Cathy Ponton King, Mark Francis Nickens, and Two Movies Filmed in Laurel
- Mark Opsasnick
- Jul 22
- 4 min read
Mark Opsasnick’s incredibly researched book, Rock the Potomac, is chock-full of stories and biographies of the people and groups who were part of the history of rock ‘n roll and country music in the DMV. “Rock the Patuxent” provides excerpts from the book that highlight the greater Laurel area.
Cathy Ponton King
Blues singer-guitarist Cathy Ponton King was born in Washington, DC and raised in what was then an Irish community in Hyattsville. Ponton attended high school at St. Anthony’s School in Northeast Washington in the early 1970s. In the ensuing years, while attending the University of Maryland, she became a featured performer at the Dubliner in DC, first starting out singing Irish songs from her family’s history and then gradually adding songs by Little Feat, Bonnie Raitt, Joni Mitchell, and others. A frequent visitor to the Dubliner was blues guitarist Jimmy Thackery, who would take the stage and play while Ponton sang.
In the late 1970s, she worked at ABC News Radio and also took a position as news director at WLMD, a rock and roll radio station in Laurel. There she hosted an on-air interview program entitled “90 Seconds.”
In 1979, Ponton formed her own blues band, the Rhythm Masters. Locally, they performed in DC at such night clubs as Desperado’s, Columbia Station, Mr. Henry’s Tenley Circle, the Gentry, the Childe Harold and the Wax Museum; in Maryland at the Psyche Delly (Bethesda), the Italian Gardens (College Park), and the Takoma Tap Room (Silver Spring); and in Virginia at Beacon’s Backstage (Falls Church) and the Warehouse (Alexandria). The band also embarked on nightclub tours and made festival appearances up and down the East Coast. The Rhythm Masters endured several changes in personnel during their time and remained one of the region’s top blues bands until dissolving in 1986.
Ponton married producer-engineer Jeff King in 1986. After a break in the action, she returned to the local music scene in 1990 and began performing under the banner of either “Cathy Ponton King” or “The Cathy Ponton King Band.”
To date, Cathy Ponton King has released a total of four albums: Lovin’ You Right, Undertow, The Crux, and Quartet/Duet. She currently performs at Madam’s Organ in DC; Flanagan’s Irish Pub in Bethesda; and at festivals and shows throughout the DC area.
Mark Francis Nickens
Nickens moved to Montgomery County and spent the late 1970s attending Albert Einstein High School. In 1980 he became the bassist for a band based in Potomac called the Blues Rockers, which played local parties and Maryland nightclubs.
In 1980, Nickens joined the power trio known as Tsak. The band played heavy rock and roll and covered such artists as the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Frank Marino and Mahogany Rush, the Scorpions, Led Zeppelin, Van Halen, and Y&T. Nickens remained with Tsak for more than two years, during which time they performed in Maryland at such nightclubs as the Big Dipper (Beltsville), the California Inn (Laurel), the Outside Inn (Rockville), and the Riverside Inn (Riverdale).
In 1986, Nickens put together the first version of Skychurch, a Kensington-based ambient music group that would endure numerous personnel changes and ultimately last for eight years. In addition to working with Skychurch, Nickens became a street musician in 1987 and began busking on streets and Metro stations in DC, an activity he engaged in for more than 20 years.
In the late 1990s, Nickens joined the band Violet Says. The group performed original heavy rock and roll and Jimi Hendrix covers, alternating between the band names Violet Says and Johnny Rushmore.
A high point for the band was its appearance—as Johnny Rushmore—at “Woodstock ’99,” a four-day, 110-act, large-scale music festival held in 1999 on the grounds of the former Griffith Air Force Base in Rome, New York, that attempted to emulate the original Woodstock festival of 1969. Johnny Rushmore performed on the “Emerging Artist Stage” on the festival’s first day in front of an estimated audience of over 80,000.
Nickens has one solo space rock album to his credit, MSAWBE.
Two Movies Filmed in Laurel
Species II (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1997)
In this second installment in the Species series, a character named Commander Patrick Ross returns from Mars infected with alien DNA that turns him into a tentacle-sprouting creature that prowls for female mates. Mainly shot in Columbia, a lot of filming was done in Prince George’s County: interior scenes of the Pentagon’s Biohazard Level 4 Compound were filmed at the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission on Sweitzer Lane in Laurel; the Pentagon interior scenes were filmed in the auditorium and main conference room of Konterra, also on Sweitzer Lane; and the exterior of Biohazard Level 4 Compound (the outside entrance with the guarded gates) was filmed at the Patuxent Water Filtration Plant on Sandy Spring Road.
New Genesis: Twilight of the Dogs (The Very Big Motion Picture Corporation of America, 1998)
Here’s another local science fiction thriller delivered by producer-director John Ellis. This time around, Ellis created a futuristic tale of a brave ex-pilot, his pet cow Gertrude, and his space-babe girlfriend, who were all trying to save civilization from the clutches of fanatical religious leader Reverend Zerk and his deacon followers. The outdoor desert scenes were filmed on the grounds surrounding Laurel Sand & Gravel on Van Dusen Road; today, this building is occupied by BrightView Landscape Services.
Rock the Potomac is available at booklocker.com/books/10190.html.
Mark Opsasnick was born in Washington, D.C. and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Maryland. To date he has authored nine books and innumerable articles on popular culture, rock and roll music, and unexplained phenomena. He resides in Prince George’s County and gives talks and presentations on local music history, in addition to emceeing and hosting live music shows throughout the Delmarva region.
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