In September, the future of the Surf Club was looking bright. The Kenilworth Avenue roots music roadhouse in Edmonston, Md., had regained the right to sell alcohol on nights it featured live music. But Thursday afternoon in an email to members of the Twistlist roots music listserv, Surf Club owner James Byrum wrote:

I want to thank everyone for the awesome years of support you have given me. It is with a saddened heart that I confirm all the rumors and make the news official, the Surf Club is closed forever. The property has been sold and will become a laundromat. I'm sorry I couldn't keep the Surf Club going any longer. Many of you know the obstacles that I have faced.  Hope to see you all around on some dance floor somewhere!

The club's last live gig on Oct. 29 featured local blue-eyed R&B combo King Soul.  There were hints of trouble when the bar's website didn't list any events after that date. Byrum has not responded to emails or phone calls since late October.

In August, when I last communicated with Byrum, he indicated that some Edmonston residents wanted him to sell the club in the hopes that a buyer would raze it and build a retail establishment other than a nightclub. Then, he said he had no interest in selling the place that he and his father bought in 2008 from Chick Hall, who had opened the original Surf Club in Colmar Manor, Md., in 1955, before moving it to Edmonston in 1975.

Byrum faced a number of obstacles in trying to keep this Americana music showcase thriving. In addition to unhappy locals and the nearby murder that led to Surf Club's temporary license problems earlier this year, there was the club’s lack of Metro access, changing demographics in Prince George’s County, a small advertising budget—and, maybe most challenging, the limited audience for blues, roots rock, and zydeco.

But now all that will be left are the memories of this cinder block, brick and wood paneled bar with a stage, dance floor and pool tables.  I remember Chick Hall Jr.'s band playing tears-in-your-beer country and honky-tonk sounds to a nearly empty room ten years ago, while more recently the speedy, insistent chank-a-chank of the rubboard in various Louisiana bands kept folks twirling on the dancefloor, as did the guitar sounds of numerous local roots, blues, and rockabilly bands. While some groups will get bookings at Glen Echo, Artisphere, Blob's Park, and elsewhere, none of those locales quite have the same atmosphere. The Surf Club's 56 year run is over.

Roy and Chubby Carrier

Good news, roots rock fans: Starting tonight, Edmonston, Md., venue Surf Club is again hosting live music you can drink to. Owner James Byrum wrote to local roots music listserv Twistlist on Sept. 15  with the good news:

Thanks to the Prince Georges County Liquor Control Board, the Surf Club is once again hosting live bands with full beer/wine/liquor privileges! Thanks to all of you who have been so supportive to us during these difficult times! Now lets party! :-) .

Earlier this year, Prince George's County authorities barred the roadhouse from featuring entertainment on nights when it was also selling liquor, following the death of a patron near the club. While in recent years the longtime honky-tonk venue expanded its musical offerings to include rap, its owners have informed local authorities  they'll only be booking roots and Americana sounds from here on out.

Tonight, the Surf Club will be selling booze and offering Louisiana zydeco singer/accordionist Chubby Carrier’s special tribute to his father, the late vocalist/accordionist Roy Carrier, who died of a heart attack in 2010.  The senior Carrier used to play the Surf Club regularly; his Grammy winning son will be bringing his own soulful vocals along with his Bayou Swamp Band’s speedy rhythms. Expect good-time Creole sounds with some R&B influences.

Chubby Carrier and the Bayou Swamp Band performing tonight at 7 p.m. at the Surf Club, 4711 Kenilworth Ave., Hyattsville, MD. Free. (301) 927-6310.

In an e-mail to Arts Desk, Byrum notes that the longtime roadhouse is open as a bar on nights where they do not feature music. Surf Club ran into trouble with the Prince George’s County Liquor Board when someone involved in a fight that occurred inside the club was later murdered nearby.

The event will be hosted by longtime local Holly fan and rockabilly singer J.P. McDermott and his band, Western Bop, who have hosted numerous tributes over the last ten years to the horn-rimmed-glasses-wearing star, who died in a plane crash at age 22. Also scheduled to appear are local roots rockers David Kitchen, Andy Rutherford, The Jelly Roll Mortals, The Spectacles, Hangover Royale, and more.  McDermott was just in Lubbock, Texas, on Wednesday, singing with Texas band the Prophets of Rockabilly at the Buddy Holly Center. Expect McDermott and others Saturday night to sing Holly classics like “Rave On,” “That’ll Be the Day,” and “Peggy Sue,” and obscurities alike.

J.P. McDermott and Western Bop perform Saturday, Sept. 10, at 9 p.m. with David Kitchen, Andy Rutherford, The Jelly Roll Mortals, The Spectacles, Hangover Royale, and others tba at the Surf Club, 4711 Kenilworth Ave., Hyattsville, Md. $15. (301) 927-6310.

MSG isn't the only P.G. County nightclub that's currently closed—and, apparently, the county didn't even need its new law to keep it that way. On August 4, longtime roots-rock roadhouse the Surf Club (also known as Surf Club Live, and previously Chick Hall's Surf Club), posted this note on its website:

The shows that were scheduled for this weekend at the Surf Club are cancelled and will be rescheduled for a future date. Due to a clerical error on the Surf Club’s liquor license (a box was not checked on the application), the Surf Club is unable to have live band entertainment at the moment. I am happy to be working with the town of Edmonston in an effort to renew the application of our long-standing entertainment license and once again host your favorite Americana roots bands. I am sorry for this inconvenience and the disruption that it causes. I hope to have this matter resolved as quickly as possible.

The club’s problems are more complicated than mere paperwork. Much more.

Back in March on a one-off rap night, a fight broke out at the club, as then reported in The Washington Post and Prince George's Gazette. Security threw the participants out of the club, and later that night, two of the alleged fighters were involved in the shooting death of a third fight participant, Phillip Jared Watson, near the club in the driveway of Kenilworth Auto Tires. The Prince George’s County Police Department’s Homicide Unit has since made two arrests in connection with the homicide. (The club uses Hyattsville in its mailing address, but is actually located in the small town of Edmonston.)

Surf Club was the subject of an Aug. 3 hearing of the county's liquor board, where following testimony from Edmonston officials, the Liquor Board fined the owners James F. Byrum and James D. Byrum $5,000 for disrupting the peace and safety of the town, and not being licensed to host live entertainment. The board concluded that the club, which had five security personnel working that evening, did not call the police promptly when the fight participants were ejected from the building. Town officials earlier had requested the board to revoke the club’s liquor license. As I wrote earlier this year, the club stopped booking live music in 2009, but began trying various live acts and DJs again in August 2010.

As noted in The Gazette, Edmonston officials wrote to the liquor board accusing the Surf  Club of numerous illegal activities; however, those accusations were not addressed at the Aug. 3 hearing, where the club owners said the March incident was the first of its kind in their three and a half years  owning the venue, and that no incidents have occurred in the five months since.

At an Edmonston town council meeting last Monday, four fans of the club's zydeco, blues, and roots-rock offerings spoke about the venue and its unique role in the area keeping alive traditional music. They also noted how safe they've found it through the years, and suggested that they think it is a small business that Edmonston and Prince George’s County should be working with and not trying to close. (I've been to the club a number of times, and have always felt safe.) The club had booked numerous Americana acts through August, including Chicago bluesman Ronnie Baker Brooks (whose Aug. 25 gig has moved to the Silver Spring American Legion). Now, the owners are hoping the liquor board, in reviewing their appeal, will renew their entertainment license so that events scheduled for the end of this month and in September won't have to be canceled, and so that the venerable building, which has hosted live music for decades, can survive.

As for MSG, police told The Washington Post that they did not have a suspect or motive in last week's shooting, but that there has been underage drinking at the club and "countless acts of violence" at the location. Under its former name Le Pearl, the club was fined by the liquor board in January 2010 for a 2009 shooting outside the club. But the Prince George's police and liquor board never took further action under existing laws against the club until the most recent shooting, after which they used the new law. As Prince George's Police officer George Nader told the Post, “[w]hen we had the zoning-code violation, that’s what we chose to go through on.” MSG owner Eric Pickens says he plans to contest the charges. As noted at TBD, Pickens  previously operated Club Neon, a Clinton, Md., teenage club, which he voluntarily closed in 2007 after a fatal shooting outside of that establishment.

Whether the new law will make Prince George's County and its remaining clubs (and streets outside the clubs) safer remains to be seen. Rap, go-go, Latin pop, and dance nights regularly occur in Prince George's County without violent incident, but when nights do attract trouble, they focus increased attention on the venues, attendees, and genres. And security does seem to have increased at some clubs. To get into a recent reggaeton gig in a Hyattsville club, I had to empty my pockets and submit to a pat-down—twice—before entering. But that doesn't guarantee there won't be problems outside, as both the Surf Club and MSG incidents show: The clubs took the blame for violence committed on the street.

One side effect of this is that the Surf Club is hoping to avoid future problems by sticking to genres like roots rock and zydeco that appeal to an older crowd, which it believes are less likely include include troublemakers, in addition to increased security. It's not clear whether that plan will be enough to appease the liquor board and the town of Edmonston. Owing to its history, MSG has an even more difficult road to clearing its name and remaining open.

Local combo Hillbilly Jazz returns to Hyattsville roadhouse the Surf Club tonight.  Hillbilly Jazz was the Thursday night house band there from 2003 until 2009, when this longtime honky-tonk dropped live music and became simply a drinking bar for the neighborhood (that is now mostly Hispanic).  But as noted here, last August Surf Club owner James Byrum began occasionally featuring live music on Thursday nights.

Hillbilly Jazz is led by guitarists Chick Hall, Jr. and Jim Stephanson. Hall is the son of the late Chick Hall, Sr., the bar-owner/guitarist who bought the original Surf Club in 1955 when it was located on Bladensburg Road in Colmar Manor, Md. before taking the name and building the current Surf Club in 1975. The younger Hall, now in his 60s, began playing onstage with his dad as a child. Jim Stephanson has been playing D.C. clubs since the late 1970s with groups such as Jimmy & the Blue Dogs and the Blue Rhythm Boys (who recently played on NPR). He released his first album of all original material, Say Go, last year, joined by members of NRBQ.  It was recently hailed by a DJ at New Jersey's WFMU as one of the top CDs of the year.

As Hillbilly Jazz, Hall, Jr., Stephanson, bassist John Previti, and drummer Brooks Tegler play music inspired by Django Reinhardt, Nashville country, Memphis rockabilly, and more.  Stephanson explained to me via e-mail that Hillbilly Jazz differs from his other groups because it has “an emphasis on arranging twin guitar parts (harmony and octave/unison parts) for Chick and I to play.  Western swing, jazz standards, pop and oldies, gives us a broad range of material to arrange as well as originals that both Chick and I have written.” As Stephanson’s website notes, "[t]he dynamic twin guitar arrangements pay homage to guitar legends Hank Garland, Jimmy Bryant, Roy Lanham, George Barnes, and Les Paul. " (Garland was a Nashville studio musician who played with Patsy Cline and Elvis. Bryant worked on soundtracks for westerns in the ‘50s. Lanham played with the Whippoorwills and the Sons of the Pioneers, Barnes was a swing jazz guitarist, and Paul was a legendary jazz and country player and guitar designer.)

Stephanson is looking forward to bringing the music back to the Surf Club this evening. He writes: “The Surf Club is probably the last club like so many that have disappeared in the last 20 years. Where you can walk in, put your amp on stage and crank it up. It was a music venue for local musicians to learn and ply their trade. You can only learn so much sitting on the couch with your guitar. There is no substitute for the experience of getting on the band stand and working with other players. That's how you really learn your instrument. And on that note Chick Hall is a true gentleman and has always shared his expertise with many a local picker.”

Hillbilly Jazz perform tonight, Thursday January 6 at 8 p.m. at the Surf Club, 4711 Kenilworth Ave., Hyattsville, MD. $ 10. (301) 927-6310

In July 2009, the Surf Club, a Hyattsville roadhouse that had been presenting live roots-rock, blues, and zydeco, transformed into a neighborhood bar catering to the area’s Spanish-speaking population—but with no live music. More than year later, on August 26, the club suddenly featured a D.C. Blues Society-sponsored gig with Louisiana bluesman Kenny Neal. Tonight, live music returns again with Silver Spring Cajun band Cypress Trio (pictured). Is the club now returning to its live-music roots?

Surf Club owner James Byrum says no. “The DC Blues Society wanted to host a show on a Thursday night, and I tried a few other shows after that," he writes. Tonight's show is the last he has scheduled at the moment. "I have a great relationship with the DC Blues Society, and if they wanted to host a show in the future, I would do all I could to accommodate them. However, developing great relationships with local patrons is the only way a restaurant/bar can survive.”

Cypress Trio performs at 8 p.m. tonight, Thursday October 7, at the Surf Club, 4711 Kenilworth Ave., Hyattsville, MD (301) 927-6310

The Myspace site for the Surf Club (aka the Surf Club Live and previously Chick Hall’s Surf Club) now plays Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are a Changin,” but perhaps it would make more sense to play something in Spanish.  Concerned about small turnouts for the blues-rock, country, and other roots styles he has been getting, owner James Byrum has decided to reach out to the current local demographic and will now be featuring a dj spinning ranchera, bachata and other Spanish language sounds.  Byrum informed folks on a local listserv that “the summer is always a tough draw and now is a good time to experiment with bringing a more consistent source of revenue to the club. There may still be shows in the future. But I am taking the summer to try new things.” 

At least  the club still exists.  In 2007, it appeared that the rectangular cinder block and brick roadhouse would be sold and knocked down.  This honky-tonk bastion has been located at 4711 Kenilworth Avenue in Hyattsville since 1975, and previously was on Bladensburg Road in Colmar Manor from 1955 to 1975.  But Byrum acquired the place and has been booking local Americana acts and zydeco dances.  While the latter draw a dedicated 40-something and up crowd, they do not drink much.  Meanwhile, the audiences have not grown for DC roots-rock, alt-country, blues, and blues-rock bands.  Compounding things, the club is not located near a Metro station, has been unable to get much media or internet attention for the groups booked, and its older hard drinking blue-collar regulars have moved away.  On July 4th Byrum experimented with a teen reggaeton event featuring Spanish language acts from NY, Boston, and DC, but he says he has no plans to start booking more well-known Latin acts.  He is staying local for now.