Great place, doesn’t smell like piss

(Photos: Divided Sky at Adeline's in Ellensburg, circa 1993)

In less than 60 days, we’ll be taking the stage. And a few days ago I met Matt at the venue where we’ll give this thing one more try.

The Jet in Mill Creek isn’t like many of the places where we’ve performed in the past. My first thought was, “Wow, great place … and it doesn’t smell like piss.” No, it was much, much nicer than most venues. Great stage, sound system, staff, bar, food – very impressive.

So, I sat there at the bar with Matt and thought about all the absolute dumps we used to gig at. I won’t name, names on the off chance one of the owners reads this and we some day need a favor, but there were some bars that broke nearly every health code on record. And I think we even played a barn once or twice.

However, back in the early ‘90s, it was sort of a badge of honor to land a gig at some of these places. The old Off Ramp comes to mind. You probably wouldn’t eat a bag of chips in that place, but you’d play the first set on a Tuesday night bill without thinking twice about it. And we did. All the legendary Seattle bands got their start there and it was featured in the movie “Singles.”

I think if you asked any of the guys, they’d tell you we had two favorite clubs. One was Colours in Yakima (spelled with a “U” so you know it’s classy). We got connected with Colours and Isaac, who managed the place, through Yakima promoter Scott Abrhams. It was the site of many blurry sessions, but some really great ones as well. We got to open for some pretty big acts, like Sweetwater, and it led to playing some bigger venues in the area and opening for bands like The Melvins and Love Battery.

And then there was Adeline’s in Ellensburg – which I believe is now a hair salon. We must have played Adeline’s 200 times and were about as close to a house band as you could get. When we first started gigging there, we didn’t even have enough songs. So we’d play a set, take a break, have a few cocktails in the Blue Room (a back room of the bar that wasn’t blue), and then go play the set again. Nobody seemed to care. The college kids who packed the place on the weekends either liked the songs enough to hear them again, or were so bombed on $1 Jager shots that anything with heavy guitars and a beat sounded good.

I’d like to think it was a little of both.

Cheers, Dan