Welcome to the Akron Bicentennial Forgotten History Forum Series.

This is the Akron Sound Part Two.

So how many of you were here for Part One?

There we go.

So it was so good that you had to come back, which we love.

My name is Mark Greer, I'm the Executive Director of Akron 200.

We're so pleased to have you back.

Akron Sound Part One had such an amazing response that we could not go without doing a round two.

And for those of you who have been to some of our recent events, you know that we were teasing the appearance of 91 year old Akron Sound legend and icon who was planning on being here tonight and unfortunately had a fall recently.

She's all right.

But again, we are going to be doing something very special, though, to honor her a little later.

The Forgotten History Forum Series is presented by the First Energy Foundation and in partnership with our exclusive media partners at PBS Western Reserve.

We want to remind all of you, especially in our current climate, to please support PBS Western Reserve.

Thank you.

But we are so excited to be back here with our friends and partners at the Summit FM.

And how many of you are Summit FM radio station listeners?

There we go.

We are looking forward to this Forgotten History Forum and with these amazing people on the stage.

So we're going to look forward to going forth.

And for this, I want to bring up tonight's moderator.

And he's an amazing, an amazing person over at The Summit FM radio station, their program director.

And he is just... He is so infectious with his energy.

I feel like as long as Brad is around, I can always be happy.

So please help me welcome Brad Savage from The Summit FM.

- All right.

Well, excellent.

Excellent.

Quite an intro I have to live up to that.

But, if you listen to The Summit FM, you know that my energy is pretty much for real, and I hope that comes through.

Sometimes I have to fake it a little bit, but generally it's for real.

We're very happy to be here.

This is part two like Mark mentioned.

Focusing in on the Akron Sound era and music here in our fine rubber city.

We did another one of these back in May and again with our fine partners at PBS Western Reserve.

They did a video on that show as well.

It's archived now and available at PBSWesternReserve.org.

So you can find that full episode.

Some of our panelists from that first one are actually in the audience.

I see Mr.

Chris Butler is over there tonight and Mr.

Nick Nicholis, we will single him out a little later again too.

So it's a lot of stuff to talk about.

The vibrant history and music and arts and culture of the Akron area and a great panel that I'll introduce here in just a moment.

But, I do want to say, isn't it great to have local, independent public media and spotlighting this, along with the Akron 200 organization?

Tonight's show is being recorded and filmed again.

It'll be a TV broadcast for PBS Western Reserve and a radio show on The Summit FM as well.

And that's what we did with the last one as well.

So we're kind of archiving this for the future.

And if you're not familiar with The Summit FM, we are 91.3 FM here in Akron.

We've been on the air.

We're part of the Akron Public Schools system and the station itself launched in 1955.

Now, in the early days, they did a lot of things like history lectures on the air and broadcasts of academic things.

Well, by about 1988 or 1989, my predecessor, Mr.

Bill Gruber helped initiate a real modern rock and progressive music format.

And that's what we do today, The Summit FM at 91.3.

We are also broadcast in Youngstown at 90.7 FM and in Athens, Ohio at 90.1 FM.

So we're covering some good ground across the great Buckeye State.

And for both organizations for The Summit FM and PBS Western Reserve, things look a little different this year.

We faced some federal budget rescissions, you know, a portion of our funding.

TV and radio used to come from the federal government, but that was rescinded.

We at The Summit were able to go on the air this summer in July.

And it's about 10% of our operating budget and thanks to our wonderful listeners and members, we made that back in the course of one weekend, about $130,000, which was our our biggest ever.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Yes.

Our biggest ever single fundraising moment.

And it's more important than ever to support public media and public radio and all of the great independent media voices in our area.

So thank you for being here.

And, yeah, just keep tuned to The Summit FM and PBS Western Reserve for the broadcast of tonight's program as well.

And next, I want to introduce our wonderful panelists that are up here on stage.

And we'll start at my left.

Starting out with a well-known author and journalist, band member, musician for many groups, and also— Oh, no big deal, he's also a professor at Akron U, Mr.

David Giffels.

And then to David's left, we have someone who is no stranger to this very building.

Bob Ethington was, in fact, a pop culture manager at the library here at the Akron Summit County Public Library.

Retired a couple of years ago, but before that, he's been involved in many, many bands throughout his life, notably Unit 5, a big contributor to the Akron Sound era.

And, also, he happens to host a podcast and radio show on the Summit FM.

Bob and Nick Nicholis, who's in the audience wave your hands up there real quick there Nick, yeah.

Nick is from The Bizzaros, Bob Ethington represents many bands and is kind of a local historian to this area.

And they do a show called From Akron and Beyond, which is each episode is about an hour in length, and we've interviewed a ton of people in music and culture and significant contributors to Akron history.

So this is Mr.

Bob Ethington here.

Yes.

Oh, and I did want to point out that both Bob and David were asked to be on the first panel back in May, but they were both unavailable and traveling.

And in fact, I think at that time, David, you were interviewing the Black Keys in Nashville, if I remember.

So we roped you back in.

- Yeah, you weren't supposed to tell anybody yet.

- Oh, sorry about— - It wasn't official yet, but it is now.

- Well, you never heard that.

That didn't happen.

But we'll talk about the continuum of music, starting with the Akron Sound era as well.

And then I would like to introduce the hardest working woman in show business.

Certainly the hardest working in the Akron Sound era.

And she represents the band Chi-Pig, Debbie Cahan.

And then, a well known person on the local music community and played in a ton of bands.

And he too, like Bob Ethington is a drummer and he also— Oh, there's a little place in Akron history known as the Lime Spider that is pretty well revered.

And he was the founder and owner of the Lime Spider, Mr.

Danny Basone.

And then down on the far end here is just a great, great music and historian.

He's worked at virtually every record store in town throughout the years and he's been in virtually every band in town throughout the years as well.

Currently, he is a contributor to our station, The Summit FM.

He does a show called Revolt Into Style on Tuesday nights at seven, and then another show called Positively Soul Street on Tuesday nights at 8 p.m.. This is Mr.

Dave Swanson.

So, yeah, between our group, we have a ton of history in music and music business and just, you know, the important things that make, that make life so enjoyable and make Akron a great city.

So my goal is to dig into some of that and discuss a little bit more in-depth, what made the Akron Sound happen and what made it tick.

So, I guess for my for my first topic, and I think we'll start with David Giffels on this to kind of give us an overview.

When we say the Akron Sound, we're actually referring to a certain era of music generally speaking, starting in the mid 70s, 75, 76 or so, but David, give us kind of the rundown of what that means when we say Akron Sound.

- Sure.

Thanks, Brad.

And thanks everybody, for coming and supporting The Summit and supporting local music.

It's funny because the Akron Sound is something that those of us who have a fascination or an involvement with Akron music just kind of know what it means.

And and as people who live in a place like this, sometimes we forget that people around the rest of the world don't understand us.

But in truth, like the Akron Sound doesn't mean a single thing.

It isn’t really a sound.

It isn't really a sound, it’s really to me, the Akron Sound represents a group of artists, adventurous artists who happened to be around here in the mid 1970s.

And if there was a sound, it was that which is not WMMS.

Which is to say that these were non-mainstream musicians who were listening to music that was outside of what was on commercial radio, who just sort of found each other.

But also found each other in a moment that followed certain key things.

One of them was the influence of Ghoulardi on Cleveland television in the 1960s.

That it introduced this sort of, rebellious figure who played this, like, sort of outsider swampy rock and roll on his station and just represented this sort of, figure who was anti-establishment.

And also the influence, the very important influence of the 1970 shootings on the campus of Kent State University, which triggered a political awareness among many of the musicians.

DeVoe, most notably, but certainly others as well.

And then just the sort of beginning of the decline of the prevailing civilization, the Rubber City was beginning to crumble.

And the young people who for a couple of generations prior could count on, you know, stable jobs in the factories and a pathway that didn't require a lot of thinking on their own, were starting to feel like they needed to find their own pathway.

And so you put those things together and then musical talent and artistic talent.

And these people find each other.

They do.

And that's, you know, that's why we call it the underground, because they sort of are not above in the view of the prevailing culture.

So, you know, these bands all sounded different.

The Rubber City Rebels were sort of a sped up hard rock band and Devo was sort of an experimental noise art project that's sort of evolved into music.

And Unit 5 was sort of a 60s influenced pop band, and Tin Huey was sort of Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart kind of weirdos and Chi-Pig were these like, sort of cool girls who went to Firestone High School together and became this female fronted band.

So they were all different than what was on the radio and, you know, and then the next thing that happens is you have to find a place to put on a show and what happens.

So in 1976, there's a historic rubber workers strike and there was this guy named Bill Carpenter who had this bar.

It was a rubber worker's bar called The Crypt on East Market Street.

And he was at wit's end.

He'd run out of money.

Everybody was beat down.

And he, and these, the Rubber City rebels, came in and said, hey, I saw you had a stage in your bar can we play here?

And he said, I'll tell you what, if you take over the bar and run it for me, here are the keys, you can run it.

He gave it to them.

It was something that nobody else wanted.

So the Rubber City Rebels did it.

Devo played there, Pere Ubu played there, the Dead Boys played there.

It became this hub and is considered the first punk rock venue outside of New York City in American soil.

Because they were scrappy do it yourself, people because nobody was going to do it for them.

And then a little bit later comes the Bank.

There's this guy, this local lawyer— I love this story.

This local lawyer named Howard Allison heard that Summit County needed a location for a new jail.

And he did some research and he determined that based on the requirements for the location of the jail, that there was one spot available in the footprint of where it needed to be, and it was the old Anthony Wayne Hotel.

So he bought it for a song and so thought he was going to make his money selling it back to the county.

Well, the county widened its footprint and found a better location for the jail.

So now he's left holding the bag on this mortgage for this place he bought.

But it was the lobby of an old bank downstairs.

So he liked jazz, so he turned it into a jazz club.

But that wasn't going very well.

And this band, Hammer Damage came in and said, hey, we need a place to play, saw you had a stage.

He's like, okay, can you bring a crowd?

Brought in a crowd.

They started drawing people, paying for his mortgage.

So, you know, this was happening over and over in Kent.

You know, JB's was sort of a holdover from the hippie era of Kent's thriving music scene.

Well, guess where the bands played?

In the basement.

You know, anyone who's been in a band in the Midwest knows it's always snowing, it's always 3 a.m., and there are always stairs.

And JB's is the quintessence of that logic.

It's down a steep set of stairs that were always icy and it was always cold.

So it was kind of like, as so often happens, artists take over the things that nobody else wants, make something new out of it.

And so the Akron's Sound to me is more of a spirit of that community that did that.

And then all of those bands started to find sort of new avenues from there.

- Very well said.

Yes, Mr.

David Giffels.

Well and interestingly, those venues, Bob and Debbie played gigs at those places.

Give us your recollection a little bit of playing at those places and kind of those early days and what that was like going to one of those shows.

- Well... Before I begin, I would like to just add one thing to what David was saying, which is that, I think the DIY sort of spirit was a huge part of what was going on in Akron.

And that is epitomized by my podcast partner, Nick Nicholis, who started his own record label, Clone Records, which a lot of the bands of that time put out their first records.

He did it just so he could have something to put The Bizarros record out on.

And, you know, that was very rare.

I mean, indie labels now are common, but that was very unusual at the time.

The other thing I want to mention real quick was just that I think a lot of the music also was created as a reaction to the just sort of huge bloating that was happening with rock and roll at that time.

You know, the sort of you know, I'm not too judgmental about the music about this.

I mean, if you like any of these bands, fine.

But I mean, bands like, Yes, and Emerson, Lake & Palmer and then even bands like the Eagles or bands like the Stones who just became— They didn't seem like they were, you know, working class guys anymore.

They were, you know, in Rolls-Royces and tuxedos and, you know, going to parties with Andy Warhol and stuff.

And it was just— Things seemed to be so removed from everyday life that I think that, I think that's kind of where punk started.

I mean, punk was the idea of just, you know, three chords and the truth.

You know, I want to write about what I'm experiencing and I don't need to be a virtuoso to do that.

And some bands were more virtuosic than others.

I mean, some of the bands from this era that, you know, they frankly weren't very good musically, but they were fun and their songs were catchy.

And then there were other bands that had a whole lot of technique going on and Tin Huey would be a great example of that.

So would Chi-Pig.

- Oh, absolutely.

Thank you.

- I'll keep complimenting you as much as I can, but— - I'll say thank you, thank you.

- But okay, so playing those places where the Bank was just an incredible place for a young band at first to be playing it because, I mean, it was this really large venue.

It held about 6, 700 people, I'd say.

And had a really high ceiling and, and people came out to shows, which is something I always talk about with younger musicians now, because I feel bad for them because, you know, it's so hard to get people to go out and leave their house now and turn their phone off and do something outside of their own little sphere.

And so it's like back then that's what you did.

People went to shows, people went to see bands all the time.

So it was, you know, you’d be playing a Thursday night, you'd have a couple hundred people.

You play a Friday, Saturday night, you'd have 6, 700 people.

And so you really felt like you were a star.

You know, it was also scary as hell.

I was told not to swear so, I'm being— You’re not going to find them.

But I think that would pass.

Yeah, of course, JB's, David laid that out pretty good.

My memories of JB's are always playing unbelievably late.

Like, I was just saying to Debbie before we started that whenever over the years, I've been at a concert and I've had to wait for a band, I always think this is my own karma coming back to me, because it used to be like, well, we're supposed to start at 11, let's go to 11:30.

Well, you know, seems like there will be a few more people here, midnight will be okay.

These shows went so late, and which meant that it was like, 3:30 in the morning.

We're carrying all this gear up these stairs that I'm rather sure always seemed like they had urine all over them.

How that happened exactly, I don't know, but I didn't want to think about that.

And when you went outside, it was always a blizzard.

Which, you know, we used to have blizzards in Northeast Ohio.

And I remember very distinctly after one gig, 2:30, 3 in the morning, loading up my car and I'm wiping the snow and ice off and my rearview mirror, outside rearview mirror just broke off and just fell on the ground.

And at that point, I started thinking, I may need to start thinking of a backup job to this band thing.

But anyway, it was so much fun.

I mean, it was so much fun.

It was such a huge scene.

And there were so many cool bands playing and you could see somebody different all the time.

And one of the coolest bands by far was Chi-Pig.

- Absolutely.

- Thank you.

- Yes.

- Yeah, Debbie.

What are your recollections and what were the crowds like?

Like what was the age group?

Was it all young people?

- Was it, was it really— - I think so.

Other than my mother.

I think everyone was young.

But the first time I played at the Bank was not playing in a rock and roll band, it was playing in a jazz band.

And that was with Ralph Carney and whoever could come along and play with us at the time.

And I don't even know what we called it, something, you know, because we wanted to play and so Howard said, Howard Allison, who owned the club, said, it's a jazz club.

And I thought, okay, we can cover that that.

You know, called Ralph, called Tim from 15 60 75, and play some jazz just to be playing.

In time when it transitioned, I used to have a lot of talks with Howard Allison about in his office back at the Bank.

But, you know, Howard, this could be something.

Oh, Howard, didn’t want to be bothered.

You know, it was an afterthought for him and he was always complaining about it.

We said no, it could really be something.

Let us do it.

Let us take it over.

And being the little rascals that we were, we took it over gladly.

And we came and played and came out to support each other.

It was live music.

It was... We were younger and we could stay up late as opposed to what time is it now?

One hour til pajamas.

That's what I call it.

And it was a great time.

It was a creative time and I think you both mentioned the sense of community about it.

That was what I thought was terrific.

Yeah, there was competition, but there was help from all the fellow musicians.

And I loved the conversation.

I loved playing in Chi-Pig.

I loved playing with, with Sue, and I adored playing with Rich Roberts because as a bass player, having that conversation without having to speak was one of the most divine things that I've ever experienced.

- Debbie, tell everybody about how Chi-Pig would involve the audience in your shows.

- Well, funny you've both mentioned JB's.

I don't know if you've ever been or never been.

But I got the idea that it would be good to involve the audience.

And there was a show on TV at the time, the Jean Carroll Show out of Cleveland.

Those of you may remember, Jean Carroll was bland with a capital B, but he would have talent on, local talent, I recall.

And I thought he brought an audience member up, but that could have been Ted Mack in the Amateur Hour, and that was pre way back.

But I thought it would be great to bring somebody up on stage and we had this song called, Apu-Api (Help Me).

Yes.

And Rich knew no ending ever.

He could play drums as long as it was required.

God bless him.

I think he still can.

And we had a long space in that song, a long interlude, and I would bring someone up from the audience on stage, and we would teach them the Apu dance.

A sacred rite, indeed.

And I thought, this is great.

So I would bring somebody up.

One night, I thought, the audience is here, but there might be someone on the street dying to come up on stage with us.

We were at JB's.

I had 150ft of microphone cable because there weren't microphones that were wireless then.

And I thought, this is great.

And I said, one man and one man alone here tonight can help me.

And I ran out to the street, up the stairs to find that person, forgetting totally that I would not be able to hear myself speaking because I was now outside on the street indeed.

Brought someone back.

And that was it.

Yeah.

I think there's a lot of people around.

Maybe not many then anymore, but I do find people who said, I came to see your band, and I said, did I embarrass you on stage?

And when they say no, I'm greatly relieved because I loved doing it.

And I did love playing that in the band.

Yeah.

- Very good.

Yes.

Thank you, thank you.

I want to ask, Danny Basone a little bit about his recollections in that era and getting into music and what eventually led you to starting up your own venue and when did The Lime Spider actually open?

It was a little later than this time frame.

Is that right, Danny?

- 2001.

- Okay, okay.

So give us your background in some of the bands in the Akron Sound era here too.

- Well, I grew up, you know, rubber worker family.

First time I heard Devo I was 16, and that changed me.

Although my brother was already playing in a band called, Trusy and the Trendsetters.

And at 16, he invited me to the Bank.

And that's where I saw Unit 5 and was just blown away, you know, with the music scene.

So, you know, I was getting snuck into the clubs with braces on my teeth and, you know, my brother would say, you know, don't smile.

So that scene just totally woke me up on new music.

We had a little fashion show between Cleveland and, you know, in Akron.

Dave's more of a Cleveland guy, although he literally lives a few blocks from me in the Falls.

It was just a scene that you would go to the Bank to see two bands and then go, all right, we're going to JB's to see some more bands.

There was nothing else to do for us, you know?

I also ran sound at Mothers Junction, 96 to 99, until Charlie Thomas, the owner shut it down because, you know, people weren’t going out as much to see live music.

So within that it's just been supporting the local scene.

It's just been something that it's exciting.

You know, there's I mean, the Black Keys, of course.

You know, there's just we have such a good scene around here.

But today's technology kind of has us all, you know, in our computers, and we're not– It's, you know, we just don't go out as much.

You know, obviously, some of us are older, but the kids don't go out to support music, and that's kind of sad.

So we need to keep paying attention at 91.3 Listen to what's going on around town.

You know, and it's just continue this Akron scene that just swarmed back in the day and it's still there.

You know, we're just older.

- Go ahead.

- I think you should mention that the Akron scene continues under your leadership with a new club.

- Well, I have a little venue downtown next to the Lockview, which I've had for 19 years.

I’m gonna bring back a little bit of live music, but not I'm not going to be that like it did, you know, we did so many bands before we were doing seven nights a week, so I'm just going to showcase some local music.

I don't plan on bringing back, you know, old bands.

I've done that.

That was a blast.

We're just going to bring back— I'm going to bring back, you know, just some local talent on occasion.

I think that's all I can do at my age.

- Well, great.

And, I wanted to kind of shift.

You mentioned Danny, that Dave Swanson is a little bit more of a Cleveland at that era, right?

Like, Dave, you lived in Cleveland and first off, run through some of the bands that were playing out and some of the band names that you've been affiliated with?

- Yeah, I'm here tonight as the representative of Cleveland.

My first inclination there was a place called Akron was in 1972.

And they had a whole series of concerts at the Akron Rubber Bowl that would eventually, Belkin would move this idea to Cleveland Municipal Stadium and create the World Series of Rock, which was a famous annual event with a whole day worth of bands.

But in 72, the Rolling Stones played the Akron Rubber Bowl.

Yes.

The Faces, Badfinger, a whole bunch of different bands.

And I had the great idea at ten years old to ask my parents, would you mind driving me to a concert?

Okay, who's who's the act?

Alice Cooper.

Okay, where's this at?

The Akron Rubber Bowl.

And then they looked at me like I was from another planet, so that that didn't fly but I was aware of Akron.

Yeah, the... Akron and Cleveland always seemed kind of like maybe brothers with one parent the same, you know what I mean?

It was like, you know, they had the same father, but the mothers are totally different people.

And just over the years, I made friends with people in Akron, etc., etc., married a girl from this area.

And that's how I ended up being down here.

But I never went to any of these clubs.

And Cleveland was a totally different sort of ideal as opposed to— There were clubs where these, you know, the underground bands could play.

In fact, somebody just mentioned the Governor's Chateau which eventually became Luchita's Restaurant.

And this was the first place that the Cramps played when they came through.

I believe the Dead Kennedys maybe played there their first time through.

So it became a Mexican restaurant.

And there were different, you know, the fantasy nightclub and different places where these bands could play.

In general, like you mentioned WMMS, there was no real support beyond 1975.

That's when everything sort of started to change and WMMS became much more... Basically, they switched allegiance from Roxy Music to Bruce Springsteen.

And it just became a different animal.

Because in the early 70s, mid 70s, they would play Bebop Deluxe, they would play Sparks, they would play Roxy Music like crazy, all kinds of different stuff.

And as that went away, any interest in the underground bands in Cleveland went away and they started focusing on bands that they thought they could mold into the next big, you know, arena act or whatever.

So the bands in Cleveland, I think, had a whole different path because while those bands united as well, there was no sort of sonic connection, maybe between a lot of them, you'd have one band doing one thing, one band doing something else, and just sort of by default ended up being together.

And that's the same with how a lot of our bands in Cleveland ended up playing with bands from down here, because it was just out of necessity of, you know, like minded people trying to get together.

- Once they’re kind of like, was Cleveland a lot further back then?

Or did the bands play in each other's towns and stuff?

- I played almost exclusively in Cleveland.

I was in an all girl rock n roll band called The Poor Girls.

When I was 14 years old, I moved to Akron from Detroit and I don't know, other than the note in Cuyahoga Falls, I don't know, any other clubs that had live music that were around.

They had teen clubs.

So there were quite a few in Cleveland.

And not just in Cleveland proper, also in the suburbs and Garfield Heights— - Mentor Hullabaloo.

- And Mentor Hullabaloo, thank you.

All the Hullabaloo chains.

Otto's Grotto, which was in the basement of Statler Hilton Hotel, played that, played almost exclusively clubs in Cleveland, all of it.

- And I'm pretty sure I saw Chi-Pig at the Agora.

- Yes.

Yes you did.

- I don't know.

That was not my experience, so.

My experience, I mean, we played in Cleveland a lot.

Unit 5 did, but I always felt like it was enemy territory.

And I was always, I was so naive because I thought that... Speaking of WMMS, like when Unified made our album that came out on Clone Records, Nick Nicholis’ label.

I thought, oh, WMMS is going to play this, you know, because it's catchy songs, it's pop stuff.

And they wouldn't touch it, you know, they would not play it because it didn't fit that... Yeah.

That's sort of the— - Well, but they also had a habit of even if a band was touring like the day of the show at the Agora, they would play a Ramones song.

And then the next day they would be filed away and you would never hear them until next time they came through.

- And Devo was never played.

- That's very interesting too, because in radio circles and in a lot of local history, especially Cleveland history, you hear about the monster that WMMS was.

And it seems like that station definitely was, it had a tremendous following, but it sounds like what we're talking about in Akron was a little bit more left of center and a little bit more DIY underground oriented.

- Well, we were able to receive that signal all the way from Cleveland down here in Akron, so.

I feel like WMMS was a convenient common enemy for people who were interested in more adventurous music.

- Sure.

- And then if you were in a band and the commercial station wouldn't play your band, it made you feel more rebellious and outsider.

And so in a way, it was helpful I mean, you know, in its own way.

Like, you know, Danny and I played in a band together and like part of the ethics of band world then was like, if a Cleveland band, if we invited a Cleveland band to come and play a show with us in Kent or something, they would return the favor.

And so we would trade shows back and forth with Dave's band and our friend’s bands.

There's an old saying that applies to many of these things is that it's, it's the half hour from Akron to Cleveland and two hours from Cleveland to Akron.

And I think that dynamic applies to the music scene as well.

- And real quickly, let's talk about Akron radio in particular, because I'm aware that WAUP at the time, which is today WZIP, the University of Akron station.

That was kind of an album rock free form type station.

Is that right?

- Well, may I just add that I am now married to a former DJ from WAUP hear, hear.

- Very good.

- Thank you.

- Lot of history.

I mean, we find that all the time.

How did the local radio play into the Akron Sound scene and was there radio support on some of those left of the dial and college radio stations?

- I don't remember anything recently.

I don't remember any at all.

I mean, I don't know, do you?

- No.

- So WAUP in the 1980s was where I was discovering a lot of music.

My brother and I had a bedroom in the attic, and we could at certain nights with a coat hanger attached to the boombox, we could get WCSB from Cleveland the Great, all hail WCSB.

- All hail WCSB.

- Anyone that knows what’s going on with them this week.

But, and we discovered that this music that would make our hair stand on end, you know, we would hear, you know, like wild— It was like rockabilly, but it sounded like alien music.

And WAUP had DJ’s, Mike (unknown) is here.

And it's a core of DJ’s when I was a student at University of Akron that were playing music that wasn't being played anywhere else.

And like The Residents and, you know, like all this stuff that was happening then.

So, you know, College Rock was very much a thing and Akron definitely was tapped in to that, for sure, at least in the 80s, maybe not— - And there was also on KSU that show, Fresh Air, which was not— You know, not the Terry Gross, whatever.

And they would play like progressive rock stuff.

But this was, I think that started in like the late 70s.

- Sure.

- But I mean that I would occasionally be able to catch that, you know, the same thing, putting the antenna in just the right way.

And I remember hearing some, you know, that was the first I ever heard Peter Hammill and just some other people were it's like, you know, they were off in their own tangent as opposed to like CSB, which is where I first started on the air.

- It is pretty amazing too, because these smaller signals and smaller voices, it was almost like it sounds like it was more like your discovery, and it was a small tribe that discovered that.

And that, as Danny was alluding to earlier, that's good and bad about how it pertains to today.

You know, all music is virtually everywhere and available on your phone at a moment's notice today.

That's great, but you have to know what you're looking for, I guess.

And it seems like that keyowrd, like minded people keeps coming up again too, you know, with in terms of both the bands themselves and the friendships, even on this stage that span decades across most of you guys.

But also the audience that enjoyed this kind of music and was going to see it.

- Yeah, something that I think was very important about The Akron Sound band days from the late 70s, very early 80s was exactly what you're just talking about, Brad.

And also it was just super fun.

I mean, a few years after us, the music became more hard edged.

It became more like hardcore, you know, Dead Kennedys, you know, Minor Threat, etc.

Moshing, you know, the whole thing.

Bands that came to see us or people that came to see our bands, they danced.

I mean, people had fun.

I mean, it was just like, you know, and it was everyone.

It was kind of a huge club.

I mean, yeah, if you'd saw it, you'd see the same people, you know, but it wasn't just 20 or 30 or 50, it was several hundred, you know?

And, yeah, that was just kind of a special thing about it, I think.

- Well, and let's talk about another great place where people would meet their tribe, and that is the record stores.

And maybe Dave can talk a little bit about his retail experience.

I guess most of the stores— - How much time you got?

- Yeah, right.

We could do a whole second panel on this.

- Which, before I get, were there any metal bands in Akron?

I'm just curious there because there's a big metal scene in Cleveland.

Okay, yeah.

- Was it Ramones?

They did a lot of metal.

- There were a lot of cover bands.

(conversating) - That's what I felt we were competing with was bands playing— - And those bands tended to draw, you know, like 1,400 seat venues and stuff like that.

Whereas, you know, the underground bands were lucky to play, you know, a 200 seating or something like that.

Yeah, I started working in record retail in 1978 at a place called Melody Lane in Lakewood, which was a great record store and I learned a lot about music there.

From there went on to, you know, he sold the business and I moved to a place called Chris' Warped Records, which was in Lakewood, which was a big hub for a long time.

And then later at Repeat The Beat in Old Brooklyn area and ultimately at My Generation in Westlake.

- And Bob, you have some record store experience too, right?

- Yes.

- We've talked about this on the From Akron and Beyond show available at the summit.fm.

All the episodes.

- Thank you.

Yes.

Well, I mean, there were a lot of great record stores once upon a time.

One that comes to mind, I did not work there was Disc Records at Summit Mall.

Did you work there?

It seems like almost everyone did.

I mean, Ralph did, Harvey Gold did.

I mean, the list is just huge— - Jim Carney did.

- Jim Carney did.

- Andy (unknown) did.

- Okay.

Alright.

Who didn't work at Disc Records?

Anyway, but it was a super cool place and exactly what you think of, like the ideal of a record store, which means it people would come in wanting one thing and they'd leave with something else that they'd been recommended by a clerk there or maybe two things or, you know, along with what they wanted.

I worked at Record Theater at Fairlawn Plaza at the time it was called.

That was a fantastic record store, had a huge selection and that was right when punk was happening.

And so all of those super cool colored vinyl 45s and 12 inches of these strange bands, you know, like X-Ray Spex and, you know... Just these cool bands.

And I just stare at them and I buy them because I was so fascinated by them.

And it really changed my life hearing that stuff.

Then I worked at Camelot Music later after that.

So, yeah.

- Album art was very important.

You just pick something out from the artwork and had good chance it was pretty good.

- Right.

- Well and it was kind of a word of mouth and again, that special tribe discovering this type of music.

It really sounds like such a magical era.

Tell me— - As if you were a music geek.

- If you were a music geek.

Right.

- Even before that, like in the late 60s through the early 70s, music was everywhere.

You could go shopping with your parents at the department store, they had a record section.

Drug store down the corner had a rack jobber who would come in and put one row of the hits, one row of cutouts.

So anywhere you went there was music to be found.

- We’ve talked about this on our radio show.

I mean, I remember buying records at Singer Sewing Machine stores and it— Yeah I mean, why would they have records, you know?

- Now, were some of these more underground bands, the Clone Records material.

Was this available at most of these stores like at your Cleveland stores were the Clone Records in stock?

- Yeah, yeah, I mean, we had a separate section behind the counter for like a lot of the Indy 45s.

And we would even get bands from out of state send us their records for consignment, whatever.

And we had, you know, all kinds of sections for local and for independent whatever imports.

So yeah, we would have had, you know, I remember having the Bizarros record and, you know, it was there, it was like you didn't, it just showed up one day however, you know.

- It sounds like the Akron Sound was very influential.

And Cleveland bands, too, in the indie label community, you know, starting your own DIY record label years before the technology made that a lot more accessible.

So that's another thing I'm hearing a lot of early era of DIY and punk.

So let me ask this, was the Akron Sound an offshoot of punk rock in that era?

How does that intertwine punk and new wave sound too?

- It was part of it.

I mean, I don't even think it was an offshoot.

I think, I mean, it was contemporary with it.

- Very interesting to just hear, you know, that we maybe we were more cut— Did we realize we were kind of cutting edge?

Like, did the Akron Sound participants realize we were on the leading edge of some of these things?

- I think we had to feel that way because that was really about the only reward we were getting.

We were very elitist about our music.

- But I think it's always important to remember the obvious, which is that culture moved very slowly then and we didn't really know how obscure we were until somebody came and told us.

And one of the important things that happened in that era is— - I think I’m more obscure by the day.

Young, young upstart go getter, Chris Butler wrote a letter to Robert Christgau at The Village Voice in New York and said, there are all these cool bands in Akron, Ohio you should come and hear him.

And he did.

And Robert Christgau wrote this really important piece about the Akron Sound.

Really great piece of writing that really got it.

But it was like the Who's down in Whoville, you know, until somebody like said it loud enough and somebody came and noticed.

And so like the whole idea of pop culture was just different, even like the record stores, it was like, you know, because Devo put out their single on their own.

And Mark Mothersbaugh loves to tell the story about how, you know, they would drive to the record stores with a box of records and said, how many do you want?

We'll take three and if we sell those, you can bring three more next week, and they go up next week.

and they'd say, do you sell those records?

They say, nope, still got those three that you bought last week.

So it was– Yeah, I mean it was like do it yourself in a more like hands on way even than it is now.

- Let me ask about a band that on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean is breaking big with Akron ties and that is the Pretenders and Chrissie Hynde.

So give us kind of, where do The Pretenders and their eventual mainstream success play into this story?

- I don't know.

I don't know what to tell you.

I went to junior high school in high school with Chrissie Hynde, and we were huge music fans.

And I had a little singer, battery operated, 45 record player.

And we would listen to WLAC, That was the Life and Casualty station out of Nashville, because we were fans of old rhythm and blues.

and we would get these obscure obscure 45s, which I still have, and listen to music together.

We were huge music fans.

And we had very similar tastes.

I think to this day, we can both sing all of the guitar solos on Led Zeppelin's first album, because we did, and a Jeff Beck solo, I'm Your Gal.

I can sing it.

And I remember when she went to England, she went to England with my sister.

My sister stayed for maybe almost a year and Chrissie stayed forever and started playing in bands.

And the first time I heard, Stop Sobbing on the radio, I was in my mother's kitchen eating dinner, and I said, mom, it's Chris.

And she said, it is.

And I called her Chris then, Chrissie now, and called Chris's mother and said, I'm hearing her on the radio.

And she said, and I called Chris and I said, I'm in Selma's kitchen, that’s my mother's name, and we're listening to you on the radio, you know, and her success... I don't know, I guess are you asking where we derivative of that in some way?

- No, I— - Because I don't think so.

- Did The Pretenders come in play in Akron in those days?

- Oh well sure.

Sure.

- And did they help kind of, you know, with her being from Akron, did that help bring some awareness to the Akron bands?

- Well, I guess, but maybe not in the way, you know, it's hard to be a hero in your hometown, isn't it?

Maybe not in the way that people had hoped.

We could be derivative from that, but I certainly don't think we were.

I think it existed at the same time.

But that was on a major label.

- I guess I was asking if she was an early prototype influencer.

- I don't know.

- But it wasn't on her Instagram page back then, I guess.

- I don't know.

That I couldn't tell you.

- I would say no.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- I think that when the vast majority of people around here first knew who Chrissie Hynde was, it was because they heard The Pretenders and her band was British.

- Well, it seemed like she couldn’t wait to get out of here.

- Yeah.

- You're absolutely right.

She’s been working as a journalist and stuff before she went into music, or as singing.

- Well and— Oh, go ahead David.

- Well, it's just the term the Akron Sound comes from, guess what?

A misunderstanding, a mistake, like the right thing happening for the wrong reasons, which seems to be like a theme.

And so, Devo was starting to get some, some notice overseas.

And they're recording their first album and they were invited to come to Liverpool to play a show.

And they're being interviewed by a journalist in Liverpool and he's asked Mark Mothersbaugh, he said, what's Akron like?

And Mark goes, well, it's a lot like Liverpool and he was going to complete a thoughtful answer you know, it's an industrial city that but— All he heard what the journalists heard was, oh Liverpool like the the Merseybeat like where the Beatles came from, it's a musical hotbed.

And so all this interest based on Devos’ rising fame comes to town and all these talent scouts from the record labels come looking for the next Devo and Stiff Records puts out, like, comes up with the Akron Sound as a tag to put all this music together.

So anyone then with Akron attached to their name became part of the Akron Sound.

So it was an artificial way to say Chrissie Hynde and Devo and the Bizarros and Tin Huey all fit in the same box.

It was just because Akron was the name, but all the better, because what better way to— I'm not allowed to say the bad word.

What better way to screw up the system than to let the misunderstanding stand and capitalize on it as much as you can until it burns out.

- And weirdly, I mean kind of in versing the whole Chrissie and with The Pretenders thing.

A lot of the whole Akron Sound thing was kind of a British phenomenon, because exactly what David was just saying.

And so they really started covering the Akron bands and there's, in the band Unit 5.

Our singer was Tracey Thomas, who a lot of you are familiar with I’m sure.

- She was on the panel last time around, too.

- There you go.

And they actually had, I think it was Melody maker.

It was either Melody Maker or New Musical Express, which are the big music papers in England had a contest winning a trip to Akron.

- Oh, Richard Bear won.

- And what was Richard, what was his last name?

- Bear.

- And so, like, there was a knock on their door and it was like this British guy.

Hello!

I’m here.

You know, (unintelligible).

You know?

And yeah, I think she was rather surprised, you know.

- Well, and if you go back and take a look at the archive of the Akron Sound of this panel from May, the first edition on the PBS Western Reserve website.

We had a good discussion of that Stiff Records Akron compilation and talking about just how, you know, one of the coolest of the cool British labels comes out with the Akron music.

And, you know, and we discussed the stories of people being waved in for free in clubs in New York when they said, we're from Akron.

Oh, come on in.

It's pretty great.

So I want to go back over to the podium because I wanted to do a little honor going back even earlier than the Akron Sound era that we were covering in the 70s and early 80s.

So Ruby and the Romantics had the first number one hit out of Akron, Ohio in history in 1963.

A song, called Our Day Will come reached number one, and they had several.

They had a good 5 or 6 top ten songs over the next few years.

since Ruby isn't here tonight, we did want to honor her anyway.

And and all this great music.

So I'm going to play part of an interview and some additional slides that were done by the Summit County Historical Society.

This was a couple of years ago in 2022.

This is from, a zoom interview and just listen to, to what Ruby says.

And listen for her, her level of being so proud of being from the Rubber City, Akron, Ohio.

So let's go ahead, Ruby begins-guys that wrote the song, and that's it.

I wanted to do that song.

And I said, well, why we, you know, want to give it to somebody that's noted.

That's been out here for a while, but I said, I can do that song, I can do that song.

And finally they they decided by me begging for a whole week, I finally made it.

They finally let us do it.

And we went into the studio.

And you know how they had the the different instruments and different guys playing.

They we, we went through it one time and then the guys took a rest and said, well, we'll come back and we're going to record some more, record some more.

So while the guys were out taking a break, the drummer started playing this bossa nova beat.

And when he started playing that, we just fell in and started singing.

This guy as a man came back in, they jumped in and, started playing.

That's not the way the song really started out with that bossa nova beat.

They had another beat to it, but when that drummer started playing it and we started singing, yet it took right on off, they say, oh, that's this, that's the beat we want.

That's the sound we want.

One time when we were on a tour with, with Dick Clark and we stopped in Winston-Salem and, and we were on a bus, would, you know, the variety of people?

Jerry Lewis, his son, was one of them that was on the bus with us.

Jerry Lewis and the Playboys.

As soon as we pulled up, you know people in the swimming pool And when they saw the blacks getting off the bus that swimmin pool cleared, you know, and then another time, while we were on that Dick Clark tour, we stopped at a restaurant to get something to eat.

And as we were going to get off the bus, the manager came out and says, well, you know, the blacks are going to have to go around to the back And then he said, go around to the back.

This is Dick Clark talking.

He said, nobody's going around to the back.

So Paul and Paula, Paula of Paul and Paula and another one of the girls went in the in the restaurant and fixed hamburgers for us because Dick Clark said we were not going around to the back to one of them lifetime achievement awards.

And it was just a nice thing to do that we did.

You know.

But at that time, there was everybody, a couple of the guys were already deceased, you know, but it was nice to to be recognized.

Born and raised in Akron.

Never left Akron.

Traveled all over everywhere.

Akron was wher it was at.

I didn't want to go be anywhere but back here in Akron.

We hope that you enjoyed this Forgotten History Forum and that you learned something new and exciting about Akron and the people who shaped it.

If you're interested in watching more from this series, or attending a Future Forum event, please visit Akron 200.org.

or pbswesternreserve.org Thanks for watching and celebrating Akron’s Bicentennial