One of my new roommates brought me down to the Speakeasy Cafe one night after Bumbershoot in early September. It was a packed house and Aaron Straight’s jazz group, ‘Mustard, Ketchup, Relish’ was playing. I was so immediately drawn to the place and the vibe.
Here’s my Killer saga; I was mercilessly taken out by Vain’s owner, Victoria Gentry.
Belltown Killer was organized by myself and Adrienne Dailey. The participants (around 30 in the first run) were mostly members of Speakeasy, but other Belltown denizens were also playing.
It was the most relaxed work environment I’ve ever experienced and we always had a blast together.
Speakeasy was conceived around March of 1994. The main impetus was that while the Internet was fascinating to me, I found the necessity of access only at home to be both socially debilitating and much too slow.
I first met Mike and Gretchen when I was 18 and came in to the Cafe via my volunteer work with TheFoundry, which was Speakeasy’s technology education venture.
I had always been a super-fan, lived in Ballard, came to Belltown all the time, used the terminals, very tech-savvy and tech-happy.
At the young age of 15 I attended an alternative school by the name of Puget Sound Community School (PSCS). I had the wonderful opportunity of visiting the Speakeasy Cafe on a regular basis and attend various classes hosted there.
One of the ways that Speakeasy connected with the arts community in Seattle was to provide a space for smaller production companies to screen films.
I have an intense romantic nostalgia for RAIN terminals. I was 17 when I moved to Seattle, and I really didn’t know anyone.