Wormhole Weekend

Buddy Holly. Psyche Delly. Tone. Food for Thought. Blob's Park.

Time portals are opening all over the place this Saturday.

First the Buddy Holly Tribute Show, featuring a plane load (sorry) of local acts, has traveled over the years from Del Ray (I think) to Chick Hall's Surf Club, and lately to Blob's Park up in Jessup. This field trip is well worth the gas to see a true throwback Bavarian beer hall, never mind a night full of live music with nine bands including David Kitchen and Ruthie and the Wranglers. Sadly this event will have to find a new home next year when Blob's shuts down with a farewell polka party at the end of March.

Beat Hotel, a kind of funky New Orleans driven band, will haunt the Harp and Fiddle on Cordell Avenue in Bethesda where countless local bands like Root Boy, Switchblade and the Slickee Boys once happily corrupted our youth. You might not recognize the space that once was the Psyche Delly. The bar's a lot cleaner now since morphing into an Irish pub, but the good news is live music can still be found here.

Finally Tone, an ever changing and creative band with deep roots in DC will be on the main stage upstairs with The Black Clouds and Highway Cross at the Black Cat. Club owner Dante Ferrando grew up with his parents' vegetarian restaurant Food For Thought right there on Connecticut Avenue, played in bands and was a regular at dc space and the old 9:30 Club. He was missing the niche that dc space provided when he opened his own place in 1993. With a nod to Food for Thought in the form of a cafe on the first floor, there are bars and performance spaces both upstairs and down. The Black Cat has become an important venue for independent under the radar type bands both local and national, as well as one of the few all ages venues to be found in this town.

So there you have it. Peer into the past; stumble on something new.