Location: 1508 North Capitol St. NW
Readers’ pick: DC9
As a heavy metal band rocked out on the stage of The Pocket, a group of high schoolers formed a miniature mosh pit as their parents lined the walls to avoid the thrashing.
Inconspicuously located on the top floor of the mustard-yellow 7DrumCity music school in NoMa, The Pocket is a hidden gem for aspiring rock stars and music-lovers. Since opening its doors in 2019, the Truxton Circle venue has become an authentic hub for Washingtonians to jam out to the city’s up-and-coming artists, drink and dance.
Dimly lit with colorful LEDs and string lights, The Pocket holds just 75 people — though even at concerts with lower attendance, the room quickly gets hot, packed and sweaty. At the February concert headlined by the rock and metal bands Scoria, Texas Palm Tree and Arid Bloom that featured moshing teenagers, the dull red glow of stage lights illuminated the long hair and baggy pants that accompanied the room’s loud voices.
The venue is open to all ages but offers a small bar for of-age attendees, making it a hotspot for high schoolers, college students and post-grads to explore genres and showcase their talents to loved ones and regulars.
On the ground floor, underneath the tiny yet booming concert space, homey practice rooms filled with drums, pianos and guitars line the hallway. Musicians looking to groove and students taking private lessons with 7DrumCity teachers to learn anything from the ukulele to the hand drum fill the rooms each week.
When I visited The Pocket in fall 2023 for an open mic, my friends and I explored the downstairs area after the show. We admired the sticker-covered bathroom and ended up playing one of the pianos — which, in hindsight, was likely not allowed — for more than an hour.
The venue hosts multiple concerts a week, with tickets averaging around $18. Local bands like the emo and post-hardcore Scene Queen and the Sidekicks and alternative multigenre Alligator Hands have headlined shows in the past month, along with touring musicians like the New Jersey-based Surfing For Daisy.
In October, GW’s own Alexander Dent, a professor of anthropology and international affairs, headlined a show at the site with his punk and hardcore band, Cash On The Nail. Other campus musicians, like the student group Corduroy Conjunction, have belted and shredded on the little black stage, making The Pocket a staple for musically-inclined Revolutionaries.
Aspiring musicians can participate in open mics each Tuesday night, signing up beforehand to perform or hoping for an available walk-in spot.
The locale’s focus on indie and alternative musicians creates a space for smaller local musicians to experiment and rock on, nurturing the District’s creatives in a way that commercial D.C. venues like The Anthem cannot.
For those who prefer a calming ambiance, with fresh air and relaxing tunes, The Pocket might be a less-than-ideal way to spend a weeknight. The music is thundering, the scents are questionable and there’s a certain grimy aura that permeates the at-times suffocating room.
But for those who want to explore the local music scene in an unpolished way, The Pocket’s the place to be — for the offstage headbangers, onstage guitar shredders and everyone in between.
