“Clinic,” the weekly live-music showcase at Re-bar, is still going on, despite the decline and fall of its co-sponsor Tablet.

Tuesday night’s edition went like they all did. Three bands played (pictured below: the unabashed loudness that is The Octabites). An improv troupe of “naughty nurses” told a few jokes and mingled among the crowd, passing out promotional tchotchkes for Tablet and Toys in Babeland.

After three years and change, the last fortnightly Tablet tabloid is out. Officially, the soft ad market did it in, along with its also-ran status in the local “alt” media universe and its confusing every-other-week schedule. But I’d add that the paper’s concept was contradictory from the get-go.

It never paid its writers a cent; expecting them to work just for the privilege of getting their statements made.

But, aside from a few political conspiracy-corner columns (which never challenged the orthodox-“radical” views of the paper’s target audience), its content was almost uniformly perky and light. The rag acted as if it was daring and rebellious by printing only positive reviews and by running lotsa puff pieces for advertisers.

In the end, Tablet had become a thin publicity sheet, not a true “alternative” at all. Its instigators plan to resurface later this spring in a monthly “magazine” format (no, I don’t know what that means) selling ads to both Seattle and Portland youth-culture businesses. I wish them success, and hope they’ll use the opportunity to reformulate their approach.