Hard to believe it’s been 40 years — the 9:30 Club first opened its doors May 31, 1980.
Its doors are currently locked because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but in the four decades since its opening, the current 9:30 Club has received awards from Rolling Stone, Billboard and Pollstar, and is the most attended club of its size in the world.
Not bad for a club that sprung up out of nowhere, at 930 F Street Northwest, in The Atlantic Building, which currently houses a J. Crew store.
“At that point in time, all of downtown Washington in this area was completely abandoned,” said Roddy Frantz, singer of Urban Verbs, D.C.’s most popular band in the late 1970s and early 1980s, as the punk and new wave scenes were fomenting. Frantz shared his recollections in WTOP’s 2007 series on former local music venues, called “Places That Are Gone.”
In the months before Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter to become the 40th president of the United States, Frantz said the D.C. area was ready for an edgy music venue in a part of town littered with drugs and peep shows.
“There was an energy that was sort of building and aborning all around the country and all around the world,” Frantz said.
Real estate developer Jon Bowers and his artist/promoter wife Dodi DiSanto’s first show at the 9:30 Club featured New York-based jazzy punk band Lounge Lizards, with D.C. locals Tiny Desk Unit opening.
Frantz said despite the club’s odd shape, large poles blocking sightlines, a legal capacity of 200 people, large rats, and an unforgettable stench, 9:30 Club quickly gathered steam.
“When The Police toured the United States for the first time, in a clapped-out old Ford station wagon — just the three of them, no crew, no nothing — they played the 9:30 Club,” Frantz said. “And it became known internationally as kind of the place to play in Washington — it was essentially the CBGB of Washington,” referring to the iconic New York City punk club.
In its early days, 9:30 hosted “Three Bands for Three Bucks” shows, and also held all-ages matinee shows, tailored for the D.C. area’s early hardcore punk scene.
“When you look at the bands that came to hear other bands here,” Frantz said in 2007, standing in front of The Atlantic Building, “we used to let Henry Rollins in through the back door because he was too young to come through the front door.”
Rollins, whose real name is Henry Garfield, was a roadie and fan as D.C.’s first hardcore punk bands began in the early 1980s. He went on to become the singer for Black Flag, an author, radio host and actor.
In 1986, promoters Seth Hurwitz and Rich Heinecke bought the club.
With bands ranging from Nirvana, R.E.M., Red Hot Chili Peppers and Public Enemy to Tony Bennett, the 9:30 Club outgrew its original surroundings by the end of 1995.
On Jan. 5, 1996, the former WUST Radio Music Hall at 815 V Street opened as the new 9:30 Club. Smashing Pumpkins headlined the first show.
Since all music venues in the Washington, D.C., area are closed because of the pandemic, the 9:30 Club won’t be hosting a weekend celebration.
The club is part of the recently-formed National Independent Venue Association to help clubs survive the ongoing shutdown prompted by coronavirus-related restrictions.
