Rebels and Underdogs: The Story of Ohio Rock and Roll by Garin Pirnia (review)

Readers seeking a comprehensive history of rock and roll in Ohio will not find it in Garin Pirnia's Rebels and Underdogs: The Story of Ohio Rock and Roll. But those wanting a vernacular overview of rock and roll from the post–Alan Freed and British invasion eras in Ohio will find a wealth of information on the bands, as well as the venues they played, in her well-organized and well-researched book. Utilizing research she gathered mainly from oral interviews with various bands' members, she offers a brief but comprehensive look at the development of rock and roll in five cities: Akron/Kent, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, and Dayton. She also adds short vignettes about the Nelsonville Music Festival, now in its sixteenth year, and about Jane Scott, whose voluminous archives were transferred to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Library & Archives after Scott's death in 2011. For each of the chosen cities, Pirnia reflects upon the social and economic factors that gave rise to the great variety of music genres that emerged starting in the late 1960s. These genres included glam, punk, metal, indie, alternative, new wave, and grunge, among a variety of others. She sums it up in the book's introduction by stating: "the consensus seemed to be that a lot of bands formed out of boredom or to combat their working-class environs." She points out, throughout the book, how this led to the development of styles that fit the contemporary social and economic conditions.

In examining the Akron/Kent area as a part of the midwestern "Rust Belt," where manufacturing jobs took a severe downturn, thus leading to high unemployment and to economic struggle, she identifies an "Akron Sound." This was born in the 1970s with Devo and extends to the present with bands such as Chi-Pig, The Numbers Band, Tin Huey, The Waitresses, The Black Keys, and Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders. Absent from her compendium is the band Rubber City Rebels.

Cincinnati is identified as having a rich history of music, extending back to the blues era of the 1940s. Pirnia discusses a considerable number of venues available in Cincinnati to keep the popularity of music alive in the city. Local bands included The Afghan Whigs, Ass Ponys, Greenhornes, Wussy, Heartless Bastards, and Foxy Shazam.

The rock and roll scene in Cleveland was vast, but it could be summed up by the words of Dylan Baldi, the founder of the band Cloud Nothings, and recounted by Pirnia: "There's a huge, long lineage of weird, fucked-up bands coming out of Cleveland. I don't know why that is, but I like it." Among the bands Pirnia reviews are one of "the most obscure—and one of the best—bands to hail from Cleveland. … System 56," Nine Inch Nails, and Filter.

Columbus is recognized as having a slightly different environment for the development of rock and roll in Ohio. Eric Davidson, of the band New Bomb Turks, is quoted as saying: "Columbus is a more rural town. It's more laid back than Cleveland, but it's not quite as sarcastic as Cleveland. We [his band] didn't fit in there." Pirnia recognizes and talks about the following bands from Columbus: Howlin' Maggie, Royal Crescent Mob, New Bomb Turks, Sinkane, and Twenty One Pilots.

Commenting on why so many bands developed in Ohio, especially Dayton, Tod Weidner of the band Motel Beds stated: "The Midwest was geographically and culturally isolated, so bands sprung up to fill the void. The world has changed, but the old tradition carried on, with bands filtering whatever they could use through a weird Midwestern filter and coupling it with this work ethic that people seem to have around here." Pirnia highlights the bands Guided By Voices, The Breeders, and Brainiac.

The book is an easy read, filled with quotations from area musicians, record producers, and others. The ideas Pirnia presents are backed...