page_title: 9:30 Club
section_title: Nightclub 9:30
hierarchical_section_title: 9:30 Club / History / Nightclub 9:30
caption_attribution_description: English: Punk rock hardcore band The Bad Brains at Nightclub 9:30, Washington, DC, 1983.
context_page_description: The 9:30 Club is a nightclub and concert venue in Washington, D.C. In 2018 the 9:30 Club was named one of the 10 best live music venues in America by Rolling Stone, and in 2019 the club was named "Venue of the Decade" by VenuesNow. The club was originally housed in the ground floor rear room of the Atlantic Building at 930 F Street NW, in the city's downtown area, where it opened on May 31, 1980, with a legal standing capacity of only 199 patrons. In 1996, due to its increasing prominence, the club was moved to a roomier space, its current location at 815 V Street NW, where it anchors the eastern end of the U Street Corridor.
  The 9:30 Club's name was derived from its original street address, which was also the reason to set the venue's original opening time of 9:30 p.m. Early advertising on D.C.'s WHFS radio featured the slogan "9:30 – a Place and Time!"
  As a special feature, the club has a wheeled stage mounted on rails, which can be moved back and forth as needed. This way, the place can feel as packed with 500 people in attendance as it would during a sold-out, full capacity show.
context_section_description: Nightclub 9:30 was founded by artist and dancer Dody DiSanto and her husband, Jon Bowers, a local real estate developer and music enthusiast who had just purchased the Atlantic Building in 1979. The venue hosted its first show on May 31, 1980, featuring New York-based jazz-punk outfit the Lounge Lizards as headliners, and local new wave band Tiny Desk Unit as the opening act. New York's The Fleshtones were the first band ever to be booked at the club.
  Since its origins, Nightclub 9:30, which allowed fans as young as sixteen to enter, was known as a progressive venue noted for its talent in discovering up-and-coming acts. During the early 1980s, it was the home for alternative music in D.C., just as the genre was beginning to blossom. By that point, the club was based around local bands, mainly from the punk, hardcore, and go-go scenes; D.C.-area acts such as Minor Threat (played there in '83), Fugazi (also played there in '94), Government Issue, 9353, The Slickee Boys, Urban Verbs, Chuck Brown ("The Godfather of Go-Go") in '05, Maiesha and the Hip Huggers featuring E.U., Root Boy Slim and the Sex Change Band, and Dain Bramage, whose teenage drummer, Dave Grohl from Alexandria, went on to become part of Nirvana and to found the Foo Fighters. (The Foo Fighters also played there in '99.) James Blood Ulmer played there in 1982.
  However, in a very short time, the venue also became a regular stopping point for punk and new wave bands touring the East Coast. Some of the most notable performers in the early days of Nightclub 9:30 were Black Flag, the Bad Brains from D.C. (also played there in '92), the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Psychedelic Furs, Einstürzende Neubauten, the Ramones, X, Blue Angel (with lead singer Cyndi Lauper), the Bangles, R.E.M., Hüsker Dü, Erasure, Richard Hell and the Voidoids, the Violent Femmes, the Butthole Surfers, That Petrol Emotion, the Police, the Replacements, Marti Jones, Marshall Crenshaw, Mod Fun, Nash the Slash, the Go-Go's, and BETTY, whose bassist and co-vocalist, Alyson Palmer, tended bar in the club at the time.
  On May 21, 1981, Washington music programmer and writer Tom Terrell was instrumental in masterminding the U.S. premiere of reggae band Steel Pulse on the night of Bob Marley's funeral, which was broadcast live worldwide from Nightclub 9:30.
  In 1986, after six years of operating the club, DiSanto sold it to Seth Hurwitz and Richard Heinecke of It's My Party (I.M.P.), the Maryland-based concert promotion company they co-own.
  Over the following years, as the club's prominence and lineup were growing, the need for a bigger space was becoming increasingly evident. The old Nightclub 9:30 closed its doors on December 31, 1995, and moved to a new location.
  The club's final shows at the original location were memorialized on a two-CD set released in 1997 and entitled 9:30 Live – A Time, A Place, A Scene. This live CD, recorded between December 28, 1995, and January 1, 1996, includes local music from the Urban Verbs, Tiny Desk Unit, Mother May I, the Insect Surfers, Tru Fax and the Insaniacs, and Black Market Baby.
caption: Bad Brains at the old Nightclub 9:30 in 1983.
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