Washington City Paper: Contents for Feb. 27

Rock in a Hard Place
Rock ’n’ roll on the friends-and-family plan

Cover Story

One Saturday at around 7 p.m., Colin Hoss is at his bar, the Grog and Tankard. The joint is open for business, but the club is nearly empty as the 36-year-old Hoss steps into a tiny sound booth for a quick double-check of the equipment. In a couple of hours, a band you never heard of will be jumping and sweating and shouting on the wooden stage sticking halfway into the middle of the rectangular room. It wouldn’t do for the eardrum-shattering sound to cut out while the kids are standing around not dancing.

Whoever walks in the Grog’s door later that night will not have read about the show in the Washington Post. Or the Washington City Paper. In the next day’s paper, there’ll be no reviews of the show, no mention of the deer head on the wall, the big cloth butterfly floating over the pool tables, the sweating rock fans crowded into a narrow, smoky room. Word of the performance will have leaked out only through the primitive channels that seem appropriate for the Grog’s throwback look: People will have heard about it from their friends, who will maybe have friends in the band, which will have sent out an e-mail. Maybe the audience will be mostly family.

They’re certainly not the usual “North Georgetown” yuppies who ply the strip of Wisconsin Avenue on which the Grog has squatted for 40 years—the folks who chew upscale pizza at Faccia Luna Trattoria or down margaritas at the Austin Grill next door. And they’re probably not regular patrons of the adjacent strip club, JP’s.... Continued

Issue of Feb. 27 - Mar. 4, 2004

News and Features

Rock in a Hard Place
Rock ’n’ roll on the friends-and-family plan
Cover Story By Dave Nuttycombe
Off the Hookup
Squatters find amenities in Southeast.
Feature By Mike DeBonis
Symbol Solution
A cure for Metro’s logorrhea
The City By Pete Morelewicz and Tom Scocca
Pop-O-Meter
The City By Tom Scocca
I Am Curious (Yellow)
The City By Bidisha Banerjee
Slow and Steady Wins the Race
The Mail By Morton Sklar
Setting It to Rights
The Mail By Timothy Cooper
Blank Verse
The Mail By Alex Rogolsky
Don’t Hold Back
The Mail By Bryce A. Suderow
Correction
Correction

Columns

Reinventing the Ball
Cheap Seats By Dave McKenna
Cookie Cutter
City Desk By Bidisha Banerjee
Secret Name
City Desk By Mike DeBonis
Right Of Way
Loose Lips By Elissa Silverman
Beware of Dog
Dept. of Media By Erik Wemple

Eats

Roll With the Changes
Young & Hungry By Todd Kliman

Movies

Blood Simple
Film Review By Mark Jenkins
Eurotrip
Film Review By Sean Daly
Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights
Film Review By Tricia Olszewski
The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra
Film Review By Josh Levin

Music

The Atrocity Exhibition
Music Review By Shannon Zimmerman
Nonviolent Passions
Music Review By Andrew Beaujon

Theater

Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters’ First 100 Years
Theater Review By Janet Hopf
Character Studies
Theater Review By Trey Graham

Arts and Events

Placement Issues
Art Review By Glenn Dixon
The Geek Shall Inherit the Earth
In the world created by role-playing gamer Chad Underkoffler, nice guys finish first.
Arts By Huan Hsu
Shorts Order
Artifacts By John Metcalfe
Body Work
Artifacts By Bidisha Banerjee