Art Brown and Tarik Abouzied of Hardcortet performing at the Seamonster. Photo by Chris Davis
The block of 45th Street between Wallingford’s Corliss and Bagley avenues gets to be pretty quiet after ten. One door down from the Bagley intersection, however, nestled underneath a green, glowing awning and a frame of blue Christmas lights, lies an arousing neighborhood curiosity, the Seamonster Lounge.
Most nights, a few folks post in front smoking cigarettes, their conversation rapidly jumping from recording studios to public schools to blues history and back again. Pulsing but muddled sounds of music and conversation emanate from behind the glass door and windows. Inside, the shoebox-sized bar, restaurant and music venue just breathes good times. Busy or not, three things are the same no matter what night of the week it is:
First, there is no cover charge, and it’s going to stay that way.
Second, if it’s later than ten pm, somebody is playing live music, generally of the funk and/or jazz persuasion. This happens in the back, past the bar, in front of an eye-catching mural that features a giant squid, a naked woman getting cozy with an octopus, and some other aquatic fantasy-themed imagery.
Third, in the process of moving through the crowd and toward the music, it’s easy to pick up on a distinct, er, randomness to the clientele. One regular, who introduces himself from underneath a fedora as Dabkin, explains: “The Seamonster’s a place that all the freaks can call home.”
This bar doesn’t exactly have a dress code, and in addition to the more typical brand of patrons, the laid-back atmosphere reels in hippies, star children, time travelers, aliens, poets, magicians, cowboys, and more from every corner of the Seattle woodwork. The old and the young, the classy and the classless, the lone wolves and the birthday parties sit or stand side by side (anybody who’s been there on a busy night knows just how literally “side by side” applies). The crowd chemistry is so bizarre that practically everyone can feel like they belong there.
The aforementioned busy nights are Tuesday (yes, Tuesday) and Friday, which feature weekly performances by McTuff and Funky 2 Death, respectively. For those who don’t know, McTuff is a ridiculously exciting jazz-funk-rock trio run by B-3 organist Joe Doria, rounded out by guitarist Andy Coe and drummer Tarik Abouzied. Funky 2 Death is a shamelessly funky collective currently comprised of guitarist Jimmy James, drummer Woogie D, bassist Mark Mattrey, keyboardist/vocalist Melissa Montalto, keyboardist/vocalist Roc’Phella, and flautist/vocalist/harmonica player Julian Iacobazzi. Both groups have seen their share of lineup changes over the past five or so years, but have only escalated in popularity and general party-inducing abilities. The remaining nights of the week are filled with a rotating gallery of danceable groups, almost always from Seattle – Fela’s Cooties, the Suffering Fuckheads, Hardcoretet, to name just a few. Mondays are open mic nights, and some nights of the week feature an early show starting around seven or eight.
Owner Andrew Nunez opened the Seamonster in 2003, after spending his entire life working in restaurants and finally coming to the conclusion that he could put his own spin on the business. The current location was the first he found, and he fell in love with the surrounding area immediately. He describes his original vision, influenced by his own experience not only in the restaurant industry but also as a musician: “Quality everything – quality music, quality food, quality drinks. I wanted the place to be a neighborhood institution – somewhere people go once a week rather than once a month or once a year.”
To say that he has succeeded in that regard would be an understatement. The Seamonster has a cast of regulars whose dedication to the boogie has brought them there once a week or more for three years, five years, seven years or all the way back to the beginning, depending on the person.
Anyone will tell you that the dancers and the drinkers make the scene what it is as much as the musicians do. Often enough, there’s no real distinction between the two – music is so thickly entwined in the Seamonster’s DNA that half of the people watching the band or working behind the bar will be playing in the corner later that week.
It’s hardly an exaggeration to estimate that for every wide-eyed newcomer who turns up and gets turned on by McTuff for the first time, there are two people in the audience who have been seeing them every week for longer than they care to measure.
Standing outside during set break, Jerome Shiels and Kassi Morrow take a moment to run through a selective roll call of the many, many musicians, both famous and not-so-famous, who have sat in with the band over the years. This is only one of the ways with which regulars can recount the venue’s history since the first day they walked in. The milestones don’t amount to much on paper: a minor remodel here, a key band changing lineups there. Each one, however, feels like a new era in retrospect. There were the days when McTuff’s drummer was D’Vonne Lewis, when the open-mic was held in the front, the early, early days when guitarist Thaddeus Turner played three nights a week and managed to make each one different.
Asking just why the place is so special gets repetitive quickly. The story is perhaps better told not with one person’s phrasing but with a list of the words that come up again and again from anybody who has spent a significant amount of time there: community, music, expression, friends, family, dancing, fun.
The keys to its success are so indescribably simple. Everyone – musicians, workers and customers alike – just feels … comfortable. The music is great, the people are friendly and social, the staff and musicians all walk away happy. Just ask Tarik Abouzied, who recently researched improving musician-venue relations around Seattle and found the Seamonster to be a general favorite among those who play there: “As a musician, I get a very enthusiastic level of cooperation in regards to what and how I want to play here. The place is run by musicians who really care about finding a balance that leaves everyone satisfied, and I feel like I don’t have to compromise myself to the way things are done.”
When asked about the friends and musicians that have made the bar’s success possible, Nunez gets starry-eyed. Joe Doria! Thaddeus Turner! Andy Coe! Woogie D! Mark Mattrey! Ari Joshua! There’s quite a list. Through a long progression of bands, side projects and one-off performances, these players and their many peers have grown into a true local pantheon, which has long been illustrated by the paintings and photographs that line the back wall, put up for sale by the same folks noodling around on the dance floor. Reverent images of Joe, Andy, Evan Flory-Barnes, and others have come and gone only to be replaced by Melissa Montalto, Skerik, Jabrille, Thaddeus. Some of the musical relationships that have continued to blossom in this teensy Wallingford bar are decades old, and the personality exuded by each individual carries a reflection of just how deep the communal spirit runs.
Today, at the Seamonster, with business going up and the vibe at a high, big changes are on the horizon. Nunez has signed a lease to acquire the bakery that just went out of business next door, and has plans to tear down the dividing wall and undergo a huge expansion. The bar has seen remodels in the past, but nothing comparable to this one. The list of additions includes a stage, booth seating, and an outdoor patio, in addition to new programs such as weekend brunch and more early evening performances. It should come as no surprise that the architectural plans ended up being drawn by Amy Rush, a longtime Seamonster regular who knows as well as anybody what kinds of changes would suit the place well.
So, change has come before; now it’s coming once again. While there are the inevitable tinges of nostalgia for the years when only a precious handful knew about the bar at quiet 45th and Bagley with the free music, everybody is overjoyed to see their home away from home becoming so successful. Whatever the future may bring, dedication to being a part of what happens next is unwavering. The family is hopeful for a smooth transition and there is no doubt about more good times, onward into funkadelic, soul-studded infinity.
