Let’s get right to the point. Nobody plays teen center shows anymore. Why is that? How can anyone expect the scene to survive if everyone stops paying attention to where it came from in the first place? Yes, we’re now a little too old to be hanging out at Ground Zero, KTUB, and the Firehouse every Friday night, but there are kids (TEENS!) who do hang out there every weekend and they are probably dying to have the same experiences we had when we were their age.

The scene was born at teen centers. How many of you saw Gatsby’s American Dream, The Blood Brothers, and whoever else for the first time at Ground Zero or the Redmond Firehouse? How many Friday nights did you spend at those places before you started your own bands and started playing there, or before you started going to see your friends play there? What started as a casual hang became something we were all seriously passionate about. We would go nuts watching bands at those shows. They connected with us at the perfect time in our lives. We became loyal fans, and we followed them from the teen centers to El Corazon, Studio 7, and anywhere else they went.

Eventually we grew up (more or less) and mellowed out a bit. We started standing in the back so we could actually watch the show, as opposed to being in the front watching our backs so we wouldn’t get kicked in the head. The shows were still fun but the energy was fading. Then Gatsby’s and The Blood Brothers broke up and the scene slowed waaayy down. The bands that were left kept doing their thing, playing El Co, Studio 7, Chop Suey, wherever, but it wasn’t how it used to be. The crowds got smaller and less enthusiastic, and that’s how it’s stayed for the most part. Everyone’s accepted it.

It doesn’t have to stay this way. People don’t just stop listening to music; they listen to what’s available to them. Unfortunately kids don’t have a lot of local music at their disposal anymore. Bands stopped bringing their shows to them and that was the best way they had of discovering new music. If teen center shows started happening again, things would probably change.

Realize that this suggestion is being made because the teen center scene has died COMPLETELY. A single teen center show is not going to revive it. We are the ones who made those shows so great 7, 8, 9 years ago, but teens today don’t know about the music scene they’re missing out on. It’s going to take a little bit (A LOT) of effort on behalf of the bands’ to make this work, but wouldn’t it be worth it?

What do you think? If you’re in a band give us your opinion. When was the last time you played a teen center? If you do it regularly, why? If you don’t, why not? Do you agree with anything that was just said, or do you disagree with all of it? If you’re not in a band, when was the last time you went to a show at a teen center? Would you go if a band you liked had a show there, or would you feel too out of place?
And for those of you who didn’t grow up around the Eastside (Kirkland, Redmond, Bellevue, Bothell) tell us what it was like where you were. What’s it like now, and what changes, if any, do you think need to happen?

TELL US.