by Justin Arnold - Vol 6 Issue 62

The Crocodile Café is dead, and the search is on for the killer. Unfortunately, it’s a crowded field.

The Croc is the latest casualty in Seattle’s “War on Music,” a local venue that has seen every great Seattle act since it’s inception in the 90s. Bands such as Nirvana and Pearl Jam, which launched the grunge-rock rebellion were staples at Seattle venues such as the Croc. Much is owed to clubs like the Croc, as it helped launch the “Seattle Sound”, creating a national phenomenon in a city that at the time was only known for weather attenuation syndrome.

Owner Stephanie Dorgan is still mum on why she pulled the trigger on the Seattle mainstay, other than hints that have accumulated by a magnitude over the weeks since its sudden and abrupt closing. “Not making enough money,” say some. “Business going down hill,” say others. “Getting torn down for condo’s” predict many, and last but not least “pressured into closing by Mayor Nichols” whisper few. Who’s to say why she did it. Perhaps for her the novelty of the scene had worn off and the Croc, much like a child with an ant farm, was tossed when it no longer produced glee in copious amounts. But the fact is this: her silence only vilifies her to the very people who so loved her pet project. Her silence confirms every single rumor, lending credence to every drop of gossip.

But I digress.

These days, Seattle seems to have little time to devote to the music that made the city the alt-music capitol that it is. Regardless if grunge was your cup of effluvia, the Seattle scene has grown in leaps and bounds to include nearly every genre of the medium. It has traded in its scruffy work boots, greasy hair and flannel shirts for a new musical identity, a mash-up of various musical forms that speaks to an emergent trend that yet again would be birthed from the belly of our beloved beast.

Or perhaps not. These days, as the city is transformed under the watchful gaze of tech billionaires and a teetotaler mayor who would see this city of rock reduced to a much less worthy city of corporate interest. Behold: a new noise ordinance, stiffer liquor board fines, and the local media splashing the images of club-related violence from Belltown as if pandemic on the Times and P.I. And for what? To create a public mandate for intercity reconstruction and clean up the image of our Emerald City, buffing it to a nice lustrous green? Ironic, how in the frenetic hyper-vigilance they employ to “clean” Seattle up they are now trading in the very image of Seattle they sought to exploit in the first place, throwing our Emerald City to swine.

The Croc closing is yet another sign of the times of Seattle’s music scene in its death throes. It was nary on five years ago that our beloved mayor wished to create Seattle as a “New Austin”, a place where the musician would be encouraged and the lifestyle would flourish. The EMP was to be a step in that direction, though poor exhibit attendance brought on by prohibitively expensive ticket prices reduced the Seattle Center blue blemish into a multi-million dollar steel-and-glass compost heap of bric-a-brac, used to house the collections of the wealthy. So rather than pour millions into the music and artist community that made the meuseum possible, the city chose to exploit it to their peril. And there is the lesson, perhaps. That Seattle has forsaken its rock-n-roll roots in the interest of becoming important.

Now, if you put ear to ground and listen hard enough, you’ll hear the echoes of our Seattle greats fade as the city willfully abandons what made it great in the first place, settling for second-hand relevancy and betraying the spirit and memory of Jimi Hendrix Kurt Cobain.