Tag Archives: The Pietasters

Entertainment, Fun & Games, Music
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The Winning Ticket: Sound Bites

As a way to say thanks to our loyal readers, We Love DC will be giving away a pair of tickets to a 9:30 Club concert to one lucky reader each week. Check back here every Wednesday morning at 9am to find out what tickets we’re giving away and leave a comment for your chance to be the lucky winner!

Last week we gave you music and a horse race; this week we’re offering music and food from some of DC’s best eats. Enter to win two tickets to the Sound Bites event at the 9:30 Club on Sunday, May 22. Sound Bites combines free food samples from area restaurants with performances by area bands to benefit D.C. Central Kitchen, whose programs help the area’s homeless and underprivileged via meals, outreach, and counseling services. This edition of Sound Bites features music from go-go legends Trouble Funk and area ska godfathers The Pietasters to name a few of the acts that will help you dance off all those tapas, oysters, and empenadas.

For your chance to win these tickets simply leave a comment on this post using a valid email address between 9am and 4pm today. One entry per email address, please. If today doesn’t turn out to be your lucky day, check back here each Wednesday for a chance to win tickets to other great concerts. Tickets for this event are available on Ticketfly.

For the rules of this giveaway…

Comments will be closed at 4pm and a winner will be randomly selected. The winner will be notified by email. The winner must respond to our email within 24 hours or they will forfeit their tickets and we will pick another winner.

Tickets will be available to the winner at the 9:30 Club Guest List window one hour before doors open on the night of the concert. The tickets must be claimed with a valid ID. The winner must be old enough to attend the specific concert or must have a parent’s permission to enter if he/she is under 18 years old.

Entertainment, Music, We Love Music
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We Love Music: The Pietasters @ 9:30 Club 1/8/11

IMG_5418.jpg
All photos by the author.

Growing up in Northern Virginia and going to high school in DC from ’95-’99, The Pietasters‘ name was definitely well known to me. I wasn’t a particularly huge fan, but I remember classmates always talking about them and their music would always be on mix-tapes playing in our darkroom during photography class. A few of my friends would go to their concerts and rave about what a good live act they were, but I never got a chance to see them. While I was in college in North Carolina, one of my friends was a big fan so their songs like “One Dollar Bill”, “Maggie Mae”, and “Movin’ On Up” became staples of our car rides back to Northern VA.

I appreciate ska music but it’s never really been in my constant rotation and since college The Pietasters have drifted off my radar. But when I was picking and choosing what bands to cover for WLDC a couple weeks ago and saw that they were playing a hometown show at the 9:30 Club on January 8th, I knew it was an opportunity for a fun night.

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The Daily Feed
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Hot Ticket: The Pietasters @ 9:30 Club 1/8/11

Wherever you are in the country or the world, if you are having a conversation about Ska music, and Washington DC comes up, it is a sure thing that The Pietasters will be the first band to be mentioned. Cranking out “DC’s finest ska” since the early 1990s, The Pietasters toured hard for years as an opening band for every punk/ska revival act or music legend that would have them (they even backed for James Brown!), all the while perfecting their soulful Ska sound and earning their stripes. These days The Pietasters are one of Ska’s most respected groups and known to the world as the face of DC Ska.

I saw The Pietasters more times than I can count back in the 90’s. I think the last time I saw them was in 2000(?) opening for Joe Strummer in Philadelphia. As always the guys put on a fantastic set of rudie anthems showing the Philly ska/punks how it’s done down in DC. I lost track of The Pietasters after that for several years. So imagine my surprise when the older, wiser, and ruder-than-ever Pietasters showed up at the 9:30 Club 30th Anniversary Concert last year and treated the crowd to a tight-as-hell mini-set! It was great to see the guys again! They worked the room like pros and sounded fantastic! I expect more of the same out of them this Saturday night, when they will be headlining the best reggae/punk/ska party in town!

The Pietasters
w/ HR of Bad Brains, Copstabber, and The Shifters
Saturday, Jan. 8
@ 9:30 Club
$15

Entertainment, Fun & Games, Music, We Love Music
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The Winning Ticket: The Pietasters

As a way to say thanks to our loyal readers, We Love DC will be giving away a pair of tickets to a 9:30 Club concert to one lucky reader each week. Check back here every Wednesday morning at 9am to find out what tickets we’re giving away and leave a comment for your chance to be the lucky winner!

Up for grabs this week we’ve got a pair of tickets to see The Pietasters and friends burn up the stage at the 9:30 Club on Saturday, January 8th. When I caught The Pietasters’ micro-set at 9:30 Club’s 30th Anniversary party I was mightily impressed at their class-act presentation and on-point ska delivery. How far these local rude-boys have come from their scrappy “open for anyone who’ll have us” roots. We’re proud of ya boys! Ska seems to be experiencing a ground-swell with all of the national acts that have come through recently, but this show should be the topper as it is a local hero showcase with The Pietasters, HR of Bad Brains, and The Shifters ready to lay down the law.

For your chance to win these tickets simply leave a comment on this post using a valid email address between 9am and 4pm today. One entry per email address, please. If today doesn’t turn out to be your lucky day, check back here each Wednesday for a chance to win tickets to other great concerts.

For the rules of this giveaway…
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Entertainment, Essential DC, History, Life in the Capital, Music, News, People, Special Events, The District, We Love Music
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We Love Music: The 9:30 Club 30th Anniversary Concert

Bob Mould performing at the 9:30 Club 30th Anniversary concert
“Bob Mould” photo taken by author.

“The reason this is the best club in America is the people that work here. Trust me, most nightclubs are terrible places. You don’t want to go there.” – Neill Fallon of Clutch.

“I can not imagine a DC without the 9:30 Club. It is unimaginable. It’s just unimaginable” – Mark Noone of The Slickee Boys.

“I love the fact that I’m from DC!” – Henry Rollins

“Let’s kick on the way back machine and get this thing over with.” – Bob Mould.

One of the truly singular music events I have ever attended took place on Monday night at the 9:30 Club. It was a special free concert held in celebration of this legendary club’s 30th anniversary. The night was also a celebration of the people who work (and have worked) there, the icons who got their start there, and the wonderful music that has been played there over the last 30 years. The night was full of anecdotes and music from 13 bands and artists that have strong ties to both the old and new 9:30 Club locations. For some the evening was a living, breathing, crash course in DC music history; for others it was a fun and at times even emotional trip down memory lane.

The 9:30 Club (original location) is the nightclub I cut my teeth on when I moved here in 1993. Within a few days of arriving I was catching my first show there (British twee-band Heavenly); and in the months and years after many, many more shows followed. I once took a date there to see The Boredoms and she left with a black-eye. My little brother did his first stage dive when I took him there to see Helmet. I was completely enthralled with industrial music after hearing Einstruzende Neubauten on the PA before the melodramatic, dynamite-strapped Sheep on Drugs brought the house down with their industrial-dance mayhem. And I was seduced along with everyone else in the crowd by Toni Halliday and the sounds of Curve. The old club opened my mind to most of the music that I still passionately love today.

The V st. location is without a doubt the best club-venue in the country. I’ve been to concert halls all over the U.S.A. and it always comes back to the 9:30 Club’s awesome sound-system (which I have written/gushed about at length over the years). Seeing a concert at the 9:30 Club is a sublime experience for a die-hard music fan. Perhaps none more-so than the amazing show that club-owner Seth Hurwitz treated dedicated DC music fans to on Monday night.

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