Tears and Beers

News of the Croc's closure sparked a lively conversation at Seattlest HQ yesterday. We suspect reactions at other blogs' virtual newsrooms were equally as visceral. The local blogosphere, if you will, seems to have turned temporarily into a Croco-sphere. Personally, we have found bittersweet solace in the words of Scripture:

In 1966, I went down to Greenwich Village, New York City to a rock club called Electric Banana. Don't look for it; it's not there anymore...

--Marty DeBergi, Filmmaker

Clubs aren't taverns; they don't grow finer with age. It's better to have a steady, sustainable turnaround of clubs and venues. It helps keep the music scene itself from stagnating and compartmentalizing.There's nothing more depressing than a club reaching mythic "legendary" status with 45-year-old, original patrons -- trying to relive old memories -- throwing lecherous glances at the 16-year-old noobs who go there because it's the cool place to be.The best thing that can happen for a club is to close before it gets tired and becomes a caricature of itself. Clubs best live on in the slightly hazy, alcoholic fog of memories of past patrons.

There's no need to worry too much, anyway. With the corner-cutting and shoddy construction going into today's condos, it's only a relatively short matter of time before an absentee slumlord picks one up at fire-sale price and it slides into cheap rentals. The ground floor KinkoExQuizno Salon will move out and a new deathtrap of a club will take its place. Do not despair, Seattle.

In the meantime, Three Imaginary Girls are collecting your hazy, alcoholic Crocodile memories.

Photo "In the Drink" courtesy of ChrisB in SEA in our Flickr Pool