Iconic D.C. rock membership Black Cat celebrates its 30th anniversary this weekend, and it appears like a household reunion.
It’s a hyperlocal lineup Friday and Saturday, that includes Washington greats and supergroups and bringing again to the stage Ex Hex and Ted Leo and the Pharmacists after a number of years, and Velocity Girl for the primary time in 20 years.
“Traditionally, we like to focus, for the anniversaries, on either people who’ve worked here who have bands, or still work here, or the bands that have been in sort of the closer-knit scene,” stated membership proprietor Dante Ferrando. “I like having the anniversary be a party for us and for our music scene.”
Ferrando’s behind the drums each nights – Friday together with his Eighties post-hardcore band Gray Matter and opening Saturday’s lineup with pandemic-borne storage pop-punk band The Owners, who turned the membership into their inventive area throughout the shutdown. Others pulling double obligation embody Owners bassist Laura Harris, who takes the drummer’s seat for Friday night time headliner Ex Hex, and Ex Hex frontwoman Mary Timony, who’ll be again on stage with Hammered Hulls Saturday.
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“It’s more fun for me to get somebody like Ted Leo, who’s played here over 30 times, to come back and do something or Velocity Girl to reunite or get Ex Hex back on the stage,” Ferrando stated.
“Those kind of things mean a lot more to me personally, and I think they resonate with the people who work here a little bit more and the people who come to shows all the time.”
The Black Cat – named after a jazz/piano bar Ferrando’s great-grandfather opened in Greenwich Village earlier than prohibition – got here to life in 1993 when D.C.’s membership scene was restricted, Ferrando stated.
“Weird time in D.C.’s music scene,” he stated. “There was a little bit of a brain drain. A lot of people were leaving, moving to other cities like New York and L.A.”
The 9:30 Club was outgrowing its authentic location, and d.c. area had closed.
“Me and my wife got together a bunch of other people from the music scene and scavenged enough money to just pull off opening Black Cat,” Ferrando stated.
The membership spent a number of years in its authentic 14th Street NW location, earlier than shifting to its present home a number of doorways down in 2001.
There, a person named Bill grew to become regionally well-known, establishing on the sidewalk the place the followers lined up for exhibits. The membership’s unofficial greeter’s cries of “Black Cat! Black Cat!” grew to become a part of the soundtrack of 14th Street.
“The neighborhood was a little rougher, and Bill was nice, so he’d panhandle out front, and honestly, he’d keep all the other more aggressive, obnoxious panhandlers away, and so we were like, ‘OK, we have no problem with you hanging out here since you’re, you know, nice to all the customers,’ and then it just became an ongoing tradition,” Ferrando stated.
The neighborhood obtained nicer, and as its night time life grew, the Black Cat scaled again a number of years in the past. Once a four-pronged venue – two phases, a espresso home and the Red Room bar – they targeted on what they do greatest.
They recreated Red Room upstairs and deserted the espresso home – “by no means actually made us any money,” Ferrando stated – and the smaller Black Cat Backstage.
“In the smaller concert room, which we really liked doing, the industry started treating a lot of those small bands the way they would normally treat midsize and large bands,” Ferrando stated.
“The burden of doing those little shows compared to the amount of money they make just did not add up anymore,” he stated. “There’s a lot more competition and a lot of good small rooms in town, too.”
So, they selected to deal with the issues they do greatest, and Ferrando is happy to maneuver ahead after the transformation.
“I’m kind of psyched just to work on what we’ve got for a while, and just do our thing,” he stated.
“Everybody who works here works here because they like music and like putting on shows, and so all the other stuff, it’s neat and it’s creative and it’s fun to do, to change stuff, but mostly, we like putting on concerts and enjoying music and having a fun bar to hang out at,” Ferrando stated. “So, I’m kind of psyched for the next decade to mostly focus on that and enjoying the club since we’ve got it in the position where we want it.”
