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Whether you started hanging out at Black Cat when it was located at 1831 14th Street NW or came of age after it moved down the block in 2001, many Washingtonians have made memories at the venerable rock club. We at Washington City Paper fondly recall the mayoral and D.C. Council debates it hosted over the years, of course, but visitors have celebrated everything from marriages to film premieres at the space.
Black Cat celebrated its 30th anniversary this weekend with two shows featuring performers with deep connections in the D.C. music scene. City Paper contributor Erica Bruce checked in with owner Dante Ferrando, performers, and patrons, and found that while some things have changed in both the club and its neighborhood, the spirit remains the same.
The building at 1811 14th St. NW was purchased long before mimosa brunches and high cost real estate were commonplace on the stretch connecting Logan Circle to U Street NW. The past five years have seen the area transition for a variety of reasons, both planned and unplanned. But Black Cat has weathered gentrification, a changing music scene, and a global pandemic, and is still doing what it’s always done. As the song goes, “the ground’s unsolid, don’t forget to keep your ear to the ground.”
This past weekend, Black Cat celebrated its 30 years of longevity with a sold out, two-night anniversary party. Multiple bands with roots in D.C., both old and new, were on hand, including Ex Hex, Gray Matter, Flasher, the Messthetics, and Birthday Girl on night one, and the reunion of Velocity Girl, playing for the first time in 21 years, Ted Leo & the Pharmacists, Bad Moves, Hammered Hulls, and the Owners on night two. But it was a reunion in the usual sense too, as parents brought their kids, friends ran into old friends, and those community ties that often get broken as you get older were refastened. In the words of Mabel Canty, lead singer of Birthday Girl and daughter of man-in-every-local-band Brendan Canty, “the Black Cat is the one still-standing club that can connect me to the music my dad made, the music of the original D.C. punk music generation.”
For more reflections and photos from the weekend’s gigs, check out Bruce’s full story on our website.
—Caroline Jones (tips? cjones@washingtoncitypaper.com)
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