Blind date: He said I reminded him of Eddie Redmayne but he was drinking very strong beer12/24/2017 Did Ben and Joe hit it off over a curry? Ben on JoeWhat were you hoping for? First impressions? What did you talk about? Any awkward moments? Good table manners? Best thing about Joe? Would you introduce him to your friends? Describe him in three words What do you think he made of you? Did you go on somewhere? And… did you kiss? If you could change one thing about the evening, what would it be? Marks out of 10? Would you meet again? Joe on BenWhat were you hoping for? First impressions? What did you talk about? Any awkward moments? Good table manners? Best thing about Ben? Would you introduce him to your friends? Describe him in three words What do you think he made of you? Did you go on somewhere? And… did you kiss? If you could change one thing about the evening, what would it be? Marks out of 10? Would you meet again? Ben and Joe ate at Calcutta Street, London W1. Fancy a blind date? Email [email protected] For a free three-day trial, go to soulmates.theguardian.com/subscribe/blinddate from https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2017/12/25/blind-date-he-said-i-reminded-him-of-eddie-redmayne-but-he-was-drinking-very-strong-beer/
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Humans made grape wine hundreds of years earlier than previously believed, according to analysis of clay pottery dating back to 6,000 BC A series of excavations in Georgia has uncovered evidence of the world’s earliest winemaking, in the form of telltale traces within clay pottery dating back to 6,000BC – suggesting that the practice of making grape wine began hundreds of years earlier than previously believed. While there are thousands of cultivars of wine around the world, almost all derive from just one species of grape, with the Eurasian grape the only species ever domesticated. Until now, the oldest jars known to have contained wine dated from 7,000 years ago, with six vessels containing the chemical calling cards of the drink discovered in the Zagros mountains in northern Iran in 1968. The latest find pushes back the early evidence for the tipple by as much as half a millennium. “When we pick up a glass of wine and put it to our lips and taste it we are recapitulating that history that goes back at least 8,000 years,” said Patrick McGovern a co-author of the study from the University of Pennsylvania museum of archaeology and anthropology, who also worked on the earlier Iranian discovery. The find comes after a team of archaeologists and botanists in Georgia joined forces with researchers in Europe and North America to explore two villages in the South Caucasus region, about 50km south of the capital Tbilisi. The sites offered a glimpse into a neolithic culture characterised by circular mud-brick homes, tools made of stone and bone and the farming of cattle, pigs, wheat and barley. Researchers were particularly intrigued by fired clay pots found in the region – likely to be some of the earliest pottery made in the Near East. Indeed, one representative jar from a nearby settlement is almost a metre tall and a metre wide, and could hold more than 300 litres. What’s more, it was decorated with blobs that the researchers say could be meant to depict clusters of grapes. To explore whether winemaking was indeed a part of life in the region, the team focused on collecting and analysing fragments of pottery from two neolithic villages, as well as soil samples. Radiocarbon dating of grains and charcoal nearby suggested the pots date to about 6,000–5,800 BC. In total, 30 pottery fragments and 26 soil samples were examined, with the inside surface of the pottery ground down a little to produce a powder for analysis. While many of the pieces were collected in recent excavations, two were collected in the 1960s; researchers have long suspected they might bear traces of wine. The team then used a variety of analytical techniques to explore whether the soil or the inner surface of the vessels held signs of molecules of the correct mass, or with the right chemical signatures, to be evidence of wine. The results, published in the Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences, reveal that for eight of the fragments, including the two previously unearthed, the team found traces of tartaric acid – a substance found in grapes in large quantities. Tests on the associated soils largely showed far lower levels of the acid. The team also identified the presence of three other acids linked to grapes and wine. Other evidence indicating the presence of wine included ancient grape pollen found at the excavated sites – but not in the topsoil – as well as grape starch particles, the remains of a fruit fly, and cells believed to be from the surface of grapevines on the inside of one of the fragments. Source: http://allofbeer.com/evidence-of-worlds-earliest-winemaking-uncovered-by-archaeologists/ from https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2017/12/25/evidence-of-worlds-earliest-winemaking-uncovered-by-archaeologists/ Dazzle your Game of Thrones viewing party guests with the A Song of Ice and Fire cocktail12/24/2017 After last weeks Battle of the Bastards episode, the season finale for season 6 of Game of Thrones is sure to be a wild ride. But, how to celebrate such a thrilling season? With a thrilling cocktail, of course! YouTube channel Cocktail Chemistry has a great (if a little labor-intensive) cocktail for you to dazzle your house guests with, inspired by the bookA Song of Ice and Fire. Host Nick demonstrates a couple of advanced techniques that include making a hollow ice ball, filling it with a chilled cocktail, and then allowing some flaming rum to melt the ball before the drink itself douses the flames. Its certainly not a cocktail technique for beginners, and readers may not have the time and skills necessary to make the cocktail before tonights finale. The good news is you have a whole nother year to perfect your cocktail skills to make this bad boy for the season 7 premiere.
from https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2017/12/25/dazzle-your-game-of-thrones-viewing-party-guests-with-the-a-song-of-ice-and-fire-cocktail/ President Barack Obama on Monday made major foreign-policy news by announcing the end of a decades-long arms embargo on Vietnam. But it was the next thing Obama did on his trip that has Americans talking. The commander-in-chief ate some noodles with another famous person. Obama met Anthony Bourdain, host of CNN‘s culinary travel showParts Unknown, for some local grub and beer at the Bn ch Hng Lin restaurant in Hanoi.
On Twitter, Bourdain said that the meal, which consisted of a pork-and-noodle dish called bn ch,cost just $6, which he paid. He also revealed the the two tall AmericansObama is 6 foot 1 inch, while Bourdain towers at 6 foot 4 inchesenjoyed the food while sitting on some relatively short plastic stools. (The average height of a Vietnamese man is about 5 foot 5 inches tall, according to one study.)
The casualness of the other diners in the photo hasstruck some people as particularly odd. But to find out whether their arrival caused a stir, we’ll have to wait until theParts Unknownepisode about Obama’s trip airs sometime later this year. Obama’s appearance on Parts Unknownmarks the White House’s latest effort to reach new audiences through popular culture. Following his final State of the Union address in January, Obama sat down for interviewswith several YouTube stars, and he also appeared on an episode of Running Wild with Bear Grylls last year during the first trip by a sitting president above the arctic circle in Alaska. Last summer, the president appeared on Marc Maron’s popular WTFpodcast for a candid interview. Obama’s trip to Vietnam, his first as president, began on Sunday. Later this week, he will travel to Hiroshima, Japan, where in 1945 the U.S. military dropped a nuclear bomb in an effort to force Japan to surrender in World War II. Obama, who will be the first sitting president to visit the site, will not apologize on behalf of the U.S. for dropping the bomb. Source: http://allofbeer.com/president-obama-had-beer-and-noodles-with-anthony-bourdain-in-vietnam/ from https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2017/12/24/president-obama-had-beer-and-noodles-with-anthony-bourdain-in-vietnam/ Not giving an inch, going the extra mile, entering the final furlong, piling on the pounds and doing the hard yards – the English language is rich with phrases derived from the units British people use to measure distances, sizes and quantities. Known as imperial measures – because they were defined in law in the early 19th Century and spread across the British Empire – these units have a place in our collective vocabulary and history, but could they be about to make a comeback in every day commercial use following the vote to leave the EU? Although steps towards metrication began nearly a decade before the UK joined the EU in 1973, the gradual adoption of a French measurement system has become synonymous with European integration in the eyes of many and Brexit a priceless opportunity to inch away from it. Since June’s Brexit vote, a number of companies, ranging from butchers to wine merchants, have said they would relish the chance to be able to trade in imperial units. Simon Berry, chairman of Berry Bros & Rudd, has gone as far as to say it is his lifetime’s ambition to sell champagne in pint-sized bottles – currently outlawed in the UK – and in his words to reclaim it from “rules-obsessed bureaucrats”. ‘Part of identity’Campaigner Warwick Cairns says people feel this way because imperial measurements are not only easily understandable but inherently popular. “There is something about feet and inches that feel part of our identity and culture,” he says. “They make sense on a human scale, they make sense on a cultural scale. It is part of us.” A brief history of weights and measures
Mr Cairns, who represents the imperial-supporting British Weights and Measures Association and is the author of a book about the issue, insists that people should not be required to use either system, because modern technology can easily accommodate both. “This is the chance for people to be free to use whatever measures they please,” he says. “Take my bathroom scales. If I want to weigh myself in kilograms, I can. Flick the switch the other way, and I can weigh myself in stones and pounds. There is no reason why you can’t do that.” Controversial attempts by the EU – aided and abetted by successive British governments – to make the UK move to a single metric system officially came to an end in 2008, when Brussels agreed to the continued use of pints (for draught beer and cider), pounds and miles, alongside metric units. Current laws require traders to use metric measurements when weighing packaged or loose goods for sale in England, Wales and Scotland but still allow them to sell goods in imperial quantities and display prices in imperial as long as they do not “stand out more” than the metric signs alongside them. The rules are not rigorously enforced today, after public and political furore over the prosecution of the “metric martyrs”, a group of market traders convicted 15 years ago of selling goods using only imperial measures. But they are still seen, by both sides of the argument, as a dog’s breakfast ripe for reform. Advocates of metric say it is perfectly feasible for the two systems to co-exist but does not make commercial sense. “The current measurement muddle aids only our competitors,” says Derek Pollard, the chairman of the UK Metric Association. ‘Norms and rules’With 90% of the UK’s trade taking place with metric countries – the US being the stand-out exception – he says the UK would be at a big disadvantage if it reverted. “To compete effectively, we need a single, logical and universal measurement system that everyone understands and is familiar with,” Mr Pollard says. This view is shared by the UK Weighing Federation, which speaks on behalf of companies manufacturing, installing and repairing commercial scales and associated equipment – including components, instrumentation and software. Not only, it says, are most imperial measuring scales now consigned to people’s lofts or on display in museums, but the equipment used to test commercial weights to guarantee their conformity with technical and safety standards – a procedure known as type approvals – is not available for any mass switch back to imperial. “All measuring equipment is designed to record in metric,” says its president, Nick Catt. “If you want to be a manufacturing country and want to have a strong connection with Europe, then you have to follow the European norms and rules. “Otherwise it would be chaos and it would be consumers who lose out.” ‘Impractical’Having a dual system of metric and imperial would, he says, involve a “phenomenal” cost to retailers, which would inevitably be passed on to customers – an outcome at odds with the deregulatory impetus behind Brexit. “It would just not be practical,” Mr Catt says. “You would have to teach kids in schools what pounds are. “We are talking about an era that is gone, and we can’t turn the clock back that far.” The act of Brexit, in and of itself, will not see “lb” signs springing up all over the UK. For that to happen, Parliament would need to repeal the current regulations, dating back to the mid-1990s, obliging traders to sell their products in metric weights. As far as the government is concerned, such a change is not on the horizon while it focuses on reassuring investors the UK is open for business globally after the Brexit vote. “Businesses can already use imperial units alongside metric, or on their own for draught beer and cider, bottled milk and road traffic signs,” a spokesman for the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said. “This is national legislation and there has been no change to the law since the referendum result.” While the issue is unlikely to be the first port of call for MPs as they seek to decouple the UK from 40 years of EU-related legislation over the coming years, there is a body of opinion within Parliament that would support such a move. In 1998, 89 MPs signed a parliamentary motion opposing compulsory metrication and the prosecution of traders continuing to use imperial. The motion, which also pledged its support for the “use of customary UK measures”, shows imperial measures have friends in high places. Among those to sign were Jeremy Corbyn and Philip Hammond – then humble backbenchers but now Labour leader and Chancellor of the Exchequer. Source: http://allofbeer.com/could-brexit-lead-to-comeback-for-pounds-ounces-and-yards-bbc-news/ from https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2017/12/24/could-brexit-lead-to-comeback-for-pounds-ounces-and-yards-bbc-news/ The sale of marijuana was made legal for adults in Colorado in December of 2012. And, according to a new survey, recreation use of the drug has actually fallen slightly among high schoolers since the legalization of the drug. Critics of legalization feared that rates of marijuana use would go up in the years after it was made legal, butnow the rate of Colorado teen smoking is, in fact, below the national average. In 2015, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment found that 21.2 percent of Colorado high school students had smoked weed in the last month. In 2011, that number was 22 percent. And the national average clocks in at 21.7 percent. With calls for the legalization of recreational marijuana use being made in states all over the country, findings like this will surely play a large part in future legislation. Mason Tvert, a pro-legalization spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project, claimed that,
Now, we can only speculate why the numbers of marijuana use went down among Colorado teens, so that is exactly what I’m going to do. Let my flagrant, dataless speculating begin! 1. In a lot of places, it can actually be easier for teenagers to get weed than alcohol because alcohol is regulated and there are (surprise) far fewer illegal beer dealers than illegal weed dealers. 2. Teenagers have zero idea how to smoke weed. Their main strategy for the recreational use of marijuana involves taking a single, titanic hit at a party, and then sitting in terrified, isolated silence until someone asks them if they want another hit. Without the added benefit of open law breaking, that paranoia coma becomes a little less appetizing to teens. After all, teens are already socially awkward and insecure as is. 3. If you’re going to be comparing being a teenager and getting high at a party with other high teenagers to being a teenager and getting drunk at a party with other drunk teenagers, the winner, by a mile, is drinking. It’s taken me a decade to figure out how to be happily stoned at a party. But it took me approximately 10 seconds when I was 16 to figure out how to be happily drunk at one. Subscribe to Elite Daily’s official newsletter, The Edge, for more stories you don’t want to miss. Source: http://allofbeer.com/teens-dont-think-weed-is-cool-now-that-its-legal-according-to-a-study/ from https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2017/12/23/teens-dont-think-weed-is-cool-now-that-its-legal-according-to-a-study/ This article is part of HuffPost’s “Reclaim” campaign, an ongoing project spotlighting the world’s waste crisis and how we can begin to solve it. Perhaps you’ve come across a seemingly clever T-shirt that suggests you “Save water. Drink beer.” Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. For every pint of beer you drink, a bucket of water basically goes down an expensive drain. A laboratory in Colorado is trying to change that. Researchers there are using the sugar-rich wastewater from brewing to produce efficient, naturally-derived lithium-ion battery electrodes that could be used for your smartphone or laptop. Here’s how it works: When a batch of beer is made, there is often some leftover wort the solution of sugars that will become beer that never reaches the fermentation process. Additionally, a ton of water is required to wash out the fermentation vessels used to make the finished product. These are the main two sources of brewery wastewater. Instead of undergoing an expensive filtration process, the wastewater is used to nurture a fast-growing fungus called Neurospora crassa. The brewery waste is shaken and heated in the lab to create ideal conditions for the fungus to grow. After two days, the fungus is heated to extreme temperatures. This charred product is high in carbon and an ideal material for batteries. “The core of the technology was an attempt to try to make a very important material, one that is used in energy storage in particular … but do it in a way that is environmentally friendly,” Tyler Huggins, who started researching the technique as a graduate student at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering. Huggins says he and his colleagues “went to nature for inspiration” to avoid the shipping costs and energy-intensive processing typical to the manufacturing of batteries. “Our process, on the other hand, cultivates the feedstock (fungal biomass) on sight, and we control the chemical and physical properties upfront so it does not have to be converted to make the final material,” Huggins told The Huffington Post. The research team found that their product contains a slightly higher energy density than conventional graphite materials common to lithium-ion batteries. And, of course, the beer-to-battery method is much cleaner. With the knowledge that they have a working process, Huggins and his colleagues started a company called Emergy to explore making the product a commercial success. The researchers first collaborated with Avery Brewing in Boulder for their supply of unfiltered wastewater. They have since reached out to other breweries as potential partners. Huggins explained that breweries recognize the challenge they face and are energized to meet it. “One thing that has been a pleasure working in this industry, from the small craft guys to the large breweries, is that they are all really progressive,” he said. “They know this is an issue and they are actively trying to solve it.” More stories like this:
Source: http://allofbeer.com/how-tapping-the-power-of-beer-could-make-a-better-smartphone-battery/ from https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2017/12/22/how-tapping-the-power-of-beer-could-make-a-better-smartphone-battery/ A shocking picture of a motorway smash which left a driver dead and another severely injured has been released to warn about using a phone while driving. Christy George, 38, from Hucknall, was jailed in July for causing a crash on the M1 in Leicestershire after becoming distracted on her phone in 2014. Her car crashed into a lorry which ploughed onto the opposite carriageway in an eight vehicle pile-up. Leicestershire Police released the image in a warning film. The release of the film follows the announcement that penalty points and fines for drivers caught using handheld mobile phones are to double next year. More on this and other Leicestershire stories George deleted a record of calls made during her journey after her Skoda hit a lorry which crashed through to the opposite carriageway. It spilled its load of beer barrels and crashed into a BMW travelling in the opposite direction, killing Murray Simpson, from London. Liese Bowers-Straw, from Nottinghamshire, was also involved in the crash which broke her neck in two places, tore muscles across her hips and stomach, and injured her brain. She has not returned to work and struggles to leave her home because of the trauma. She said: “I remember thinking ‘that’s it, I’m a goner, I’m dead’ and then I don’t remember anything else until the following day. “The collision has completely changed my way of life. I have gone from having a career I loved… to being a prisoner in my own home doing absolutely nothing.” Det Con Pete Davies said it was the “largest collision site” he had ever investigated. He said: “Someone died in this collision and Liese has been left with the most appalling injuries as a result of someone who was too selfish to wait to make a call.” George was jailed for five years and banned from the road for 10 years. Source: http://allofbeer.com/fatal-beer-lorry-crash-photo-released-as-warning-bbc-news/ from https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2017/12/22/fatal-beer-lorry-crash-photo-released-as-warning-bbc-news/ We live in a‘post-truth’ era, or at least according to Oxford Dictionaries which named it ‘word of the year’ in its annual poll. Facebook is getting intense scrutiny for failing to filter out fake news from the platform, forcing Mark Zuckerberg, afterinitial hesitation, to introduce a series of updates aimed at preventing the spread of hoaxes as well as false and misleading news. We had a look at 2016’s most viral news stories that were also spectacularly fake: Corona beer founderIt was the perfect feel-good story for 2016. After his death, the founder of Corona beer, Antonino Fernandez, generously leaves 200m euros (169m; $208m) to the 80 residents of Cerezales, the Spanish village where he was born and raised. Fernandez, who migrated to Mexico in 1949 when he was 32, died in August. He was 99 years old and a billionaire. A host of British media outlets, including The Daily Mail, cited a report from the local paper Diario de Leon as the main source for the story.Others, including RT, The Independent, The Mirror and The Sun linked back to the Daily Telegraph, which later deleted the article. However, to the major disappointment of basically everyone, the story turned out to be untrue. The Fundacin Cerezales Antonino y Cinia, a cultural and contemporary art center established by Fernandez, categorically denied these reports after Mashable reached out. “I can confirm he didn’t leave money to his villagers in his will,” Lucia Alajos, the Foundation’s communications chief told Mashable. “His family recently opened his will and we actually don’t know who got the money from the inheritance. But it’s definitely not the town or his neighbours.”Some family members have a house in the village, but they don’t live there. They just come during the holidays.” Keeps shattering our dreams, 2016. Facebook lives from spaceA Facebook Live showing a live feed of the International Space Station (ISS) went viral on social media, though doubts over its authenticity were immediately evident. The footage was posted by several media outlets including UNILAD, Viral USA and INTERESTINATE, gathering an insane amount of views and likes. Viral USA’s Facebook broadcast went on for three hours and got more than 2 million likes, 400k shares and 280k views. High figures were also recorded by UNILAD, which tagged the International Space Station in the caption. However, there was no mention of the live stream on the official NASA website or Facebook page.And the video being streamed looked remarkably similar to one from 2013 showing ISS Expedition 38 with Russian astronauts Oleg Kotov & Sergei Ryazanski with the Olympic torch for Sochi winter games Eventually, a NASA spokesman confirmed to Mashable what many were already thinking. There was no spacewalk being conducted outside the International Space Station that day. Grieving kangarooImages of what appeared to be the heartbreak of a kangaroo losing a loved one captured people’s imaginations. Photographer Evan Switzer, quoted by The Daily Mail, shot these photographs while walking his dog in Hervey Bay, Queensland, Australia. I saw the male pick up the female, he looked like he was just trying to get her up and see what was wrong with her, Switzer said. He would lift her up and she wouldnt stand, shed just fall to the ground, hed nudge her, stand beside her it was a pretty special thing, he was just mourning the loss of his mate.
But all was not what it seemed. This tear-jerker of a scene was actually an act of necrophilia, according to veterinary experts. Dr Mark Eldrige, the Principal Research Scientist of Terrestrial Vertebrates at the Australian Museum Research Institute, told Mashable Australia he believes themale kangaroo was actually attempting to mate with the dead female. “The male has really wet forearms, which is what kangaroos do when they are excited or are overheating they lick their forearms,” Eldridge said. “Also if you look at those pictures, you can see he’s got an erection.” “I think people have looked at the [images] from an anthropomorphic point-of-view, and said ‘oh look at that, isn’t that sweet’ whereas I suspect the male is telling the female to get up.” U.S. election result mapAfter the election of Donal Trump, a deluge of data and infographics populated social media in a desperate bid to explain his unexpected win. Fake maps were also thrown into the mix. One of the most blatant examples which did the rounds on Facebook, allegedly compared the results of the 2016 US presidential election with the 2013 crime rate. A quick reverse image search on Google shows the truth, as detailed by Snopes.com, a website dedicated to debunking online rumours. The top map shows the Republican and Democratic majorities by county in the 2016 election but it’s incomplete. The Washington Post has published amore detailed version that shows various shades of red and blue by county. The one at the bottom, instead, shows a 2012 electoral map created by Mark Newman from the Department of Physics and Center for the Study of Complex Systems at the University of Michigan: The Simpsons and TrumpThe Simpsons are pretty good at predicting things. There’s actually a list of predictions they’ve made over the years. For this reason, after the election of Donald Trump people started noticing uncanny parallels between real-life America and the cartoon: However, The Simpsons did not predict Trump’s presidential win or at least not in the way suggested by the tweet. The cartoons are indeed from The Simpsons, but the date on the left-hand picture is wrong. The election chart on the right has been taken out of context. First, the cartoons on the left aren’t from the year 2000; they’re from the following 2015 video shared in the aftermath of Trump announcing that he was running for president. So where’s all this stuff about The Simpsons predicting Trump’s presidency coming from? They were reportedly from the 2000 episode Bart to the Future, which did actually show a vision of a Trump presidency it just didn’t contain any of the images from the tweet that’s gone viral. Source: http://allofbeer.com/the-biggest-debunks-of-2016/ from https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2017/12/22/the-biggest-debunks-of-2016/ The famously stinky Washington DC music den, now 35 years old, was a crucible for the local hardcore scene and even hosted the Clintons How many times have I been to the 9:30 Club? Thousands, says Ian MacKaye, frontman of Minor Threat and Fugazi and founder of Dischord Records. MacKaye first stepped foot in the club in July of 1980 to see a Bad Brains show and has been a regular, both onstage and off, ever since. This year, the 9:30 Club is celebrating its 35th anniversary, marking the occasion with a party (a three-day Worlds Fair exhibition) and a big book a 264-page oral and pictorial history of the club called 9.30 the Book. The scrapbook-like history features interviews and memorabilia from some of its most well-known patrons (Dave Grohl, Chuck D of Public Enemy, Fall Out Boy) and staff members eager to share their memories about the club that helped define a generation and then somehow kept going. The 9:30 Club was founded back in 1980 by Dody DiSanto and Jon Bowers, who opened the venue inside a space previously occupied by the locally infamous Atlantis club. (The Bad Brains have a song called At the Atlantis, explained MacKaye.) The new club took its name from its address in an ignored stretch of downtown Washington DC. My fondest memories of the 9:30 Club take place at its original location at 930 F Street. It was an olfactory wonderland of sweat, beer, clove cigarettes, and of course, the Smell, said Scott Crawford, director of the documentary Salad Days: A Decade of Punk in Washington DC, referring to a notorious aroma variously compared to cigarettes soaked in Lysol and the bottom of a garbage mans shoe. The stretch of downtown Washington DC where the club was located was far from cool, populated by liquor stores, wig shops and famously aggressive rats. Its location did have its perks, though. I remember being stoked about being in the alley back there, said Neil Fallon of the band Clutch. One end had the FBI building, on the other end is Fords Theater where Lincoln got shot and in the middle is the load-in for the club. In hindsight, it was a really unique location. That was my first out of town of show, said Fred Armisen, who played there with his band sometime around 1988, and later for a Portlandia live show. DC had a really respected punk scene and I had heard of the club because Bad Brains played there. It was kind of legendary. We went down and opened for Government Issue. The alley was really gritty and dirty and I thought Oh thats real punk, because I was a suburban guy. The 9:30 Club quickly became a stopover for alternative bands getting airplay on college radio like Simple Minds, the Go-Gos, Violent Femmes, and 10,000 Maniacs. REM even played a battle of the bands with another band called REM the winner of the competition got to keep the name. In the early days though, the 9:30 Club was perhaps best known as a space where local bands like Bad Brains, Teen Idles, Nation of Ulysses and Rites of Spring, as well as DCs sui generis go-go scene, could play. There was a pretty significant punk underground hardcore scene in Washington that was growing and at some point the woman who ran the 9:30 Club, Dody DiSanto, took notice of that and she took an interest in that and us and wanted to work together, said MacKaye. She opened the venue up. One of the first shows I saw was in June or July of 1981 with three punk bands that Dodi booked Minor Threat, Government Issue and Youth Brigade, said Cynthia Connolly, author of Banned in DC and former booker for the other downtown DC venue, DC Space. What stood out about that show is that it sold out and it was there that we realized that this kind of music was reaching a larger audience than we could ever imagine. DiSanto also allowed the younger members of the citys nascent punk and hardcore scene into the club, instructing the door to draw giant black xs on the hands of anyone under the age of 18 (the legal drinking age at the time). It was a suggestion that came from MacKaye and his band Teen Idles, who had seen it done at a club in San Francisco. The black xs eventually became a hallmark of the straightedge hardcore scene. I dont think theres another scene in the country that has that and its because of this agreement between the 9:30 Club and the punks, said MacKaye. They gave us a shot and no one ever abused it. The 9:30 Club became a place for the members of the citys arts and music scene to hang out. At the old club, we were such a tight-knit group of people, it was like a clubhouse more than a club, said Donna Westmoreland, who started working at the club in 1990 as a bar manager, and is now the head of IMP, which owns the club and books acts for other venues. But it was a club that anyone that wanted to be a part of it could join. Adding to the clubhouse vibe was the spaces layout, a strange L shape which allowed bands and fans to mingle in the long hallways. It was almost always over capacity, too. I saw Jesus Lizard at the old 9:30 on the Liar tour. You cant believe how overpacked it was. There must have been over 300 people and it was 199-capacity, said Travis Morrison of the Dismemberment Plan. Despite packing them in, however, the club always lost money, and when DiSanto and Bowers divorced the club was sold to current owners Seth Hurwitz and Rich Heinecke. By that point the club was an integral part of the fabric of the city and the surrounding suburbs, and was a necessary stopping point for music fans and touring bands. Everybody has their story about their first show at the 9:30 Club, said Westmoreland. In 1991 I played at the 9:30 club for the first time, says Moby. I was opening up for the Shamen, and even though I was the opening act going on as people were walking in to the club, I felt so amazed to actually be performing on stage at one of the most hallowed and legendary clubs in the United States. Thats a sentiment reflected again and again by bands who played there. Clutch played their first show at 9:30 opening for Sub Pops Love Battery. As far as I was concerned at that time we had made it as a band. Im sure there were other clubs people wanted to get into, but that was top of the shelf for me, says Fallon. Going backstage there as a band was thrilling. It really felt like stepping on hallowed ground to finally reach that 9:30 stage as a player, says John Dugan, drummer for the band Chisel (led by Ted Leo) and a former editor at the Washington DC City Paper. While many musicians have memories of playing the club (and Chisel played there a lot), Dugan also has fond memories as a journalist when venerable New York Times writer David Carr ushered a group of young reporters into the aftershow for the Tibetan Freedom Concert in 1998. [Carr] negotiated our way in and we saw the show of a lifetime solo Michael Stipe, Pulp and Radiohead. Magic, says Dugan. A new homeUnder the leadership of the new owners, the 9:30 Club started to thrive, but it also started to outgrow its already packed location. When the Black Cat, a new club catering to smaller bands opened, the 9:30 Club decided to make its move. At the beginning of 1996, 9:30 Club moved to a larger and more traditional space at 815 V Street NW, where its been for the last 20 years. Fittingly, go-go band Trouble Funk helped close out the old space, while the Smashing Pumpkins played back-to-back shows to inaugurate the new one. The old space was what it was: the floors were rotting and smelled like cigarettes, says Connolly. The new space really elevated it. When we moved to a new space it really became about the music, said Westmoreland. People who worked there were no less committed but there was a lot more to accomplish in the course of the day when you go from 200 capacity to 1,200. One of the ways that the club was able to hold onto its position as a venue for both local acts and national touring bands is that it has a flexible-size venue. With the stage on wheels and the sound and lights on tracks, we can do smaller shows and keep it really intimate when a band is on its way up or maybe on its way down it can feel like its playing to a sold out room, says Westmoreland. The remarkable thing is that when the club moved it maintained its mojo, said Clutchs Fallon. Theres some aesthetic that they were able to translate from that small club to whatever it is now. I dont think of it as a club anymore, I think of it as a venue, said MacKaye. I think its one of the best, if not the best run venue in the country and I know a lot of tour managers who would agree with me. Of course it wasnt just go-go acts and punk bands that made the 9:30 Club a landmark. The Beastie Boys, Justin Timberlake, Bob Dylan and Radiohead have all played the club, and back in 2001 the Clintons rented the space out for a private party. The 9:30 Club is now one of the most attended venues of its size in the world. Everybody knows the 9:30 Club, said Armisen. For its 30th anniversary, Henry Rollins hosted a show where the Foo Fighters played alongside 9:30 Club mainstays like Clutch, MacKayes new band The Evens, Ted Leo, Trouble Funk and the Slickee Boys. Now, as it celebrates its 35th year, with a book to document its past and one eye on the future, its clear that the 9:30 Club is no longer just a nightclub, but an American music institution. Source: http://allofbeer.com/930-club-the-hardcore-venue-that-hosted-the-president/ from https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2017/12/22/930-club-the-hardcore-venue-that-hosted-the-president/ |
AuthorHi my name is Samantha Roberts I am 23 years old and I just graduated with my BSN degree I love to enjoy going out with friends on my spare time and enjoying the Bachelor life. Archives
April 2019
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