(Teeth and Hair pictured at a recent SSMA gig. Photo by Mindy Sisco)
Paul Groth: What’s your role at the SS Marie Antoinette?
Malaki Stahl: I am the leaseholder and manager of the space. You know bills, rent, finding tenants…and I kind of make the SSMA a modest place for bands, visual artists, theatre, dance, comedy acts…to do their thing. My duties includes volunteering door duties, sound guy duties and keeping the calendar going with mild booking and lots of e-mailing.
PG: Describe for us how the SSMA got its start.
MS: I am not the best person to answer that. But from what i know, it goes like this…
The building is one of only a very few wooden boat making warehouses left on the West Coast. The rest burned down the night before fiberglass technology was released (that would compete with and destroy the wooden boat maker’s union)—insurance money or something—so that the guys who built boats could walk away with a little something and find other work…Skip ahead to about 1994 or so. I am not sure, but some artists convinced the owners to rent it out to them as artist spaces. One of the first shows was Jason Webley Funeral, replete with Butoh dancers hanging from the rafters and shit. Must’ve been amazing. We still get people coming in talking about that show. That was before the interior walls went up. Skip further ahead, and I took over the space from Victoria Franklin (who is doing very well as a fine artist on the East Coast now), and ramped up how many performances and art shows there wer—from about one a month to 15 or so a month. The touring band set really seemed to take to us, as well as the locals who knew about us. People seem to like us, sound-wise and energy-wise. Bands and fans alike.
PG: What Makes the SSMA stand out from the other music venues in Seattle?
MS: Well, we don’t ask for money. We probably should and we just might start to soon, actually. But for the time being we have a policy of only taking 30% of the door after it goes over $120. Anything before that is gravy for the bands. That way bands on tour, who are really doing it DIY, don’t go broke trying to do what they love to do. Also, our booking policy is simple, we don’t really take demos and judge music. We like variant bills. And we don’t base our choices on what we like, what we think is cool, or what is hip right now. In fact, the only policy about turning bands away is if I get a giant press pack on line or in the mail, and it has shit in there about how the bands music was used in a car commercial or on MTV. I tend to ignore it or politely turn them away. Those bands don’t need as much help as others.
PG: What out of town acts have graced the SSMA stage?
MS: Oh man, do you want the list? or just my favorites? or other people’s seeming favs? There have beeen a ton. Big names, little names, bands now defunct, bands that won’t stop touring even to feed their cat…
PG: Well how about some of your favorite SSMA shows.
MS: Uh that’s a good question. I am so tired right now all of the shows are blending together. So instead of actual bills, I will answer by saying who my favorite bands that have played are…Old Time Relijun, Japanther, Der Trasch, Knife Skills, No Things, Pure Horsehair, Mike Dumovich, Plentyface, Blue Light Curtain, Te, They Shoot Horses Don’t They, Corespondants, Bill Horist, Snowmanplan, Swaybacks, Nowbeast, Mikaela’s Fiend, Pterodactyl, Battleship, Jana Hunter, Telomere Repair, Constants, Tera Melos, Brilliant Red Lights, Calvin Johnson, SON, VIA, Girth, The Helm, Inhaste, Iron Lung, Kimya Dawson, The Pharmacy, Jascha Ephraim, Lake of Falcons, Assisted Living, Teeth and Hair, Last Slice of Butter, Owl Dudes, Wet Confetti, We Quit, Chevron, Ooh Ah Ah, Patience Please, Angelo Spencer, Sea Donkeys, Worms, Johnny X and the Groadies, Elphaba, Health, Kickball, Silver Daggers, Jeppa Hall, Tender Forever, Titty, and uh let’s see…the list is random and getting too long.
The night that No Things and Knife Skills showed up to play, there was no local support. They were bummed. I was stressing out for them, cuz their booker must’ve spaced it. Well at that point, only one guy had come to see the show and noticed us bugging out about the lack of a band. He walks up to me and asks if we need another band. I say yes. He says he has a band that would play. I was like, “Seriously you have a band that can play in the next 45 minutes? They can get here and everything?” He said yes, I was like, “Ok, um, what is the name of your band?” He said, “Teeth and Hair.” I love that band!
PG: Is there any relationship between the Beep Repaired record label and SSMA?
MS: Yup. Now there is. Beep Repaired was a seed in the hands of Olie Eshleman and I, plus a few other people—artists, musicians—and we decided that we were really fucking sick of the nepotism involved in getting your music heard. So we gathered forces with like minded peeps (and it keeps growing) and started self-promoting each other. Instead of competition, we used the cooperation model and now the SSMA is one of the places that the Beep Repaired bands have claimed as home base. Actually, there are several houses and venues that have a little slice of the Beep Repaired pie. In fact, it has spread to the East Coast and down the West Coast, making lots of friends, new members, and believers out of people. The SSMA is probably my way of doing what BR had in mind. Which was breaking out of the shitty, money-based who-knows-who Seattle doldrums, and into an environment of music and musician appreciation.
PG: Are there any exciting shows coming up that you’d like to tell us about?
MS: Too many! Everywhere from Calvin Johnson to Teeth and Hair, my new favorite band. Plus a few that I have just been getting hints about reputation wise. Just get a myspace account and check our calendar.
SSMA LOCATION: 1235 Westlake
Seattle, WA 98109