66 Saints' CD release party, with Sleep Capsule, Tiger, and Connie at Re-Bar, Seattle, WA, April 11, 1995
This Ellen Forney-designed poster advertises 66 Saints’ CD release party with guests Sleep Capsule, Tiger, and Connie at Re-Bar in Seattle on April 11, 1995.
66 Saints was a Seattle Rock band formed in 1991 and active in the Northwest throughout the early 1990s. The band was started by guitarists and vocalists Lisa Orth (b. unknown) and John Maroney (b. unknown). Orth was the first official art director for Sub Pop Records, where she designed Nirvana’s now iconic logo, and she also worked for The Rocket, Manna Records, and Seattle Gay News. The band also featured Mitch Michieli (b. unknown) on drums and backup vocals, and they frequented Seattle venues like Re-Bar, Moe’s Mo’Roc’N Café, and the Off Ramp. 66 Saints released limited recordings with Big Flaming Ego Records before they disbanded.
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.
Ellen Forney (b. 1968) is a cartoonist based in Seattle. In the 1990s, her autobiographical comic strip I Was Seven in ‘75 ran in The Stranger, and her work has appeared in various newspapers and magazines, in collaboration with comedian Margaret Cho, writer Kristin Gore, professor Camille Paglia, and Stranger sex columnist Dan Savage, among others. She has published work related to mental health and political activism, curated a travelling exhibition on comics and health for the National Library of Medicine, and painted two murals in Seattle’s Capitol Hill light rail station.
