If you want to understand Richmond music, start with one address. 929 West Grace Street, a storefront on the edge of the VCU campus.
In the 70s it was a bar called The Back Door. Punk, new wave and metal bands took it over in the 80s. By the end of that decade it was Twisters, and Twisters is the name most people who were around in the 90s still call it.
I have no personal tie to it. The closest I ever got was 1998, in the VCU freshman dorms nearby, playing drinking games until I blacked out and threw up. Twisters was right there the whole time, and I never walked in.
Who played there
The list for the early 90s alone is ridiculous for a room that size. Avail. Breadwinner. Four Walls Falling. Inquisition. Labradford. Bio Ritmo. Later in the decade it was Burn the Priest, who would rename themselves Lamb of God. Sparklehorse. Kepone. Action Patrol. Buzzoven. Strike Anywhere came through right at the end of the 90s.
Touring bands hit it on the way up. Dinosaur Jr. played to a few dozen people. The Smashing Pumpkins played there in 1991. Green Day played there in January 1993.
The scene around it ran on cheap rent. In Style Weekly’s oral history of those years, people remember renting an entire house on West Main Street for $450 a month. Twisters got shut down by the state liquor board more than once. House shows filled the gaps.
A room that kept changing its name
The room never stayed one thing for long. After Twisters it was The 929 Cafe for about a year, with vegan food and indie rock. Then Nanci Raygun, which is where Richmond’s noise bands lived in the mid-2000s. Then, for about five minutes, a bagel shop that still held a music license. Then Strange Matter, from 2009 until it closed in December 2018.
RVA Magazine compared the place to CBGB. I think that undersells it. CBGB had one great decade. This room had four.
What is there now
Nothing. The building has sat empty since Strange Matter closed, still plastered with old posters, handbills and peeling stickers, like somebody locked the door mid-show.
By June 2026 a For Rent sign had gone up. In October, RVA Magazine made the case that the city ought to recognize the address somehow: a historic marker, a small museum of the flyers and photographs, or just music back in the room.
What it was for
My take is that counterculture has always been dominant in Richmond. Skating, punk, hardcore, hip hop, graffiti and activism. Music is the common tie, the intersection where all of it meets, and Twisters was the breeding ground.
The foundation was laid there. When it left, Richmond began to feel more like a corporate sellout of a city.
Sources
- A Brief History of 929 West Grace, RVA Magazine, December 2009
- 929 West Grace Street, Wikipedia
- Richmond’s Aural History: The 1990s, Style Weekly, February 2014
- Goodbye Strange Matter: The End of an Era, RVA Magazine
- Richmond’s legendary Strange Matter building is up for rent, Axios Richmond, June 2026
- Old Grace Street is Richmond History. Let’s Recognize It., RVA Magazine, October 2026