Root Boy Slim and Wikipedia

I stumbled upon Root Boy Slim's wikipedia entry and found it sorta interesting. I never really liked his stuff that they used to play on the old 'HFS, but I came on his entry in the usual roundabout web route. Started at 30 Days of Night (vampire movie I watched tonight -- pretty good!). That movie was based on a graphic novel written by Steve Niles, who played bass for Gray Matter. From there I found my way to an entry for Count Gore De Vol (!?), then an entry for the Bayou, which led to Root Boy. And there you have it. Sometimes these rabbit holes are useful.

Next Stop: Silver Spring

This is sorta interesting... it's a trailer of a new PBS special about the restoration of the Silver Spring Railroad Station. Here's the youtube description:

"Next Stop: Silver Spring" (from director, Walter Gottlieb)is about the history and restoration of the B&O railroad station in Silver Spring, MD. Scheduled to debut on WETA TV in March 2008 and also to be released on DVD. It is a sequel to the documentary, "Silver Spring: Story of an American Suburb," released in 2002. The trailer features the theme song, "Next Stop: Silver Spring" written and performed by Sharon Freedman Gruber. Reserve an advance copy of the DVD by emailing finalcuttv@aol.com. Visit our blog www.silverspringtrain.blogspot.com

Uline Arena / Washington Coliseum

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The Uline Arena (or Washington Coliseum) down by Union Station is being renovated and redeveloped by Doug Jemal. When I heard about the development, I wanted to find out more about the building since I wasn't that familiar with it in the first place. Turns out it has some kind of interesting history behind it -- I had no idea. And it's a pretty unusual looking building for DC. I've ridden past it many times while riding on the eastern leg of the Red Line to Silver Spring and always wondered what it was.

For one thing, it was the location of the first Beatles concert in the US on Feb 11, 1964! Wild. Here's a picture from that show.

The cover photo of Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits was taken at a concert at the Washington Coliseum in 1966.

In the '80s, go-go bands like Chuck Brown, Trouble Funk, and Rare Essence played there.

Here's a pretty thorough history of the facility from the Washington Business Journal.

Most recently, it has been used as a parking lot and as a waste facility. It's in pretty rough shape now, so here's hoping they do a good job in redeveloping it. Check out some pics on flickr.