 13th and Madison on Capitol Hill.
The neighborhood was a cinch--the new club's location once housed an extremely popular venue that had fallen on hard times. Capitol Hill was in dire need of its own live space (the Century Ballroom has live shows that only occasionally cater to the rock audience). But the fact that owner Linda Derschang fired a few of her employees when she found out they were planning to buy the Breakroom and open their own club--citing a "conflict of interest" [see "The Club Queen" Pat Kearney, Jan 10]--but then bought the place herself didn't sit well with some in the music community. In fact, a couple of popular bands are rumored to have vowed never to play on Chop Suey's stage. (Derschang maintains that she received the offer on the Breakroom's lease about the same time she fired those employees.)
Then there's the Graceland, which is poised to be in direct competition with the new club. Poor Graceland. No matter how much polishing and revamping it undergoes, the club, located at 109 Eastlake Avenue, will always be the Off Ramp. Situated inconveniently under I-5, the Off Ramp, even as it enjoyed its grunge heyday, was a shithole--the epitome of a dirty, no-frills rock club. Admired for its seediness, the space, which became the Graceland a few years ago, has managed to make a place for itself among larger, A-list venues such as the Crocodile and the Showbox--which often mine the same clientele for business--and smaller spaces like Sit & Spin or Ballard's Tractor Tavern and Sunset Tavern. In fact, Graceland's first booker was current Showbox talent buyer Chad Quierolo. Canadian transplant Jason Lajuenesse has booked Graceland for the past year and a half, and the begrudging acceptance of Graceland among detractors of the old Off Ramp has been due in large part to Lajuenesse's input.
It is understandable that the prospect of a new club might strike fear in the heart of such a scrappy fighter as the Graceland. As soon as there was a buzz about Chop Suey, Lajuenesse began bidding immodestly on touring acts, filling his schedule to crazy proportions in the hopes, one would assume, of competing with the yet-to-be-established newcomer. When asked whether or not any bands had been pressured to play exclusively at Graceland, Graceland's assistant booker Frankie Chan flatly denied the notion (although at least one band member, who wishes to remain anonymous, claims that this was indeed the impression he got from Chan). Lajuenesse also vehemently denies this, saying that those tactics are "uncalled for."
Somewhat surprisingly, Quierolo has been more than helpful in showing Chop Suey talent buyer Kerri Harrop the ropes, as this is Harrop's first foray into booking a club. At Chop Suey's invitation-only opening party on Saturday, March 30, the Crocodile's talent buyer, Christine Wood, remarked graciously, "There is plenty of room for another live music club in Seattle. The Crocodile has been in business for 10 years now, and we've seen clubs come and go. It's always good for the community to have more venues to play at." She's right.
Now that another venue has joined that community, it will be interesting to see whether it can sustain the buzz created by its opulent décor and solid financial backing. Whatever the outcome, at least the Graceland's infamously run-down bathrooms have recently been refurbished. And if competition had anything to do with that, hooray.
