Local law enforcement jurisdictions seem to think that the Capitol Heights Ballroom is at 5401 Norfield Road, but Tom Oehser knows the street address is actually 5400. He also knows that Backyard and Raw Image aren’t playing Marygolds on Sunday nights anymore — they’re at Venus Lounge.
The D.C. Police Department’s controversial go-go report, which keeps track of shows around the DMV, contains those, and other, inaccuracies — things that would never sneak onto Oehser’s Gogobeat.com site.
“I don’t know why they’re so bad,” Oehser says of the police’s go-go listings. “It’s almost like only certain officers know about certain shows and are willing to feed the information back,” he says. “They can’t be reading a [go-go events] site like Go-Go Central, because they’d go nuts.
“They’d have to read through 6000 topics on which band is better: ABM or MOB? And if you do that, you’d just go mad and you wouldn’t be able to be a police officer and work on the go-go report,” he continues. “Maybe it’s just that simple.”
Knowing more about go-go than the cops offers no great bragging rights, but being able to singlehandedly compile a comprehensive list of events that is superior to what the poilce’s Intelligence Unit is putting together does. Especially since Oehser has never played in, managed, or promoted a go-go band, and isn’t a long-time follower of the music. He’s a 48-year-old white guy—a computer programmer, husband, and father of two — who really only got into go-go about five years ago but happens to compile some of the most comprehensive, easily navigable go-go listings in the city.