The first time I heard about The Insect Surfers my College Park housemates were donning antennae to go see them, but I wish I had a dollar for every time I've heard someone identify the band with a description of founder David Arnson's golden halo of hair.


David's D.C. roots go way back to the sixties though he is living in L.A. now and still playing in bands. Some time ago, David wrote about Georgetown, but I saved it for this time of year because I have fond memories of people skipping school and flocking there as a rite of spring beyond the usual cherry blossom thing. Cherry blossoms in Kenwood or downtown was where you went with Mom and Dad, but Georgetown was where you met your friends.
So check out David's walkabout from back in the day at Washington D.C. My Hometown.

Farewell Childe

I don't know how many times I heard Rodney the bartender bellow last call at the Childe Harold, but it's more than I care to count. Another Washington Institution is gone, and this one at a relatively young age considering it opened in 1967.
(Man, what is it about 1967 this week?)

Everybody knows that Springsteen and Emmy Lou Harris played there long before they were big wigs; they even named sandwiches for them, but not everybody knows that The Ramones played there as well. And lots of local acts like The Insect Surfers, Razz, The Nurses, Catfish Hodge, and The Bad Brains. (Nobody named a sandwich for them.)


Marshall Keith of The Slickee Boys remembers this:
"Since it was a tiny club, it made it really exciting, because people were packed in and falling all over each other. I saw The Ramones there. There was no punk rock in DC then. They were inspiring. Their stage moves seemed choreographed to me, which at first was disconcerting, but it was so effective that they were great. They (and anything punk) was panned in the Washington Post. It took a few years and Joe Sasfy before favorable punk reviews made their way into the mainstream.

(Marshall Keith/photo by Jim Moon)

The Slickee Boys played there a lot. Our friend Ed Cox played theremin during "love in". He was plugged into Kim Kane's amp, and couldn't hear himself, so he kept unplugging Kim.
There was a turning point in our career at a benefit concert with several bands when we finally "went over" as well as the "rootsy" bands. Urban Verbs played there once, and I couldn't get in because it was packed."

Root Boy Slim and The Sex Change Band was also a frequent performer. Slim would change clothes between sets wearing anything from zoot suits to hippie togs. Sometimes he had strippers with him just in case his show wasn't wild enough on its own which is hard to believe if you ever saw him.

(Root Boy)

The music ended long ago, unfortunately, and the guy who started it, Bill Heard Jr. is gone as well. So are Rodney and Root Boy Slim. Maybe they are off some place-all having a drink together where there is no last call.


(Rodney- last call circa 1986)

Farewell! a word that must be, and hath been --

A sound which makes us linger; -- yet -- farewell!

-Lord Byron from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

Hey Kids It's 10:00. Do you Know Where Your Parents are?

(Bucket and Hayley of Deadbeat)

The NIRS affair took me back in time-back to when you showed up at at somebody's house, and their parents weren't home, and the basement was a party/band room, and a band was playing... no, four bands are playing, and in the case of Tru Fax and The Insaniacs, the DAD of the house is in the band, and in the case of Deadbeats, the daughter of the guy in the next band is in her own band. And so it went on until no one knew or cared what time it was. (Maybe it had something to do with the Ukranian hootch that was going around) Then and now were all mixed up and topping it off -The Beatnik Flies- Diana Quinn-Mark Noone finale extravaganza.

Oh And Josh Arnson (former Insect Surfer)


and Ruth Logsden of Ruthie and the Wranglers were there, too.

(Joe Dolan cracks up Ruth Logsden)


(Diana Quinn and Mark Noone just before they joined the band)

Maybe it was all a dream. Good party though.

Get Glover Park on the Map

You might know him as an Insect Surfer or your real estate man, but Josh Arnson went to Texas and came back a surfing guitar playing range selling singing cowboy type kind of guy. (You know the sort.)He and his band DC HONKY TONKIN are trying to get Glover Park going every Thursday night in a cafe called My Bakery @ 2233 Wisconsin Av. There's a stage, a dance floor and everything needed for a great space. They've got beer, wine, and free parking in the back so get your dancing shoes, and go check him out sometime-like tonight.