Molasses with DJ Riz at the Re-Bar, Seattle, WA, July 23, 1991

This poster advertises a performance by Seattle Funk band Molasses and long-time KEXP DJ Riz Rollins at Belltown’s Re-Bar in July 1991. Formed in Seattle around 1989, Molasses was a Funk and Soul band featuring Keith Curtis (b. unknown) and Kevin Seely (b. 1970) on trumpet, bassist Harry Wirth (b. unknown), guitarists Jesse Tarrant (b. unknown) and Harvey Bauer (b. unknown), Dave Fischer (b. unknown) on alto saxophone, Andrew Hickman (b. unknown) on tenor saxophone, Jeremy Clement (b. unknown) on drums, Keith Rea (b. unknown) on keyboards, and vocalist Ron Ray (b. unknown). The band formed around 1989 with Wirth, Tarrant, and Bauer, who had played together since high school. Band members were largely from the Northwest, except Ray, who had moved to Seattle from North Carolina. Amidst the rise of Grunge in Seattle, Molasses’ distinct horn core and Funk lean stood out, and in 1993, they released an album, Straight From the Players. 

Riz Rollins (b. 1953), known as DJ Riz, is a long-time DJ prominent among Seattle’s Black and LGBTQ+ communities. He grew up and went to college in Chicago, where he sang in the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Operation Breadbasket choir, before moving to Seattle at 25. He began DJing at Re-Bar, a gay music and theatre club in Belltown, in the 1990s. He is also a mainstay on KEXP, formerly KCMU, a student-run station at the University of Washington which gained local recognition for being the first to air grunge bands like Nirvana and Soundgarden in the 1980s. On KEXP, Rollins currently hosts two mixed genre shows, Drive Time on Mondays, and Expansions on Sundays, which he first launched in 1995 as a response to the rise of Acid Jazz, a mix of Funk, Soul, Hip-Hop, Disco, and Jazz, in the local club scene that had yet to take off on radio. 

Steve Wells and Patrick “Pit” Kwiecinski opened Re-Bar in January 1990 at 1114 Howell Street, which had long been a safe space for Seattle’s LGBTQ community. The Night Hawk Tavern (or Nite Hawk) opened in the 1930s, creating a center of gay nightlife featuring cabaret, followed by Thirsty’s in the 1970s, which then became Axel Rock, a dance-focused venue, in the 1980s, and finally Sparks Tavern, which added full-length stage plays, before Re-Bar moved in. Until 2020, when Re-Bar, like many venues, closed indefinitely during the COVID-19 pandemic, they hosted disco nights, art exhibits, theatre, drag, burlesque, and live bands, supporting generations of LGBTQ patrons and performers. KEXP’s Riz Rollins got his start as a DJ, becoming a big part of Seattle’s Black music scene, David Schmader put on his first three plays, and drag performer and comedian Dina Martina was born at Re-Bar. The venue also hosted one of the longest running poetry nights in the West, Seattle Poetry Slam, and a weekly Sunday dance night, Flammable. On September 13, 1991, Re-Bar also hosted the infamous release party for Nirvana’s second album, Nevermind.