Scholarship Honors Pillar of D.C. Music Scene
by Liam Farrell | photo by Sora Devore for the Washington Post
A first-time concertgoer at D.C.’s 9:30 Club would likely have had two thoughts when seeing the tattooed, pierced, 6-foot-4, 300-pound frame of Josh Burdette ’98, the iconic venue’s manager and crew chief: First, “I better not make any trouble.” Then: “If there is any trouble, I’m glad he’ll be around to deal with it.”
In a city known for its monuments, Burdette was the sentinel of V Street. With metal tusks protruding from his nose, and earlobes stretched with huge gauges, he was widely known as “That Guy” and the club’s guardian angel.
A psychology graduate, Burdette died last fall and is being remembered at Maryland with a new scholarship fund. Since he was part of Student Entertainment Events (SEE) as a student and often helped the programming board as an alumnus, the scholarship in his honor will support a SEE student leader in financial need. So far, about $30,000 has been raised.
Weighing more than 10 pounds at birth, Josh was often told that his physical size came with responsibilities, says his father, Robert Burdette ’70.
“He learned it well,” he says. “He was a person who would look out for other people. … He was compassionate.”
Josh also was willing to wink at the imposing image that greeted D.C. fans at the venue since 1997. On his Facebook page, entitled “That Guy at the 9:30 Club,” his love for the Muppets’ “Rainbow Connection”—“probably my favorite song of all”—would be just above articles about Goth punk songs.
“Everybody got the real Josh,” says Eric Lichtfuss ’02, a close friend who knew Burdette at Maryland and worked with him at the 9:30 Club. “He liked to challenge people’s perceptions but do it in a gentle way.”
His job could be difficult and unpredictable—for example, Burdette’s father says one of the worst fights his son ever broke up was between a dentist and a physician. But Lichtfuss says Josh found it rewarding to be in charge of keeping people safe and making sure they had a good time.
“He was someone who exuded so much of himself … that you really ceased to see the exterior,” he says.
Robert Burdette, who was a longtime chaplain at Maryland and taught family studies courses, said the university is an appropriate place for Josh to be memorialized.
“We’re a Terrapin family,” he says. “It was part of who he was, to be a Terrapin.”
4 Comments
I have been to the 9:30 club about 8 times and have always recognized him. Though he seemed intimidating maybe at first glance, he was really chill (unless you were doing something obviously stupid of course, but that’s any security’s job) I was surprised to see this article and recognized his face right away. RIp
I worked with Josh for several years and he was one of the kindest souls I ever encountered. He always made sure the staff felt safe (especially the females) and had a joking manner about him. I was very sadden to see the news in the Terp magazine. I am sorry that I will not have another opportunity to thank him again for everything he did for me.
I graduated UMD 1975, and around twenty years later I was nicknamed Pops Stentor by the local Underground Music Scene’s Metal artists because they didn’t know my name, but they did know my son’s band, Stentor. He was 16 at the time, performed regularly at the The Bayou, his band never made it to the 9:30 Club due to promoter conflicts. It was in the mid-1990’s that the 0ld 9:30 Club moved from their E Street location to their new digs. Roadrunner Records would often supply me with a Photo Pass so I could take photographs of their artists, interview them and critique performances in Are you Ready to be Digitized? Vampyrum Publicity, Inc.
That’s when I met ‘That Guy’ Josh Burdette. A superb bouncer, who got it that – moshing was controlled violence, according to the club’s competitor, Jay Nedry – and Josh, ever vigilant in his responsibilities in the pit in front of the stage always lended a helping hand to a woman riding the crowd! His [pierced ear lobes were smaller then, but his presence was beyond ‘huge’. You just knew that he was in charge, and he made the new 9:30 Club proud by protecting it, as well as its customers. There is no doubt in my mind that the Local Music Scene has lost one of the best in-house security staff. I know I will miss him as I always knew he’d have my back as the bodies
went flying, riding shoulders, and backs with fists and feet flaying in controlled mayhem. A genuine good man, in fact a giant in comparison to this 140 weakling!!
With sincere condolences to his family and to his many fans and friends within the Local, National and International Museum Scene. Pops Stentor
An amazing member of an amazing and important family to not only DC music… But music full stop. My memories of the original club and the “new 9:30” -including me breaking my arm on the opening night of the new club are a deep part of me. I have such respect for the club and all associated including of course Rich and Seth… Such visionaries.