Seattle’s iconic Re-bar and the the Electric Tea Garden were havens for underground electronic music, fringe arts and the queer community throughout the city’s 1990s-2010s waves of growth and seemingly endless redevelopment. They weathered economic and demographic shifts, their own ownership transitions, and the constant threat of landlords cashing in. Both shuttered in preemptive response to the economic and psychological onslaught of gentrification. ETG closed in 2014, in part because its owners realized a new condo development across the street meant their days were numbered. Re-bar lasted into early 2020, only bowing out while the first wave of COVID ravaged the service and entertainment industries. Both buildings have been unoccupied since -in ETG’s case for many years- and most of the folks surrounding them have just assumed that they’d be razed and redeveloped.

That is until recent news that the Re-bar space is to become a dueling piano bar and ETG a wine bar, possibly the two most horrifically ironic gathering places the grind of gentrification could churn out. I haven’t spoken to any former owners at length, but I’m friends with some and I know it’s hard on them. It certainly is for me, and not only because of the bourgeois vapidness both new spaces will undoubtedly exude. The true tragedy is that the fickleness of “the market,” the constant shift of wealthy tastes, and skyrocketing rent prices will almost certainly cause the new businesses to quickly fail. Spaces that spent decades hosting and employing some of the most freaky, colorful people in Seattle will be ones that none of them could afford, where they’d likely be snubbed, and that they’d probably avoid to begin with. Then those spaces will disappear as ancillary losses to Capitalist “creative destruction.” 

Everyone and everything dies two deaths; one where they leave the world and one where their existence is forgotten. For some, the second death comes much quicker.

I’m not trying to be overly romantic or narrow-minded. I recognize there have been innumerable gathering places lost to history, and many offered sanctuary and belonging to their clientele. Maybe it doesn’t even make sense to single out these two at this palpable moment of pandemic revisionism, eviction moratoriums ending, and landlords jacking rents everywhere. The churn is real, and in just the few weeks since I started drafting this, Seattle lost beloved restaurants Cafe Presse and Pettirosso. I was in Presse right before it closed. There was a bittersweet grieving among clientele and staff, some of whom had worked there over a decade. It’s hard to imagine whatever replaces them creating such deep bonds. But I also recognize that these are close to universal feelings, and that eateries and watering holes are the last vestiges of a public sphere for so many people.

I also want to avoid the type of place-based nostalgia that borders on reactionary NIMBYism, particularly when it comes to redevelopment. I’m skeptical of historical residential preservation movements, so often driven by wealthy white homeowners using coded language to “resist ” even wealthier developers bringing apartments and their renter riff-raff. I recognize Seattle is in a housing and homelessness crisis, and I think the city’s recent upzone and a pending one in Tacoma have the potential to bring more affordability and move us away from historically racist Residential-1 zoning. But this won’t happen if we rely solely on the vagaries of the market or goodwill of regulators. There need to be real movements driven by tenants demanding rent control, mortgage and rent freezes in crises and -ultimately- social housing. While it’s discussed less, this should also happen for commercial spaces. I’m not suggesting that these things would have saved either venue, or even that their owners would have wanted them. But I know there will be many similarly important community hubs in the future worth “preserving”.

For me, Re-bar and ETG are both symbolically and analytically important. They represent a coalescence of underground art and music that was part of what made Seattle such a desirable place, but doesn’t seem to be reappearing anywhere in the city. They’re prime examples of how the contradictions of Capitalism create small cracks where outsider communities can thrive for a time, but will inevitably be crushed by their own commodification for scale or by naked profit motive of those with more power. And while it’s hard to imagine such cracks reappearing in Seattle, they certainly exist here in Tacoma and other cities, and there is a profound beauty in the memory of those spaces and the emergence of new ones, even as this itself drives gentrification. I also just deeply loved both spots, the many friends I made, and the artists, staff and management I performed and partied alongside over many years.

My Bloody Valentine is Shameless 3, 2006 at Re-bar
My first event with the crew

Rebar stood in all its “Batteries Not Included”-esque glory as all of the neighboring lots and warehouses were razed for upscale redevelopment

Re-bar started up in 1990 as a cabaret and indie theater venue. It hosted countless off-off-off Broadway acts, poetry nights, art exhibitions and local bands. It wasn’t “officially” a queer space (one of the original owners was gay, the other straight), but it centered drag queens, gay nights and and degenerate art from the beginning. It was the birthplace of Seattle’s legendary Dina Martina and was the first venue to run Hedwig and the Angry Inch in the city (wish I coulda seen that). It hosted indie, punk and grunge events throughout the early 1990s, including some legendary Mudhoney shows and the record release party for Nirvana’s Nevermind (widely documented in books about the era). Later, it would host a long-running world music night frequented by East African immigrants, improvisational audio-visual like Monster Planet, and countless short-lived experiments such as the Bonkers hardcore rave night or Shameless’ Balls Out (where I was suckered into sitting in the “hipster dunk tank”). My old crew even hosted the first US appearance of Modeselektor there. There was nothing like it.

Re-bar was the very first place I went out dancing after moving to Seattle in 2002. I’d heard a ton about its legendary Sunday night party, “Flammable,” which was already one of the longest running house nights in the West Coast and had a cult following in Seattle’s queer scene. This was where DJ Riz Rollins cut his teeth, before going onto host KEXP’s “Expansions” forever. Booker and resident DJ Brian Lyons  had the whole straight but effeminate guy playing to a gay male crowd thing on lock. It was hours of often great, often monotonous deep house. The sound system sucked. Everyone peed into a trough. The drinks were stiff and cheap. I was semi-regularly hit on in the bathroom and propositioned more than once. I was never as ardent a devotee as many of my friends, but until Shameless started our own regular events at ETG, it was the single night I most frequented for years. The same is true for countless other folks.

Re-bar changed hands in the early 2000s, then again in 2014, without ever losing its central feel and community. The last owners were two straight male friends of mine. There was some consternation when they remodeled, brought in credit card readers and better sound, and -most notably- removed the trough in the men’s room. But they also worked to maintain the vibe and honored relationships with regular nights such as Dina Martina’s annual drag specials. Their own business relationship eventually degraded after overextending themselves with other venues. But it was an admirable go, and kept Re-bar thriving for several more awesome years. Sure, they emphasized electronic music more, but they always maintained Re-bar’s irreverent core and -most importantly- almost all of the long-time staff that contributed to its status. Many stuck it out to the end.

While I’m trying not to focus on individuals, it’s impossible to talk about the later years of Re-bar without mentioning my dear friend and former crewmate Tippett (MC Anton Bomb). He tended bar, worked the door, and greeted strangers as family. He was a deeply compassionate, energized, fucking weird ass ball of wonder and esoteric mystery. He offered loving kindness to everyone he met (although he could be testy once he let you in).  He died of cancer shortly before COVID, under the love and care from one of Re-bar’s owners and several other friends. His memorial was the most packed I’ve seen Re-bar and a testimony to both him and the venue. In a way, I’m strangely relieved that he missed the closure. He had been a core part of ETG closure, too, along with Seattle’s Capitol Club and Bleu Bistro, both of which had drinks named after him. He was more than a little superstitious, too. Who knew his memorial would be one of all our last times together?

I am a straight man. I don’t know how appropriate it is to lament spaces in the queer community, and I certainly can’t do justice to much of what came before. But I can see that the loss of Re-bar is the end of an era for Seattle’s queer spaces. It’s location allowed it to survive the wave of mid 2000s redevelopment that struck the South Capitol Hill blocks known as the “Gayborhood.” A small and densely packed area housed queer artists, activists, and community leaders from the 1970s to early 2000s, surrounded by bars with names like the Men’s Room, The Bear Den, and C.C. Attles. My old landlords and next door neighbors of many years were a gay couple who lived there since the 1980s. They were among the last holdouts, and only recently sold my old house to redevelopment. They were over their party days when I met them, but they and other folks I knew saw Re-bar as some kind of last stand, even as new upscale gay bars were opening all over the Hill.

ETG’s path was even more rambly and interesting. It started out as an attic space above “The Artificial Limb Company,” a storefront that -yup, you guessed it- sold artificial limbs and other interesting accessories. I believe the first underground electronic music events there started in the mid-late 1990s, generally as sporadic ambient or goa trance afterparties for raves. I went to a couple map point events there between 1999-2001 as a youngster from Boise, Idaho that I haven’t been able to find any information on since. The first party I truly remember was Satyrn’s Sheep, a weekend-long psytrance event (I think in 2005). It featured your usual smatterings of incredible music, awful music, and seemingly endless renditions of Rafi’s “Banana Phone” (thanks mostly to local legends Muschi and the Goa Constrictor, I believe). Needless to say, I was already impressed at the time that the place was still going. It lasted much longer.

The ironic epicenter of Seattle’s late 90s after after party scene

Oseao’s internet radio logo. The site was short-lived but groundbreaking

By the mid 2000s, a collective of Seattle-based house DJs rented the attic, knocked out a few walls and created an online radio station and record label, Oseao. They threw sporadic but awesome events and hosted some short-lived radio shows (I’m pretty sure I even played one, although my memory’s fuzzy). But the scale was nothing compared to the juggernaut it became when some friends took over and rebranded it the Electric Tea Garden, or ETG. They redid the floors, upgraded the sound and started hustling. Seemingly overnight, it became the most notorious speakeasy in the city, with packed crowds, shows every Thursday to Sunday, local and global headlining electronic music, lines of people peeing into a parking lot grate, and all sorts of crazy other shit I’ll leave to your memory or imagination. I lived two blocks away, meaning not only was I a regular, but I also hosted many people for impromptu couch crashes and the occasional porch passout (which my landlords tolerated). More than anything, it was a gathering space where you were sure to see loving, supportive, safe people and a kind staff.

The ETG crew had their fair share of ups and downs, run-ins with the law, and workarounds to keep the space going. They even tried the “members only club” thing for a while (I still have my card, although I’m pretty sure no one ever looked at it). Eventually, they got fully permitted, then moved to a pretty well-regimented system of full bar until 2am, five hours of closure, and a long line of folks coming in for “first call,” sometimes hosted by the same spent bartenders who had been there all along.  They started enforcing rules on various recreational activities more…. But they never lost the underground vibe, their deep commitment to music or community, or the dedicated crew of door, bar and cleanup folks that were there all along. These incredible folks kept this going until the end of 2013, I think years longer than some of them expected, and it was unflagging. Tippett was a core member of the family here, too, and in some ways the beating heart of the ETG vibe.

My old promotion crew, Shameless, ran the first and last monthly night at ETG. We threw a metric shit ton of events there over five years, including the monthly, numerous one-offs and birthdays, the start of our legendary “The Breakfast Club” New Year’s Day parties, Yo Yo Yoga (where I met my wife) and much, much more. We threw the very last official party there, featuring a stacked lineup of some of the best Northwest DJs and a special cameo appearance by the one and only Donald Glaude. Tippett performed what I’ll remember as one of his best MC Anton Bomb sets over my set that night.

By the end, Tippett was sweaty and shirtless, and the robot effect he always used was broken. We all gathered at 6am for the last first call and lots of ridiculous group pictures, thinking the space would be done and gone soon. It was legendary to say the least.

This sense of joy and closure created a weird sense for the building’s long fallow period over the coming years, I think amplified a bit by a couple awkward reunion parties years later (although, to be fair, I missed them). But, closing was ultimately what the owners wanted to do, and I’m sure it was the right choice for all of them.

It’s certainly better than turning it into a fucking wine bar. 

MC Anton Bomb doing his thing over my set at the ETG closing party

An blurry but intimate post-set moment with a very sweaty tippett, probably my favorite picture of the two of us together

The last “First Call”