Despite plenty of warning, last Wednesday’s news that the Sonics are
really leaving town to play in a dust bowl in Oklahoma still came as a
shock. So, too, did the news that two houses, Dearborn on
Woodland and the Central District’s the Ark, were going to
stop hosting shows. With two of the city’s best houses for shows and
our basketball team both ceasing to exist, last week was definitely a
hard blow to my plentiful optimism.
Such events are sad, they impact our communities deeply, but it’s
simply the nature of the game. Billion-dollar enterprises like
the NBA could care less about their fans as long as the cash flow is
abundant.
But house shows are just the opposite: usually hosted for no profit,
out of sheer love of the music, by the fans for the fans. It’s always
sad to see such benevolent endeavors stamped out.
Dearborn on Woodland was a house that specialized in quiet acoustic
shows, which were often recorded and sold as live albums. Zoning
ordinances, though, have forced the home’s tenants to stop hosting
shows—they have been given a 60-day notice to call it quits. They
have plans to make shows happen somewhere else in 2009, but in the
meantime, there is a definite hole in the music scene with them
gone.
I’ll never forget the night the cops came and busted up one crazy
show at the Ark. By the time they arrived, it wasn’t even really a show
anymore—it was a totally out-of-control rager. But that’s sort of
what you came to expect from the place. Shows there were always a
party, which meant wild crowds and awesome memories (e.g., seeing young
punk rippers Seahouse command that basement with adolescent fury
the two or three times they played there; I have never seen an
audience—all wasted, mind you—ask a band for more encores).
But all the wild crowds and good times also brought too much heat to
keep going; the last time the cops came to the Ark, its residents
decided it really did have to be the last time.
To all the people who worked so hard to keep the Ark and Dearborn
rad, thank you! Shawn Kemp, Gary Payton, you ruled! Thank you, too!
Clay Bennett? Fuck you. I hope your Oklahoma City farmhouse gets
tornadoed.