It’s rare that you’ll walk into a club that feels like someone’s home. I mean, we’ve all done time in party houses that reeked like the corner dive, but really there’s a big difference between where most of us go for entertainment and where we go to hide away from the world. There’s an exception, though, in the newish Lo_Fi performance gallery, a 2400-square-foot space at 429B Eastlake Avenue East (next door to the Lobo, and down the street from Graceland). The Lo_Fi, which opened last June, looks like the kind of loft space people talked about before the phrase meant a sterile eyesore in Fremont–it’s a decent-sized, two-story multiroomed arts venue (formerly an old rave club/restaurant) with a cozy little bar, strewn with couches that don’t look like they got lifted from the Salvation Army parking lot.
I checked the place out last weekend, a little too far past last call to get a sense of its clientele–but I did meet owners Michael Leone and Franklin Mazzeo, who gave me the lowdown on the place. “People always ask if we live here, but we don’t,” says Leone, a carpenter by trade. “The idea of the place is that it’s lo-fi–it’s not this high, richy-rich place. There’s nothing too fancy about it.” He adds, “But then again, it’s a really nice place–it’s just underground, and things operate here on that level.”
So far, Lo_Fi has hosted an eclectic set of events, from a rock opera to a fashion show to DJ nights with drum ‘n’ bass and hiphop. The performances happen against the backdrop of one of the best club views in the city (next to the Baltic Room’s)–nine-foot-tall windows that frame the Space Needle. The front (free) lounge area includes a beer/wine/sake bar and a chill-out room that shows 16mm movies. “This is a space that’s really open for artists,” says Leone. “We’re not just this bar. We want to open it up into a more multifaceted place.” To that end, they also rent out the space for dance classes and theater rehearsals, and make their walls available for rotating art shows.
In a joint e-mail, Leone and Mazzeo explain that their club was originally set up to “fill a void in Seattle with regard to experimental, avant-garde, and less commercial forms of music, art, dance, and theatre, as well [as] to supply a less club-esque/bar environment.” You can check them out Thursday through Saturday–ideally way before last call. Their upcoming calendar includes everything from singer/ songwriter Elizabeth Carpenter (Nov 20) to avant-jazz from a Monktail offshoot called Reptet (Nov 22) and an Afro-Cuban act called Bembe Olele (Nov 29), but the show that really caught my eye is this Friday, November 21. It’s a live wrestling rock ‘n’ roll show–with music by the Axidentals and Old Man Smithers–that features the mat skills of Dirty Dave, the local wrestler featured in our Genius Awards issue. Should be an interesting mix of aesthetics and athletics, to say the least.
And in accordance with the laws of checks and balances, another Seattle club has closed–not that it was hard to see coming. Noiselab has officially and unfortunately gone kaput, turning over the Pike Street space once again for someone new to attempt the next resurrection.
TV on the Radio put on an impressive show at the Vera Project last week–the Brooklyn outfit transcended the stark vocals and electronics of their Touch and Go EP, Young Liars, to become a full-blown rock band. With two singers aligning their vocals in soul-like harmonies and the songs sped up double time from their recorded material, the buzz band punched their moody post-rock up an energy level. After the set, I spoke to frontman Tunde Adebimpe, who told me that TVOTR’s upcoming full-length includes more of a rock boost, as the band is too restless to stick with any one sound for too long. I have a feeling that once the next record comes out, the crowds for the group will swell even larger than last week’s near-packed house at the Vera, and all in attendance will say we saw them way back when.