It would be an overstatement to figure that if not for Cleveland, punk woulda turned out completely different. Growing up there, though, old dudes liked to tell stories about the hey-day. Probably some of ‘em were more than exaggerated, but some weren’t. There was a venue on Euclid Avenue on the boarder of East Cleveland that, supposedly David Bowie and Lou Reed would frequent when they were able to just check out the Dead Boys and the Pagans. It seems plausible, but who knows? Maybe I should just take to heart all the shit that old drunk punkers told me. Anyway, the bands below don’t necessarily define the genre, but each has worked to form some part of it. And if you disagree. Fine. But I’m probably right.
Before everything, the Electric Eels existed. In some sort of twisted prehistoric punk preview, the band wrecked musicality to a ridiculous degree. More likely than not, the early millennium compilation on Scat Records served to spread the band’s tweaked gospel. But if you can listen to the entirety of that offering in one sitting, you may need to see a shrink.
A splinter from Rocket From the Tombs, Pere Ubu is the longest consistently running – and only – band from this era in Cleveland. That, in and of itself, isn’t all too fab an accomplishment, but the fact that the band’s sound prefigured post-punk before punk was a genre, these dudes deserve their due deference. More over, David Thomas has remained tied to NE Ohio by recording everything that this band has put to tape in Lake County.
Probably the most famous export from the Cleveland area, the Dead Boys put out two discs of above boards punk and rock ‘n roll before disintegrating. Some dudes are still around town hocking guitars, while others tour. Unfortunately, lead singer Stiv had a run in with a car and lost, but not before he was able to front a few other bands and appear in a John Waters flick where he simply played a scum bag. RIP.
Existing well before their hit in the ‘80s, these art school guys were one of the first bands in the US to include a synthesizer in their work – and yes, I’ve heard of Suicide. The first full length from the band, Q: Are We Men? A: We Are Devo, is pretty much a start to finish classic. And while subsequent work from the ensemble would suffer from experimentation for the sake of experimentation, a few pre-record deal compilations do more than expand the band’s legacy. Those discs, which are pretty difficult to hunt down, work in every genre possible for these theoretical pseudo-punkers.
Even on this list of bands, the Pagans might have been the most shambolic in a live setting. And really, that’s pretty impressive by itself. But the band’s ability to come up with non-stop pop hooks and push it through the filter of warm beer and pills might make them one of the most easily digestible bands from the first wave of Cleveland punk. And even if everything else that they recorded stunk, “I’m Eighteen” might be better than the Alice Cooper version. No. Seriously.