The Ocean Blue: Harbingers of the Winter Dance
Photos by Nalinee Darmrong
Words by Mickey McCarter

David Schelzel, the eternally boyishly charming frontman of The Ocean Blue, was merely 21 years old when his band dropped their major label self-titled debut album in 1989. Hailing from a small-town environment outside of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, David fronted his band on their very first big-city shows when he was just a teenager in high school.

And so one of those early big-city performances was in Washington, DC, at a now-defunct venue called the Eastside Club in the then-quite-adventurous area of Half Street NW. In his band’s recent appearance at The Birchmere, David reflected that it was quite an eye-opening experience for a relatively sheltered kid to find himself there on those DC streets at 2am after their show.