Tractor Tavern preserves old-school spirit, 30 years later

This piece is from our latest This City Block series, which highlights stories from Ballard.

Leigh Bezezekoff remembers when there was always ample parking on Ballard Avenue. Save for the bar-stooled fishermen at the Ballard Smoke Shop, the neighborhood’s historical business strip wasn’t exactly the bustling nightlife district it is today.

When the Seattle music vet first started seeing shows at the Tractor Tavern in the early 2000s, few other businesses on the street were open after dark. Today, Ballard Avenue’s boutiques, upscale restaurants and cocktail bars keep the brick-paved street bustling until bars close.

“The first few tech booms have really changed and impacted the neighborhood, who was living here, who was doing businesses,” said Bezezekoff, who runs ticketing and marketing at the Tractor, nodding to Ballard’s more blue-collar past. “It used to be very Nordic in nature and kind of rough around the edges.”

Ballard might feel a little more Filson than Carhartt these days, with Seattle’s upscale apparel brand opening a high-end shop down the street from the Tractor in 2016. But homey institutions like the Tractor, which cultivated a sound that became synonymous with the old-school fishing village over the last three decades, have helped the once grittier enclave maintain more of its old-Seattle flavor than other neighborhoods facing a similar development craze.

Opened at grunge’s zenith in 1994, the roots-rockin’ Tractor is celebrating 30 years of live music with a run of anniversary shows throughout the year, including this weekend’s sold-out, three-night blowout with Minneapolis alt-country vets the Jayhawks (March 29-31). Although it could easily play a venue twice the size, the band is (somewhat surprisingly) just now making its Tractor debut 40 years into its career.

“We know the Tractor was instrumental for the local scene and touring bands coming through Seattle,” frontman Gary Louris wrote in an email. “Venues like this are important, and we wanted to help celebrate the Tractor as well as play in a more intimate space.”

Leaning into the more acoustic sounds that filled the Ballard Avenue venue when it was previously the New Melody Tavern, Tractor owner Dan Cowan (who was unavailable for an interview) offered a folkier alternative to the hard rock sounds Seattle was known for in the ‘90s. Although, that would change in the coming years with artists like Brandi Carlile, who played the Tractor in her early days, and later the Southern-charmed rockers Band of Horses hailing from post-grunge Seattle.

“It was like trying to find a niche that wasn’t competing with, I don’t know, the Central Tavern and RCKNDY, The Crocodile,” Cowan told The Seattle Times in 2009, referencing the heyday grunge clubs. “It was, ‘This is what everybody else was doing, where is there a hole?’ We didn’t really hit the ground running.”

With bands like Uncle Tupelo and the Jayhawks trading in countrified rock sounds, the burgeoning alt-country and Americana scene was gaining mainstream recognition nationally in the mid-‘90s, thanks in part to roots music magazine No Depression, founded in Seattle in 1995.

By the late 2000s, Tractor Tavern and nearby Conor Byrne Pub became a hub for singer-songwriters and bands playing rootsier strains of indie rock like Sub Pop-family alums Sera Cahoone, The Head and the Heart and the Moondoggies, as well as The Maldives, who Bezezekoff managed at the time.

“In 2008, there was a sudden surge of stories about that genre and music that was taking hold, but that stuff ebbs and flows,” said Kevin Murphy of ’70s-indebted folk rockers the Moondoggies and Small Paul. “That [music] will always be going and there will be good artists making that music and the Tractor is there for it, whether or not it’s the current hip thing. That’s what I appreciate.”

While the Tractor has long since diversified its calendar (next month features the shoegaze-focused Seagaze Festival and an album release show from local indie rock favorites somesurprises), Americana — a broad umbrella category running the gamut from twangy rock bands to folk/country singers; bluegrass pickers to indie singer-songwriters — is still king.

For much of its lifetime, the Tractor has been the aspirational anchor of what Bellingham singer-songwriter Devin Champlin calls “the Ballard trifecta,” a close-knit trio of Ballard Avenue clubs — the Tractor, Conor Byrne and the Sunset Tavern — that organically built its own mini ecosystem within Seattle’s music scene.

“[Artists] move through playing shows at Conor Byrne and then to the Sunset and then to the Tractor,” said Brady Harvey, who started booking Conor Byrne when it reopened from the pandemic in May 2021. “All these folks are meeting each other, going to open mics, going to each other’s shows, forming new bands and making something truly special. … We have this really special spot in Ballard that doesn’t really exist anywhere else in the city. … We’ve really made a home for musicians there.”

With its capacity of around 400 people, the Tractor can accommodate more fans swilling Rainier bottles than Conor Byrne and the Sunset combined, and the smaller two venues have served as a steppingstone for both hometown and touring artists who would later play the Tractor. That was the case for Champlin, who leads folky standouts Sons of Rainier. When Champlin first cracked into the Seattle scene years ago with previous bands, they played Conor Byrne until they built enough of a following and made enough connections to take the larger stage across the street.

“As far as Seattle shows in my folk and Americana realm, [the Tractor] always felt like a pinnacle place to play,” said Champlin, who’s calling one of the Tractor’s long-running Monday square dances next month (April 22). “You play Conor Byrne or Cafe Racer or wherever, and then it’d be like ‘Oh, we got a show at the Tractor. OK, gotta really practice.’”

Making clear how the club regards local artists, a portrait of Champlin’s Sons of Rainier mate Dean Johnson — a fellow Tractor regular who broke out with his long-awaited debut album last year — hangs alongside those of Dolly Parton and Johnny Cash behind the bar.

Murphy, too, praises the Tractor’s dedication to the local music community and willingness to give “young bucks” a shot opening for bigger acts, as well as the “family vibe” coursing from Cowan, Bezezekoff and booker Jeff Rogness on through the rest of the staff. It’s quiet and critical work that helps ensure the next wave of Seattle artists is supported like the generation that came before it. That level of care and commitment, Murphy said, isn’t always a given.

“Sometimes people are just booking shows randomly, but [Rogness] is someone who I’ll bump into at Conor Byrne and he’s like, ‘Oh, I’m checking this person out,’” said Murphy, who opens for the Jayhawks on Saturday. “There might be like four people there, but he’s watching somebody to put them in front of even more people. That’s how these scenes survive, is that kind of passion for it.”

As crucial as the Tractor has been for ladder-climbing locals, it can also be a challenging room for young artists with less stage experience under their belts. Perhaps in keeping with the club’s roadhouse-meets-barn party décor, artists say the crowds can be a little chatty and raucous, for better or worse.

The Tractor will always have a special place in Sera Cahoone’s heart as the club where she started her career. The veteran Seattle songsmith, who came up drumming with revered indie rockers Carissa’s Wierd before launching her solo career, has learned to love those occasionally boisterous crowds over the last 20 years.

“People get kind of rowdy and obnoxious there, to be honest,” Cahoone said with an affectionate laugh. “As a performer, sometimes it’s really annoying, like early on if I were opening I’d be like, ‘Can you guys just shut the [expletive] up?!’ But now, I just love the energy. It’s filled with amazing energy, that room.”

For every early-career set she played over talkers, there’s a night made memorable by the Tractor’s unbuttoned audience: A snow day show when Seattle shut down, but fans still packed the place. The night before the indoor smoking ban took effect in 2005 and even Cahoone (a nonsmoker) fired one up onstage. Then there was the time when — at an “extra rowdy” Cahoone’s request — the crowd either defied the laws of physics or got really comfortable with each other and removed their underwear to toss onstage.

“Things like that, you just never know what you’re going to get there sometimes,” Cahoone said.

Since reopening from the pandemic, the Tractor and other small and midsize venues like it have endured a number of new challenges, from decreased attendance and bar sales to inflation and post-pandemic lifestyle changes. While the Tractor is well-positioned to adapt to the current climate, Bezezekoff said, earlier this month brought word that one member of the beloved “Ballard trifecta” will shutter after this weekend.

Citing a changing industry and downturn in business, Conor Byrne — where Seattle folk-rock titans The Head and the Heart formed around its Sunday open mic nights — is set to close at the end of the month, kicking out the all-important first rung on the Ballard scene.

“It’s been a huge asset to have three music venues in the neighborhood because those nights when everybody has busy shows, the feeling in the neighborhood is electric,” said Bezezekoff, who also does marketing and social media for Conor Byrne. “When there’s a lot of people that are coming out to go see shows, they’re going out to other bars and restaurants before and after, so it makes the neighborhood feel a lot more dynamic.”

Even when he’s not onstage, the Moondoggies’ Murphy has enjoyed being able to “ping-pong back and forth” among Ballard’s network of venues. Before Hotel Albatross closed in 2022, he recalled seeing four different shows in one quintessential Ballard night, noting his fondness for clubs like Conor Byrne and the Tractor, which seemed like a “mythical venue” back when he was a high schooler downloading live Doug Martsch bootlegs from Napster.

Much has changed in Seattle since the Napster era. But not everything.

“People lose their favorite dive bar here and there and the condos are ugly,” Murphy said, before the Conor Byrne news broke. “But Ballard still has that feel to me that it had since I’ve been around, and part of that is Tractor, Sunset, Hattie’s [Hat] — that main drag.

“Every five years there’s like an exodus, there’s a slew of people who are like, ‘Seattle’s dead!’ I honestly think that it’s as strong as it’s ever been in a lot of respects. You wander down to a show any given night, the Tractor is just like it was.”