Places That Are Gone

Everybody has them: musical moments -- memories of seeing a particular band in a particular club.

All this week I'll revisit some of D.C.'s memorable venues and people who changed music here and in some cases, the world.

The series "Places That Are Gone" at :35 past the hour every afternoon. And you can hear a 30-minute special at 8 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 7.

d.c. space

If you've recently been near the thriving Gallery Place neighborhood, you've probably walked past the corner at 7th and E Streets, NW, that in the late 1970s and the 1980s was an influential home to musicians and artists.

"It's hard to imagine how desolate this part of town was 25 years ago," says Roddy Frantz, the singer of Urban Verbs, the area's most popular new wave band at the time.

To put it in historical context, the last stop on Metro's Red Line in 1979 was Dupont Circle. Long before Gallery Place became known for its nightlife, restaurants, condominiums and art galleries, the walk from the Gallery Place Metro stop to d.c. space was past buildings shuttered after 5 pm.

"d.c. space was an oasis of light and energy," says Frantz. "And they had really good coffee at a time before most places were paying attention to quality coffee."

The two-story building had a bar and a few tables in a back room. The main performance area on the first floor contained a small stage. Frantz remembers "it was more of a riser, six inches high, and there was a player piano stored on the side."

Owing to its horizontal orientation, fans were never more than a few yards from the performers onstage.

For a while, bands also played upstairs in the aging building.

"I remember people were dancing and jumping around with such abandon that the floor - it wasn't shaking, it was like a trampoline," Frantz said.

"We were literally afraid we were going to knock down the building because it was an old relatively decrepit building, with just a wood floor with exposed ceiling joists underneath it."

The Urban Verbs would become the first local band to sign a major record deal, with Warner Brothers Records. The band's arty sound and lyrics prompted some to compare them to the Talking Heads. The comparison had some genetic basis in fact -- Roddy Frantz's brother Chris was the drummer with Talking Heads.

"It felt at that time that there was some sort of revolution going on," says Roddy Frantz.

The feeling of excitement didn't last forever. d.c. space continued featuring local bands through the 1980s. Ironically, in light of Frantz's recollections of the corner of 7th and E Street being a place to get a good cup of coffee, what was d.c. space is now a Starbucks.