Promoter Tonya Terbrueggen has a lot going on. She's booking agent for The Central and Tommy's (formerly the Lox Stock), bringing national acts to The Catwalk, promoting shows at clubs around town, and managing the band Windowpane.
This sounds like a job for three or four people at least and that's just what she's been doing in the past year.
If Terbrueggen seems like a familiar face, it's because she's been kicking around the Seattle live music scene for almost a decade. She hails from Detroit - "I love old Motown," she says - where she got her start booking shows in punk rock clubs. Terbrueggen moved to Seattle for the same reason many of us do: "The mountains and the ocean." She also cites Seattle's much-vaunted civility as a factor; having spent some time in Detroit, this writer can sympathize.
Upon her arrival in Seattle, Terbrueggen began tending bar at the Weathered Wall (now the home of I-Spy), later moving up to bar manager. "As bar manager I was doing the payouts for a lot of the bands and I helped book some of the shows there," she explains. "When the Weathered Wall closed, I went to work at The Brick Street and was a bartender and bar manager. Eventually I started booking shows there." An additional part-time stint at Moe's added to Terbrueggen's workload - clearly, this is a woman who likes to keep busy.
But she stopped booking bands for awhile before The Central came along with an offer. "I'd taken a break from it for a couple of years and mostly bartended," she says. "The owners [of The Central] were looking for someone to take over the booking. They wanted to try something different - I was friends with them and I also worked at the Fenix at that point. They knew it was something I used to do, and asked if I would be interested in starting to book bands again."
For Terbrueggen, this first required a change in format. The Central primarily booked blues acts; club-level touring acts such as Indigenous, Preston Shannon and Charles and the Nightcats had played there. "The person who booked the bands inclined mainly towards blues and R & B," she explains, "and when they asked if I'd be interested in booking there I said I'd love to, but I felt it should be a rock venue." So she started off with rock acts on Wednesday nights. That turned out to be so successful that Terbrueggen now books The Central six nights a week.
Booking at Tommy's began in a similar manner. "The owners were looking to bring in live music; they asked around town, and several bands recommended me for it," Terbrueggen says. "So they called me out of the blue and asked if I'd be willing to help them turn it into a live music venue." Though Terbrueggen only books Tommy's on Saturdays, adding live music on other nights is currently under discussion. "The shows have been consistently doing pretty well. Word has definitely spread that they're doing live bands now, and we're starting to see a lot of repeat business."
Terbrueggen promotes bands to other clubs as well. She's brought national touring acts to The Catwalk and will often recommend bands to clubs whose format they fit, particularly if she feels that they're not quite right for one of the venues she books. A good fit is important: "I will listen to a band's music and make sure that they'll fit in the venue that I'm booking for," she says. When asked what she listens for when considering a new band: "Song structure," she laughs, "and good energy, not necessarily quality of recording. I'm happy to have bands send me a cassette of them playing in the basement. Often I will call other venues they've played and see how it's gone."
Terbrueggen sees a lot of potential in the Seattle scene. "I think it's improving. We're starting to see more excitement about original live music again. I'll be curious to see where it is in a year; it's hit the low and is on its way back up." She's giving it a bit of a jumpstart herself - in addition to booking bands and managing Windowpane - by founding the Band Support Network. The deal is simple: bands agree to attend one another's shows, creating a starter crowd at the venue and giving the performers some encouragement - since, as anyone who's ever played to an empty room knows, empty rooms suck.
"The earthquake hurt a lot of clubs," Terbrueggen notes. Even those that weren't actually closed, as were The Fenix and The OK Hotel, suffered damage, and the loss of those two larger spaces has made things particularly difficult. Benefits for The Fenix in particular have helped a bit in drawing the scene together, but "not as much as we hoped," Terbrueggen says. While she's pleased about The Fenix benefits and has helped stage and promote some of them herself, she notes "I haven't seen much support for The OK Hotel."
As if she didn't have enough to keep her busy, Terbrueggen has plans for the future - chiefly, an expansion of her current projects. While she has no plans at present to take on bands other than Windowpane, she sees band management as a potential in the future. "I'm trying to be cautious about taking on too much at any one point. The Central is a lot of work in itself, but it's going well." She also thinks that as the Seattle music scene grows, more people will come out and do what she's doing. "It comes in waves. As people get more excited about shows, we'll see more people coming out to help bands." Let's hope so.
This article originally appeared in Tablet Newspaper, volume 2, issue 22. There is a live version of the article online here.