http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/44800/cat-tales-twenty-years-of-the-black-cat-dc-punk/Cat Tales
Twenty years of the Black Cat, D.C. punk and indie rock?s favorite clubhouse
By Brandon Gentry ? September 13, 2013
Mark E. Smith wanted the desk chair, and he wasn?t going to leave without it. The famously cantankerous lead singer of Manchester post-punkers The Fall had recently broken his hip, and throughout the band?s April 13, 2004 show at the Black Cat, the singer had been using club owner Dante Ferrando?s rolling desk chair to maneuver around the stage. Now the show was over, and Smith had decided that the office furniture was vital to his ongoing recovery.
?Dante was like, ?I don?t want to sell you my chair! You can?t have my chair!?? says Alec MacKaye, a veteran of the D.C. bands The Faith, Ignition, and The Warmers, and a former Black Cat employee. ?But [Smith] wouldn?t leave, and he had his manager doing all the intercession between them. And finally they had to strike a deal on how much for the chair, and the chair became part of the band?s equipment that was loaded out.? The latest in a long line of touring musicians had left the Black Cat with a smile, a beneficiary of the D.C. rock club?s famous sense of hospitality.
