Last Thursday, a punk-rock show in Georgetown and a dance party on
Capitol Hill demonstrated two very different modes of dealing with the
past, preservation, and progress in urban spaces. In Georgetown,
Brooklyn fuzz punks Japanther played a show at Mini Mart City
Park, a new SuttonBeresCuller project that’s just what it sounds like:
an old gas station and convenience store turned into a
public-park-as-art-installation. As of last week, the unfinished park
still looked mostly like an overgrown grassy lot; indoors, there were
some wall panels explaining the history and environmental impact of
this and similar gas stations, as well as some roped-off,
under-construction areas.
The show was the second at the park—the first was a
performance by “Awesome”—but the first featuring
amplification. In between bands, Wu-Tang blasted from a
stereo—this was an Implied Violence benefit, after all.
Planes flew low overhead at regular intervals. Apparently, during
Strong Killings‘ set, which was out front on the street side of
the building, a city bus stopped nearby and several passengers wandered
over to see what was going on. Neighbors dropped by throughout the
night, curious and affable. Japanther set up—their drum
head looked like it said “Japantier,” like it was French—and tore
through one of the best sets I’ve seen from them in years,
playing favorites like “1-10,” “Challenge,” “River Phoenix,” “Fuk Tha
Prince a Pull Iz Dum,” and “Mornings.”
What made it so good wasn’t the set list—it was just the
perfect, almost chance combination of band, crowd, and setting. The
band played with heart and humor, drummer/vocalist Ian Vanek talking
his usual snarky but sincerely inspirational shit between songs; the
crowd danced and pogoed and pumped their fists and sang along as one
big sweaty mass, kicking up clouds of dust from the ground,
Pig-Pen-style; and the setting, a disused industrial backyard in
the midst of being transformed into a place for new and vital art, was
sweet. I rode my bike back to the Hill buzzed and still singing the
songs.
Up on the Hill was something else entirely. In the parking
lot of Havana, the folks behind the Cap to the Hill blog had erected a
one-night-only re-creation of the old 500 block of Pine Street (Cha
Cha, Bus Stop, etc.), with painted facades of the old storefronts and
life-size dioramas of the bars’ decor set up underneath a giant
projected photo of the real thing. The whole thing was funded, weirdly,
by JanSport, thanks to the hosts having won a contest to throw a
party to the tune of $10,000 (I would love to see a breakdown of
how that money got spent).
Other than insanely long lines, the party was fine, but off. For one
thing, many of these bars still exist—Cha Cha, Bus Stop, soon
Pony—only changed and relocated. Hell, the new Cha Cha was
literally across the street. Its ersatz version was just labeled
“Lounge,” since the party’s promoters couldn’t get the consent of
the real Cha Cha’s owners. Whereas Mini Mart City Park is taking an old
space and transforming it, the 500 Block Party felt like a theme-park
re-creation of the past, a shrine in painted cardboard for a nightlife
neighborhood that goes on living, like it or not. 
That show kicked fucking ass!