Stella Pizza(featuring the Triggers and Dark Places)

Stella Pizza opened in Georgetown in 2001 at 5513 Airport Way Blvd South. Georgetown, for those not in the know, is an industrial/warehouse district South of downtown Seattle that over the past 8 years has blossomed into a working class and artist community with a string of great small businesses, bars, clubs and restaurants. It's also home to tons of local artists, great BBQ, two bike clubs (The Cretins and Magic Wheels), a record store, a few cool coffee joints, and more.

Stella was an early adapter to Georgetown and helped lay the foundation for businesses to follow. By the Fall or Winter of 2001, Stella and the nearby Industrial Coffee were both hosting live music every weekend. The kind of live music I like--dirty, loud, sweaty rock'n'roll. Garage bands, punk bands, noise bands, rockabilly bands... much of the same kind of live music featured at Seattle clubs like Funhouse, the Sunset or the Comet today. Since diehard rock fans will go anywhere for their music, a bunch of us were trekking down to Georgetown in the cold in the Winter of 2001 for live shows. All the rock fans helped foster the need for more bars and services, along with the local population's need for development. Often I'd pay cover at both venues and go back and forth to watch bands. Joetta Velasquez was booking Stella and Brian Foss was booking Industrial Coffee, both would end up later booking Zak's downtown (which is now Funhouse), and both had similar taste in music. Today Stella has changed it's name to Stellar Pizza and hasn't hosted live music in five years... about the time Industrial Coffee also went out of business. But Jules Maes in Georgetown revamped and reopened a few years ago and proudly hosts live music all the time that draws people to the neighborhood from all over the Seattle area and neighboring towns.

These photos are of Stella Pizza in it's hey day of live music. The first two are of The Dark Places, the last one is of The Triggers: