Stories of legendary musicians and entertainers passing through or coming up in Kent, Ohio span decades. And while Patrick Carney and Dan Auerbach can rightfully proclaim Akron, Ohio as their home, they did in fact put some formative time in Kent before they came together to form The Black Keys. Some years back I was able to dig deep into a couple of super early shows Patrick Carney performed in town, but Dan's time in Kent was a story that had been a little harder for me to nail down.
There's been a ton written about The Black Keys and how they formed in Akron in 2001 but Dan Auerbach's music career wasn't born with The Big Come Up nor was it fermented solely in the vacuum of the city limits of Akron, Ohio. He cut his teeth for a couple years before that in bands like The Barnburners and The Patrick Sweany Band.
As far as I know I personally never saw (and do not remember) The Barnburners but I definitely remember hearing about and seeing Patrick Sweany going back as early as 1994. From that time until 2008 he and the various incarnations of his band played non-stop in Kent and all around the area. I must have caught Patrick Sweany dozens of times and I was never not mesmerized by every performance. He and his music were omnipresent on the local live circuit. He played so often that I actually now feel I took for granted the fact that such a high caliber musician was playing in town sometimes twice a week.
Much has also been written about Patrick Sweany's career but there is almost nothing written about the chunk of history in which Dan Auerbach was a sideslinger in his band and even less is known about the fact that this lineup of musicians had a Monday night residency for about a year and a half in a bar right here in Kent.
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Dan Auerbach, Jason Edwards and Patrick Sweany
at The Grooveyard - 244 N. Water Street in Kent,
Ohio January 2001. Photo by Bob Herbert.
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From what I can tell, Dan Auerbach played as part of the Patrick Sweany Band from Spring 2000 to late 2001 or till around whenever the earliest Black Keys demos were recorded. In that time they had a Monday night residency on Franklin Avenue in Kent in a now long gone bar called Mugs.
What first triggered this story for me was a google search I did about Dan Auerbach and Patrick Sweany. I knew they had played together but I initially didn't know specifically when this was or where they played. I eventually found some mysterious photos showing that band playing at a short lived music venue in Kent called The Grooveyard.
After doing some detective work I found that the photos were taken by a guy named Bob Herbert who not only photographed the band at their short stint at the Grooveyard but also during their much longer residency at Mugs. I had to know more about these photos so I contacted Bob and as it turned out he saw dozens and dozens of shows featuring this lineup of the Patrick Sweany Band in this era. This is what Bob told me about his photos, that time period in Kent and about seeing all those shows featuring a young Dan Auerbach.
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Photographer Bob Herbert in conversation about photographing and seeing the Patrick Sweany Band with Dan Auerbach in Kent:
JP: The photos you took at Mugs are from November 20, 2000 and the photos from The Grooveyard are from January 2001. What was going on in your life at that time that would have brought you down to those shows?
Bob Herbert: I was attending Kent State University. I think this was a little later in my college career because in 1998 I was a freshman. I was getting my undergraduate in Business Administration. So by 2000 - 2001 I was living in Sunrise Apartments which aren't even there anymore.
JP: So you would have been a junior at this time.
Bob Herbert: Yes
JP: So then how did you end up knowing about/seeing The Patrick Sweany Band in this time period?
Bob Herbert: There was a group of us -- and we first all became friends because we lived in Kent State's Small Group dorms -- which are also not there anymore -- and we really stuck together throughout our college careers. We must have stumbled across Pat Sweany one night at Mugs because that was his regular Monday gig. And we just liked what we were seeing so much we just stuck with it. Going out on Monday nights to see Pat was just sort of the thing to do. We just got so into him and his music that we would see him every Monday night at Mugs and really anywhere else he played that was within a reasonable distance.
JP: So he was the go-to musician/entertainment guy for you and your friends?
Bob Herbert: Yes
JP: So then were you seeing him pre-Dan Auerbach?
Bob Herbert: I don't think so because I think his first album -- or one of his first albums I Want To Tell You -- I bought that at Mugs. I'm sure he had been doing that music a little longer than when I had discovered them.
JP: I think Dan joins in Spring of 2000. Is that where you also maybe would have started to see them?
Bob Herbert: Probably
JP: What distinct memories do you have of seeing the Pat Sweany Band at Mugs?
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211 Franklin Avenue in Kent, Ohio 2017. Vacant
building that was formerly Mugs. Photo by Jason Prufer.
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Bob Herbert: What I remember is that Mugs was sort of on the edge of being a townie bar and a college bar. Personally at that time I wasn't drinking a lot so I remember having a lot of iced tea. I was there to see and experience the music. I remember it was upstairs. I also remember Pat Sweany got to know us over time. He knew who we were. He remembered that we'd always be seated at these tables that were down front. We would sometimes be rowdy and Pat would embrace it.
JP: Do you remember any of the songs he was playing? Did you have any favorites?
Bob Herbert: We'd always ask him to play "Chelsea Swing". I actually think it got to the point where he got tired of us asking for it so he was just like "nah". And we'd also ask him to play Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire" -- which he did sparingly. Those were just a couple songs but otherwise we'd let him play.
JP: What do you see in your minds eye when you look back? When you think of these nights at Mugs.
Bob Herbert: I still remember the energy and the passion and being a part of it.
JP: Late 2000 is still an era where people don't carry cameras around with them at all times. Why were you carrying a camera then?
Bob Herbert: So my Dad is very much into photography and I guess during that time I think it was still pretty early on with digital photography in particular. I think the photos at the Grooveyard and Mugs were taken with a Nikon Coolpix 88 camera that I had gotten from my Dad but it's possible they were taken with a Sony Mavica camera that I had been taking out of Kent State's Library at the time.
JP: Are you still into photography? Why did you take these photos?
Bob Herbert: I've always been into photography and in those days I would generally take a camera with me a lot of places that I go. Now I have my phone so I have less of a reason to bring a camera with me all the time. But if I do know that I will be taking pictures I will bring my dslr camera.
JP: So you are still serious about photography?
Bob Herbert: Yes that's my hobby
JP: What do you take pics of now?
Bob Herbert: A lot of family stuff -- family photo shoots. I would like to do more wildlife stuff which I occasionally do though I haven't done a ton of.
JP: Going back to these nights at Mugs. It looks like there were probably about 30-35 total nights played with Dan Auerbach at Mugs in this period. What do you remember about Dan in this period?
Bob Herbert: Kind of what sticks out to me --- and it's what I took pictures of is when they would showcase playing the same guitar. That was pretty crazy and got a big rise out of the crowd. It's hard to say what specifically sticks out --- he was part of the band and I don't want to say that he didn't stick out but I remember that he definitely gelled well with them.
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211 Franklin Avenue in Kent, Ohio 2020. Now a vacant dirt lot.
Former site of Mugs. Photo by Jason Prufer.
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Bob Herbert: Yeah I probably took a lot more but I don't know if I was being judicious with the hard drive space or whatever but I only tried to keep what was half decent or worth keeping for a memory. So I probably took several more but given how the technology at the time dealt with low light -- I got far more that were blurred on recognition than what was worth keeping.
JP: The better photos were at the Grooveyard. What do you remember about that night?
Bob Herbert: I don't have a lot of memories about that. I only probably went down there that one time. Maybe once more? Mugs was a lot more because it was every Monday night and it was rare to miss it.
JP: When did you leave Kent?
Bob Herbert: Shortly after I graduated which was in late 2001. After that I ended up going to Wright State to get a masters.
JP: When did you become aware that the guy you had been seeing playing with Pat Sweany at Mugs was becoming his own thing?
Bob Herbert: I don't know that there was a specific moment aside from keeping up with him. I was following The Barnburners as well as the Patrick Sweany Band so starting with those nights at Mugs I just sort of stayed in touch with how he was progressing. I even ummm --- and I don't remember locations and I didn't bring my camera -- I remember going to see The Black Keys somewhere in the Cleveland area back then -- I just remember it was crowded and it was loud.
JP: What do you think it is about Kent that allows for the creative likes of people like Dan Auerbach, Patrick Sweany, Joe Walsh, Devo etc. to hone their crafts. Why do you think the city against the odds has churned out so much musical talent over the years?
Bob Herbert: The immediate thing that comes to me is -- it almost makes it sound bad but compared to like an elite University/University town, in Kent there's less of a pretensey notion of what it's supposed to be. So I think maybe that allows things to occur just more naturally.
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Next on my list to talk to of course was Patrick Sweany. He'd obviously have a ton of insight on these photos. When I got a hold of Patrick he was very enthused to talk to me about this period in his career involving Dan Auerbach and that residency on Franklin Avenue.
Patrick Sweany in conversation about Dan Auerbach and Kent, Ohio:
JP: Tell me where and when you started playing in Kent.
Patrick Sweany: The first time playing in Kent would have been at Brady’s Café in 1992. I was a freshman in college going to Kent State University and at that time I was living in the Terrace Hall dormitories which are now long gone. My Dad had been taking me to the Kent State Folk Festival since I was a kid though really what I attended was those festival workshops. Those are probably my earliest musical memories outside of my Dad's playing. But my first time playing in Kent was for the open mic nights at Brady's.
Starting out I wasn’t playing any original material. I was just playing country blues and all this stuff off of 78 rpm records and jug band music and hard blues and stuff like that to an audience of mostly people who had absolutely no preconception of it. So I mean it’s all fresh to them and they just judge it on the experience that they are having in that moment and if it’s not entertaining or doesn’t seem interesting it doesn’t matter.
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Dan Auerbach at The Grooveyard - 244 N. Water Street
in Kent, Ohio January 2001. Photo by Bob Herbert.
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JP: When did the residency at Mugs happen? How did it come about?
Patrick Sweany: I'm kind of cloudy on the dates of when that exactly started. I don't have any pay stubs to look through. My first record came out in 1999 so I am guessing the Mugs residency must have started around late 1998. I had just moved back -- I was living in Eureka Springs, AK for 1997 and part of 1998. I must have come back to Kent in February of 1998.
There was a guy I knew -- Matt Coates and he used to have a club that I would hold down either a Tuesday or Wednesday night gig at -- The Blue Moon. This was while I was still in school so this was a lot earlier. The Blue Moon was on East Main Street across from the frat houses. It's where the courthouse is now and there was a motel in the back. Matt asked me if I wanted to do a night. Before the Mugs residency started people sort of knew me in town but there were no records out or anything like that. At that point I didn't even have a real band together.
JP: So how did the Mugs residency come about?
Patrick Sweany: So Matt asked me if I wanted to put a band together and do a night and I did really want to start working a band so it started with Ansel Weese and Jason Edwards as the original lineup. I think that's when we really came through. This would have had to have been late 1998 or early 1999.
JP: Where are you living at this point?
Patrick Sweany: I would have been living on North Lincoln Street on the opposite side of the Robin Hood but more towards Crain Ave. This old woman owned the house. It had this really funky basement apartment with AstroTurf -- just one of those old Kent dump of an apartments. And I think the old lady lived on the first floor and I believe there might have been some tenants on the second floor.
JP: Did you rehearse there?
Patrick Sweany: No it was really too small. I mean I would always practice there and the old lady who lived above me was deaf so I definitely had some late nights listening to records -- especially after those Mugs gigs we kind of fancied ourselves party animals. So I could always go back there and crank up the stereo.
JP: So where did the band rehearse at that point?
Patrick Sweany: Usually we would go over to our drummer Jason Edward's house -- he lived over in Uniontown I think at that time. We didn't actually rehearse a lot because the other guys had day jobs and were in other bands. A lot of it was like "hey man check this record out, I'd like to play it next week" sort of thing. So that was also a big part of it.
I was the younger one and I didn't have any responsibilities and I was able to live off of the money I was making playing whereas these guys were supplementing kids and all that kind of stuff so it seemed like a lot bigger deal to me than it did to them. I mean my rent was like $250 a month or something like that.
JP: Yeah health insurance isn't really an issue at that age.
Patrick Sweany: I was lucky to have car insurance.
JP: What was the repertoire at the beginning of the Mugs residency and did it change once Dan Auerbach came on board?
Patrick Sweany: The repertoire at the beginning would have been more like a lot of delta blues played electric style. Lots of Elmore James -- "Shake Your Money Maker", that was always our big set ender back then.
JP: That's one Hound Dog Taylor would do.
Patrick Sweany: Yeah he did that too but that would have come -- I wasn't super super hip to Hound Dog right when we started. That didn't start happening till after the residency had started. Local cats would turn up at our gigs and would say to me "dude, this used to happen here in Kent".
JP: So when does Dan Auerbach show up.
Patrick Sweany: I would say about Spring 2000.
JP: So Dan doesn't show up until at least a year into the residency?
Patrick Sweany: Oh yeah because I don't even know if he would have been 21 yet. I'd see his Dad, Chuck Auerbach come out to a gig every once in a while or I'd do like a solo gig over at The Northside in Akron and he might pop in for a little bit but I didn't know Chuck. Then I got to know him a little bit and he was like "I'll bring my kid". And I said "yeah I've been hearing --". The linchpin in this whole thing is local artist Mike Lenz who said to me "hey I gave this kid a couple guitar lessons man, you should check him out." So one day Dan introduced himself to me and he was -- not a tremendously social person -- kind of shy.
Ansel Weese who was our bass player at the time was getting busy -- he was working for Carter Lumber and then his second kid was on the way and ya know he couldn't rage all night with us on those Mondays. So Dan had just come around and we just replaced Ansel with Dan -- we put him on baritone guitar which ya know -- can act as a bass when needed. This was in the Spring of 2000. By the time we put Dan in the band I had already started digging into the Hound Dog Taylor catalog and Dan knew the parts. So we'd play Hound Dog's "Sadie" which is really one of his original things and Dan knew the Brewer Phillips part and I knew the Hound Dog part.
So then we just worked it out so that it was just two guitars and drums. So it was me, Dan Auerbach and Jason Edwards which is what you see in those photos. I remember we used to drag around a lot of different guitars so ya know we'd have one tuned to standard, one tuned one step too low and one tuned two steps low so we could get all the low notes. By then I was doing original songs so things from the first record but like electrified versions of those songs -- songs like "I Wanna Tell You", "Bad Luck, Bad Luck". We used to do "Chelsea Swing". I think we used to do "Blue All The Time".
By then when Dan showed up we were doing more original stuff. He also had his band The Barnburners going on simultaneously with Jason Edwards and Kip Amore. As soon as Dan joined with me he was starting to get his thing together. And then it was probably 2001 -- maybe a little bit later than that that he and Patrick Carney started taping stuff together. I am not exactly sure of that but I remember hearing the first rough mixes of The Big Come Up. We were on a set break playing at Rascal's Saloon in Dover, Ohio which is still there and still a great dive bar. We were sitting in his minivan when he played me the first rough mixes of that stuff and I thought oh man it's like T-Model Ford and Wu-Tang meets.
Dan and I still turned each other on to other stuff like he turned me on to Junior Kimbrough and the later Link Wray material. And then I turned Dan on to like the country blues stuff like Skip James and Fred McDowell. He really dug Fred McDowell and I was doing a lot of Mississippi Fred McDowell. Fred McDowell is otherworldly -- like with all that rhythmic syncopation stuff.
At that time I felt like I was pretty good at capturing those stylistic nuances. I worked a lot at trying to figure out how those old guys did it.
JP: Going back to the nights at Mugs. How long did the Monday night residency with Dan Auerbach go? How many Mondays do you think?
Patrick Sweany: Maybe 30 - 40 Mondays. I think he did at least a year.
JP: So every Monday night for about a year in around 2000 - 2001 anyone in Kent could have seen The Patrick Sweany Band with Dan Auerbach for free at Mugs?
Patrick Sweany: I think so. Yeah well -- probably about 30 shows. I'm sure there were some nights where someone would sub for Dan. Mike Lenz probably did that a few times. It might have been more than 30.
JP: What distinct memories do you have of that run at Mugs when Dan is in there?
Patrick Sweany: I remember a lot of things. A lot of it was figuring out gear and things like that and getting the sound of the band down. I remember loading that shit up the back of that place from that alley behind the old courthouse. I remember taking that Fender Twin up those steps. They used to let us drink for free and we were really young. It was like the only thing to do in Kent. It was party time and I remember almost losing control of that twin taking it back down those steps a couple of times. I remember hanging out with the manager a lot. Staying late and locking the doors. Walking out of there at like 5:00am some nights.
I always remember it being real fun though.
It was really the only thing to do because Kent was still a pretty small town then. Ya know it sort of ebbed and flowed. The big era of the music scene like post-DEVO and the height of the Numbers Band and the great years at The Kove into JB's Down and all that stuff. That had very much ebbed by this time -- and all the development that really transformed the town in recent years hadn't happened yet. It really wasn't even on the horizon. Comparatively these seemed like they were lean years but there were always cats around that played and those guys were really generous to me -- folks like Guy Pernetti and Andy Cohen were around then -- they showed me a lot early on.
JP: What about those photos from The Grooveyard? Do you remember that night?
Patrick Sweany: I remember right when that started. That was sort of -- the Mugs thing wasn't really happening anymore. I think the Grooveyard was going to pay us a little more money but I don't really remember what was exactly happening at the time of these photos. I feel like we held it down there until it just about closed. We were trying some things at the time though. Ya know we were doing good at this one place so now we were maybe trying to play some other rooms -- but I remember that place being really short lived. I wouldn't imagine we played the Grooveyard more than a few gigs.
JP: Do you have photos from that period? Photos of you and Dan playing in Kent?
Patrick Sweany: I know I've got some photos of Dan and I playing at Mugs. In the photos I am wearing a shiny dragon shirt -- I didn't want anyone in the band wearing blue jeans. We were trying to look like a sharp blues band. The photos show me and Dan in the crowd playing. Both of us with a guitar and I think one of us with a slide. I've definitely got that.
JP: A lot of cool things happened in Kent over the years and you played a certain role in that in the next generation stuff. Chrissie Hynde and DEVO and Joe Walsh and now we are talking about you putting in a chunk of time with Dan Auerbach in town. Why do you think all that happened in Kent?
Patrick Sweany: Well from the point of view of the Joe Walsh/DEVO days -- that era -- college towns were a more isolated environment. Ya know back then a college kid didn't always have a phone in their room. It was very insular. So if there was something happenin' people talked about it and they went and saw it -- because there weren't a lot of options. At least not a lot of entertainment options at home.
Also just being a college town/art community. People wanted to really express themselves and they had a platform -- ya know a lot of their peers are around. But there's also an establishment and a tradition that is easily accessible to learn from and react to. Kent was receptive to that. Even with The Numbers Band doing it back then and today. There's constantly an environment in Kent where people refine their art. I think that academic influence helps a lot.
Even punk bands and the likes. Case in point -- Harriet the Spy. They were around when I was living in Terrace Hall. I think a couple of those guys like Dave Neeson lived in my dorm. That was like 1992 and I didn't know about any of that indie punk stuff. Even though it didn't sound good to me at the time, I knew those guys were doing something cool. Then there was Party of Helicopters with Jamie Stillman and those cats. They were -- it wasn't my thing but there was a level of ability and at least somebody who was in these bands was just like -- ya know -- special -- authentic.
JP: You moved to Nashville in 2008. What did you learn in Kent that you took with you to Tennessee?
Patrick Sweany: That the audience owes you zero. That is absolutely 100 percent what I learned in Kent. That is the fuel in the engine for me. I am always going to be a live performer. I always wanted to be an entertainer above all and that was it. Those college kids don't give a shiiiit. They are there to drink and meet girls. That's where they're at man and now you've gotta entertain them doing your thing. That's the one singular thing I think that I feel with my band is that we do better than anyone. It doesn't matter how many people show up. We're going to do this and we're going to do it full blast. No one is going to half ass any of it. Even now just recently we played to four people in Jackson, MI and we gave em a show man. And we had a fucking ball! We had a great time. And the band played hot -- really tight -- I mean James Brown tight. Those people are gonna talk about that for the rest of their lives. And that is what god put us on this earth for. And I learned that on the stages in Kent, Ohio.
JP: What distinct memories do you have of you and Dan in Kent?
JP: So how did the Mugs residency come about?
Patrick Sweany: So Matt asked me if I wanted to put a band together and do a night and I did really want to start working a band so it started with Ansel Weese and Jason Edwards as the original lineup. I think that's when we really came through. This would have had to have been late 1998 or early 1999.
JP: Where are you living at this point?
Patrick Sweany: I would have been living on North Lincoln Street on the opposite side of the Robin Hood but more towards Crain Ave. This old woman owned the house. It had this really funky basement apartment with AstroTurf -- just one of those old Kent dump of an apartments. And I think the old lady lived on the first floor and I believe there might have been some tenants on the second floor.
JP: Did you rehearse there?
Patrick Sweany: No it was really too small. I mean I would always practice there and the old lady who lived above me was deaf so I definitely had some late nights listening to records -- especially after those Mugs gigs we kind of fancied ourselves party animals. So I could always go back there and crank up the stereo.
JP: So where did the band rehearse at that point?
Patrick Sweany: Usually we would go over to our drummer Jason Edward's house -- he lived over in Uniontown I think at that time. We didn't actually rehearse a lot because the other guys had day jobs and were in other bands. A lot of it was like "hey man check this record out, I'd like to play it next week" sort of thing. So that was also a big part of it.
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Patrick Sweany at The Grooveyard - 244 N. Water Street in
Kent, Ohio January 2001. Photo by Bob Herbert.
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JP: Yeah health insurance isn't really an issue at that age.
Patrick Sweany: I was lucky to have car insurance.
JP: What was the repertoire at the beginning of the Mugs residency and did it change once Dan Auerbach came on board?
Patrick Sweany: The repertoire at the beginning would have been more like a lot of delta blues played electric style. Lots of Elmore James -- "Shake Your Money Maker", that was always our big set ender back then.
JP: That's one Hound Dog Taylor would do.
Patrick Sweany: Yeah he did that too but that would have come -- I wasn't super super hip to Hound Dog right when we started. That didn't start happening till after the residency had started. Local cats would turn up at our gigs and would say to me "dude, this used to happen here in Kent".
JP: So when does Dan Auerbach show up.
Patrick Sweany: I would say about Spring 2000.
JP: So Dan doesn't show up until at least a year into the residency?
Patrick Sweany: Oh yeah because I don't even know if he would have been 21 yet. I'd see his Dad, Chuck Auerbach come out to a gig every once in a while or I'd do like a solo gig over at The Northside in Akron and he might pop in for a little bit but I didn't know Chuck. Then I got to know him a little bit and he was like "I'll bring my kid". And I said "yeah I've been hearing --". The linchpin in this whole thing is local artist Mike Lenz who said to me "hey I gave this kid a couple guitar lessons man, you should check him out." So one day Dan introduced himself to me and he was -- not a tremendously social person -- kind of shy.
Ansel Weese who was our bass player at the time was getting busy -- he was working for Carter Lumber and then his second kid was on the way and ya know he couldn't rage all night with us on those Mondays. So Dan had just come around and we just replaced Ansel with Dan -- we put him on baritone guitar which ya know -- can act as a bass when needed. This was in the Spring of 2000. By the time we put Dan in the band I had already started digging into the Hound Dog Taylor catalog and Dan knew the parts. So we'd play Hound Dog's "Sadie" which is really one of his original things and Dan knew the Brewer Phillips part and I knew the Hound Dog part.
So then we just worked it out so that it was just two guitars and drums. So it was me, Dan Auerbach and Jason Edwards which is what you see in those photos. I remember we used to drag around a lot of different guitars so ya know we'd have one tuned to standard, one tuned one step too low and one tuned two steps low so we could get all the low notes. By then I was doing original songs so things from the first record but like electrified versions of those songs -- songs like "I Wanna Tell You", "Bad Luck, Bad Luck". We used to do "Chelsea Swing". I think we used to do "Blue All The Time".
By then when Dan showed up we were doing more original stuff. He also had his band The Barnburners going on simultaneously with Jason Edwards and Kip Amore. As soon as Dan joined with me he was starting to get his thing together. And then it was probably 2001 -- maybe a little bit later than that that he and Patrick Carney started taping stuff together. I am not exactly sure of that but I remember hearing the first rough mixes of The Big Come Up. We were on a set break playing at Rascal's Saloon in Dover, Ohio which is still there and still a great dive bar. We were sitting in his minivan when he played me the first rough mixes of that stuff and I thought oh man it's like T-Model Ford and Wu-Tang meets.
It really wasn't my bag at the time because at that point I'm really starting to get into like Bobby "Blue" Bland and the soul thing and singing like the early B.B. King stuff which is very difficult and short lived. I liked the raw thing but I was also getting into more sophisticated kind of things.
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January 2001 Daily Kent Stater ad for Patrick Sweany at
The Grooveyard -- 244 N. Water Street in Kent, Ohio.
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Dan and I still turned each other on to other stuff like he turned me on to Junior Kimbrough and the later Link Wray material. And then I turned Dan on to like the country blues stuff like Skip James and Fred McDowell. He really dug Fred McDowell and I was doing a lot of Mississippi Fred McDowell. Fred McDowell is otherworldly -- like with all that rhythmic syncopation stuff.
At that time I felt like I was pretty good at capturing those stylistic nuances. I worked a lot at trying to figure out how those old guys did it.
JP: Going back to the nights at Mugs. How long did the Monday night residency with Dan Auerbach go? How many Mondays do you think?
Patrick Sweany: Maybe 30 - 40 Mondays. I think he did at least a year.
JP: So every Monday night for about a year in around 2000 - 2001 anyone in Kent could have seen The Patrick Sweany Band with Dan Auerbach for free at Mugs?
Patrick Sweany: I think so. Yeah well -- probably about 30 shows. I'm sure there were some nights where someone would sub for Dan. Mike Lenz probably did that a few times. It might have been more than 30.
JP: What distinct memories do you have of that run at Mugs when Dan is in there?
Patrick Sweany: I remember a lot of things. A lot of it was figuring out gear and things like that and getting the sound of the band down. I remember loading that shit up the back of that place from that alley behind the old courthouse. I remember taking that Fender Twin up those steps. They used to let us drink for free and we were really young. It was like the only thing to do in Kent. It was party time and I remember almost losing control of that twin taking it back down those steps a couple of times. I remember hanging out with the manager a lot. Staying late and locking the doors. Walking out of there at like 5:00am some nights.
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Patrick Sweany and Dan Auerbach playing the same
guitar at Mugs on November 20, 2000 -- 211 Franklin
Avenue in Kent, Ohio. Photo by Bob Herbert
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It was really the only thing to do because Kent was still a pretty small town then. Ya know it sort of ebbed and flowed. The big era of the music scene like post-DEVO and the height of the Numbers Band and the great years at The Kove into JB's Down and all that stuff. That had very much ebbed by this time -- and all the development that really transformed the town in recent years hadn't happened yet. It really wasn't even on the horizon. Comparatively these seemed like they were lean years but there were always cats around that played and those guys were really generous to me -- folks like Guy Pernetti and Andy Cohen were around then -- they showed me a lot early on.
JP: What about those photos from The Grooveyard? Do you remember that night?
Patrick Sweany: I remember right when that started. That was sort of -- the Mugs thing wasn't really happening anymore. I think the Grooveyard was going to pay us a little more money but I don't really remember what was exactly happening at the time of these photos. I feel like we held it down there until it just about closed. We were trying some things at the time though. Ya know we were doing good at this one place so now we were maybe trying to play some other rooms -- but I remember that place being really short lived. I wouldn't imagine we played the Grooveyard more than a few gigs.
JP: Do you have photos from that period? Photos of you and Dan playing in Kent?
Patrick Sweany: I know I've got some photos of Dan and I playing at Mugs. In the photos I am wearing a shiny dragon shirt -- I didn't want anyone in the band wearing blue jeans. We were trying to look like a sharp blues band. The photos show me and Dan in the crowd playing. Both of us with a guitar and I think one of us with a slide. I've definitely got that.
JP: A lot of cool things happened in Kent over the years and you played a certain role in that in the next generation stuff. Chrissie Hynde and DEVO and Joe Walsh and now we are talking about you putting in a chunk of time with Dan Auerbach in town. Why do you think all that happened in Kent?
Patrick Sweany: Well from the point of view of the Joe Walsh/DEVO days -- that era -- college towns were a more isolated environment. Ya know back then a college kid didn't always have a phone in their room. It was very insular. So if there was something happenin' people talked about it and they went and saw it -- because there weren't a lot of options. At least not a lot of entertainment options at home.
Also just being a college town/art community. People wanted to really express themselves and they had a platform -- ya know a lot of their peers are around. But there's also an establishment and a tradition that is easily accessible to learn from and react to. Kent was receptive to that. Even with The Numbers Band doing it back then and today. There's constantly an environment in Kent where people refine their art. I think that academic influence helps a lot.
Even punk bands and the likes. Case in point -- Harriet the Spy. They were around when I was living in Terrace Hall. I think a couple of those guys like Dave Neeson lived in my dorm. That was like 1992 and I didn't know about any of that indie punk stuff. Even though it didn't sound good to me at the time, I knew those guys were doing something cool. Then there was Party of Helicopters with Jamie Stillman and those cats. They were -- it wasn't my thing but there was a level of ability and at least somebody who was in these bands was just like -- ya know -- special -- authentic.
JP: You moved to Nashville in 2008. What did you learn in Kent that you took with you to Tennessee?
Patrick Sweany: That the audience owes you zero. That is absolutely 100 percent what I learned in Kent. That is the fuel in the engine for me. I am always going to be a live performer. I always wanted to be an entertainer above all and that was it. Those college kids don't give a shiiiit. They are there to drink and meet girls. That's where they're at man and now you've gotta entertain them doing your thing. That's the one singular thing I think that I feel with my band is that we do better than anyone. It doesn't matter how many people show up. We're going to do this and we're going to do it full blast. No one is going to half ass any of it. Even now just recently we played to four people in Jackson, MI and we gave em a show man. And we had a fucking ball! We had a great time. And the band played hot -- really tight -- I mean James Brown tight. Those people are gonna talk about that for the rest of their lives. And that is what god put us on this earth for. And I learned that on the stages in Kent, Ohio.
JP: What distinct memories do you have of you and Dan in Kent?
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Dan Auerbach and Patrick Sweany performing at Mugs on November
20, 2000 -- 211 Franklin Avenue in Kent, Ohio. Photo by Bob Herbert.
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Patrick Sweany: I remember that night that we played in the Brownstones on S. Prospect Street in Kent. It was a graduation party in May 2000 for this girl Brandi who would later become my sister-in-law. Someone took her keys off the wall and stole her car and drove it out to Cuyahoga Falls. That may have been one of the early Dan gigs. That might have been kind of the deal sealer. Now I am a little foggy on that time. I feel like that was the one where we were like "yeah we should do this".
JP: If that Brownstones gig was your first with Dan what was your last?
Patrick Sweany: It would have been right around the time The Big Come Up came out. Something that just came to mind as I wandered into my music room. A lot of the sound of The Big Come Up -- Dan was using an Ampeg Gemini 1 amplifier which he found out about from me. My first amp I bought in Canton, OH when I was like 14 is an Ampeg Gemini 1 and I still have it and I am looking at it and I played it this morning. But I remember him learning about reverb and stuff like that and really soaking it in -- like that kind of tone. I wasn't into fuzz pedals or anything like that. Dan found those on his own. But those guitar tones. I am not saying he flat out stole something from me -- I absolutely don't mean that. I just remember during his time playing with me that he was figuring out sounds and how different things sound with guitars. Pickups sound different. Amps sound different.
Kent is special -- it really is. It was a place I used to think about as a kid before I ever went there to school because of that festival and it really is where my musical career begins.
JP: So Dan was with the Patrick Sweany Band and with The Barnburners at the same time? This was all concurrent?
Jason Edwards: yes – they would just be on different nights of the week. The Barnburners were The Barnburners and the Patrick Sweany Band was the Patrick Sweany Band.
JP: I found ads in the Daily Kent Stater from January of 2001 that say “Every Monday night Patrick Sweany Band at the Grooveyard”
Jason Edwards: So we may have done a couple Mondays there. It wasn’t very many.
JP: Patrick told me it was maybe 3 Mondays. Very short lived.
Jason Edwards: I believe it was after our Mugs stint and we were looking for another Monday night thing and that’s where we went.
JP: (shows Jason Edwards the photos) --- here you guys are in the Grooveyard but really this room is most famous as originally being JB’s Down -- though by 2001 this room wasn’t anything to anyone. But back in the day this is where The James Gang had their famous residency and DEVO played and that whole JB’s history in the 60s, 70s and 80s that sooooo many people experienced. It’s legendary. But ya know by the time you guys played there it had to have been a ghost town.
Jason Edwards: (looking at the Grooveyard photos) Pat would always say “dress up!” We had good clothes and shirts back then. So yeah this was like a stint we did probably after the Mugs stint because that was like a steady thing we’d do all the time. Sometimes after these gigs we’d go back to Pat’s house and just hang out and listen to music.
JP: When you were playing at Mugs with Dan and Pat Sweany what were the songs were you playing?
Jason Edwards: “Give Me Back My Wig” was a favorite -- a lot of that jump blues stuff. We played all kinds of things, Blind Lemon Jefferson, B.B. King. We would do some slow blues too. It wasn’t always fast. We weren’t doing the Mississippi style. This was more of a jump Chicago blues – straight up Otis Redding, Elmore James, Hound Dog Taylor -- boogie stuff. We had a lot of dynamics and showmanship. Pat in my eyes is always a great showman – to this day. So it was great to play with him and come up with that through the years.
JP: When you look in your mind’s eye and you think about those nights at Mugs what do you see?
Jason Edwards: I just remember people dancing like crazy and having a great time – sweating their asses off. It was hot up there. It was a release ya know? It was a place to get away from everything that was going on in your life. I was playing music with great people and it was great to watch people celebrate that music while you are playing. For a Monday night it was weird that that place was packed all the time. There was something magical going on and it was great to be a part of that. So just giving people music so they could release themselves from their daily lives and have a great time and dance away.
JP: And at that time you guys were not even known outside of that local crowd that would come out to see you guys play right?
Jason Edwards: Yeah I mean the internet was just coming around and people were just starting to put websites up and do things like that but there was no social media. It was just a different time. So as far as playing nationally goes I mean the only experience I had with that was going to the Eureka Springs Blues Festival at the time. So I went with Ansel one time and then the next time I went I believe Mike Lenz played bass and then we went again and then Dan played bass. I went like three times.
The time I went in 2001 was with Dan, Patrick Sweany and myself and we played this club called Chelsea’s. That was the club we’d always play in Eureka Springs, AR for the Eureka Springs Blues Festival. While we were there at this blues festival – we were there for a couple days – every night we would play out on this deck there. It was a blast. Great crowds. Great Memories. So for one of those shows somebody plugged into the board and recorded us. I think it was a straight to disc recording. It was a digital recording.
So there’s this guy down there, Zack Bramhall – Doyle Bramhall II has a younger brother named Zack and Zack had a band and they would play that same festival. So on one of those days Dan and I are down there and we are getting ready for a show and we had to run back to our vehicle to get our clothes. So we started running back and we started hearing this awesome sounding blues music. Like this authentic cool southern sound and we were like “who is that?” and they are playing like mid-afternoon at Chelsea’s. So we ask the guy at the board who that is and he says “it’s Zack Bramhall”. So the same guy who recorded us then plugged into the board to record Zack Bramhall’s band. Dan asked him to do it because he loved what he was hearing. So the guy records the music and he then gives Dan the recording before we leave Arkansas.
So anyway we run back and we’re gonna play our show now at this other venue down the street because they are having different bands at different venues. So we go to the next venue and we play our show and the next day Zack is playing again. And so we go to that show and Dan is asking him all these questions. He was asking him how he got his sound – which was like a real dirty sound – and Zack told him that his speaker was broken. His speaker cone was ripped. So later they took us back to their place. Their rehearsal studio or wherever they jam out at. And then we left town the next day. So through that I think Dan really got an inspiration. So he listened to that recording a lot – studied it. And then we (The Barnburners) incorporated some of that sound.
This one time Dan and I were playing a Barnburners show on a Thursday night at the Northside and then we jumped in the car right after that show and headed straight up to Michigan to play a show with Pat Sweany -- and on that drive he was playing me all those Fat Possum artists on these cassette tapes – Junior Kimbrough, T-Model Ford, R.L. Burnside etc. -- which was stuff I didn’t listen to at the time and through that we started incorporating some of those sounds into our music. We would take a song – maybe a cover song – and we would twist it where we would sing different lyrics from another song on top of that song. That was kind of the direction we took The Barnburners.
And since we were playing at Mugs with The Pat Sweany Band at that time on a Monday I talked to the guy who booked the place – I believe his name was Matt, and I got The Barnburners in on a Tuesday. So for a little stint it was Patrick Sweany Band with Dan on a Monday and Barnburners with Dan on a Tuesday. And then we also played The Robin Hood in Kent with The Barnburners a couple times in this period.
Jason Edwards: So that seems to be – yeah so Dan and Pat are both playing that one guitar at the same time. That was a good crowd moment there. I believe Pat played the bass line and Dan did a solo over top.
JP: What do you think it is about Kent that brings on the likes of all these great players. Why do you think all of this great music came out of this small college town?
Jason Edwards: There’s something about the atmosphere -- and the people there are very appreciative of music. What Kent brings is an organic live culture. So when you come to Kent you feel like you are part of this culture. It’s almost like you’ve gone to another state or country because of the architecture and the way the town is made up and the way the people act – the energy and the arts and culture are very strong in Kent which is important for a music town.
You can have live music there every night and there would be people down there. Whether you do or you don’t, there’s those people there anyway so it’s kind of a built-in crowd and there’s always something to do. It’s colorful, it’s a cool place to go and it’s a cool place to be a part of. And it’s a history thing too. Your DEVO and your Joe Walsh and your Chrissie Hynde and Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney now and all that stuff they all came out of or delved in some kind of scene there. So studying the history of that school and obviously music history is an important part of our lives and our culture because if you don’t study that then you don’t know what music is today.
Kent was great for me because it gave me the opportunity to play with people who were older than me. It was always a great drive to push me to work harder and practice and listen to new music. I’d always ask those kinds of people what they were listening to and what inspires them so I could listen to that same kind of music too and have that same feel. To sum it up it’s just about the arts and the culture and the people that are there that support you and what you are doing and celebrate it. That’s Kent.
JP: Going back to these days with Patrick Sweany and playing in Kent and the likes. What do you take with you from those days to today? What started there that is still with you?
Check some killer footage of The Black Keys here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. Also check out where The Black Keys perform with The Rolling Stones right here. Also check this jamming footage of Dan Auerbach, Glenn Schwartz and Joe Walsh from Coachella 2016.
Also I wrote a book about the history of music in Kent, Ohio called Small Town, Big Music: The Outsized Influence of Kent, Ohio on the History of Rock & Roll and you can buy it right here on Amazon.
Also I made a film recently about the band Archie and the Bunkers who are FUCKING AWESOME. Check out that film right here.
And --- this is SUPER exciting for me -- I have a feature length film coming out -- MY FIRST EVER -- and it gets its premiere on Saturday, March 21, 2020 at the Cleveland Cinematheque!! It is called Out of Obscurity, Into Oblivion: A film about The Numbers Band. More info on that right here.
Big thanks to Patrick Sweany, Dylan Tyler, Bob Herbert, Ryan Olinger, Brandi Green, Jason Edwards, Jon Ridinger and Matt Napier for their help on this piece.
JP: If that Brownstones gig was your first with Dan what was your last?
Patrick Sweany: It would have been right around the time The Big Come Up came out. Something that just came to mind as I wandered into my music room. A lot of the sound of The Big Come Up -- Dan was using an Ampeg Gemini 1 amplifier which he found out about from me. My first amp I bought in Canton, OH when I was like 14 is an Ampeg Gemini 1 and I still have it and I am looking at it and I played it this morning. But I remember him learning about reverb and stuff like that and really soaking it in -- like that kind of tone. I wasn't into fuzz pedals or anything like that. Dan found those on his own. But those guitar tones. I am not saying he flat out stole something from me -- I absolutely don't mean that. I just remember during his time playing with me that he was figuring out sounds and how different things sound with guitars. Pickups sound different. Amps sound different.
Kent is special -- it really is. It was a place I used to think about as a kid before I ever went there to school because of that festival and it really is where my musical career begins.
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After my conversation with Patrick Sweany I still felt like I needed to know more. This scarcely documented yet rich period wasn’t just experienced by a couple of people, it was experienced by a lot of folks. One constant in all those photos from Mugs and The Grooveyard was that drummer. Who was he? He must know more. After asking around, I found out that the guy playing drums in all those photos was (and still is) a much in-demand drummer named Jason Edwards. Currently Jason owns ProLogix Percussion which specializes in the manufacturing of state-of-the-art drum pads among other things. Jason also currently plays drums in the hard driving, high energy, zydeco-based "Party-Gras" band Mo’ Mojo in addition to contributing to several other musical projects. The guy is a lifer when it comes to drums and playing music. When I contacted Jason he told me he’d be glad to talk to me about those times with Dan Auerbach and Patrick Sweany. When we met up it turned out he had a wealth of stories and his own archive of photos, audio and video from that period of 20 years ago.
As it turned out, not only did Jason work with Dan Auerbach in the Patrick Sweany Band but he worked with Dan for several years starting with his earliest public performances all the way up until Dan formed The Black Keys. Here’s what Jason told me about those times.
Jason Edwards in conversation about Dan Auerbach, Patrick Sweany, The Barnburners and playing the blues in Kent and Akron:
JP: How and when did you get involved with Dan Auerbach and The Patrick Sweany Band?
Jason Edwards: So probably very late 90s I was playing with Mike Lenz who was also Dan Auerbach’s teacher and back then Mike had also played with Patrick Sweany in a jug band. Lenz played solo every Tuesday at The Northside (currently Jilly’s Music Room) in Akron. So I’d go there and I would sit in sometimes and bring a snare drum. During this time period I would juggle quite a few bands. I was also in the Wanda Hunt Band and the Mostly Blues Band. In the Wanda Hunt Band the guitar player was Tim Quine and he played guitar and harmonica. I was in the Wanda Hunt Band for about 8 years. I would say at that point (late 90s) I was probably 23. So I was in this Wanda Hunt Band and it was a great 7 piece band – r&b music. And in that time Tim used to say “hey man you gotta hear my nephew play guitar” and I was like “ok who’s that?” and he says “Dan” and I said “well how old is he” and he said “oh he’s like 18” and I said “oh --- has he played out any? Does he have any experience” and he says “no he just kind of plays at home”.
So Tim would always tell me about Dan and I thought that was cool – so rewinding to that night at the Northside on a Tuesday -- I’m talking to Mike Lenz and he says to me “hey man – I have one of my students here and his name is Dan” and I say “What? What’s his name?” and he says “Dan Auerbach” and I said “oh that’s Tim Quine’s nephew” and he says “yeah yeah --- he’s gonna get up and do a couple songs. You should hear him – check him out.” I said ok and I’m just sitting out there and Mike calls Dan up to the stage and at this time he’s really shy – I mean super shy.
JP: Give me a date on that.
Jason Edwards: I think 1998. I recorded with Patrick Sweany in 1999 before Dan was in the band so I would say this was 1998. It’s tough to remember those specifics though – ya know I have some old calendars at home where I could maybe determine that – Anyway he came up and started singing and playing a couple tunes and he would do some old blues things back then that Mike was teaching him and he also learned and was listening to Junior Kimbrough.
JP: yeah and maybe R.L. Burnside and T-Model Ford? I think those players were floating around as influences through that circle by Mike Lenz and Pat Sweany around that time.
Jason Edwards: Yeah well I was fortunate enough to play with all three of them (Mike, Patrick and Dan) -- at separate times. Mike is more American Piedmont style, Sweany is more boogie/jump Hound Dog Taylor style but then also – all three of them would listen to certain things of the same nature but I believe Dan was always wanting to play in that ‘open d’ tuning which I am sure Mike taught him how to play.
So anyway back to that night when he sang – He got up there and I just got goosebumps on my neck. Though it was mainly because of his voice. So I was looking for something to do with original music/songwriting so afterwards I asked him “hey are you in a band?” and he said “no” and I said “well I’m Jason nice to meet you, your uncle has talked about you quite a bit, maybe we could put something together.” And I had a bass player in mind. I knew a guy, Kip Amore so I talked to Kip and he said sure and we formed a band called The Barnburners. I would say we started about late 1998 or early 1999 and we played for I think 3 years. Through that entire time I was still playing with the Mike Lenz Band, Pat Sweany Band and The Wanda Hunt Band.
After my conversation with Patrick Sweany I still felt like I needed to know more. This scarcely documented yet rich period wasn’t just experienced by a couple of people, it was experienced by a lot of folks. One constant in all those photos from Mugs and The Grooveyard was that drummer. Who was he? He must know more. After asking around, I found out that the guy playing drums in all those photos was (and still is) a much in-demand drummer named Jason Edwards. Currently Jason owns ProLogix Percussion which specializes in the manufacturing of state-of-the-art drum pads among other things. Jason also currently plays drums in the hard driving, high energy, zydeco-based "Party-Gras" band Mo’ Mojo in addition to contributing to several other musical projects. The guy is a lifer when it comes to drums and playing music. When I contacted Jason he told me he’d be glad to talk to me about those times with Dan Auerbach and Patrick Sweany. When we met up it turned out he had a wealth of stories and his own archive of photos, audio and video from that period of 20 years ago.
As it turned out, not only did Jason work with Dan Auerbach in the Patrick Sweany Band but he worked with Dan for several years starting with his earliest public performances all the way up until Dan formed The Black Keys. Here’s what Jason told me about those times.
Jason Edwards in conversation about Dan Auerbach, Patrick Sweany, The Barnburners and playing the blues in Kent and Akron:
JP: How and when did you get involved with Dan Auerbach and The Patrick Sweany Band?
Jason Edwards: So probably very late 90s I was playing with Mike Lenz who was also Dan Auerbach’s teacher and back then Mike had also played with Patrick Sweany in a jug band. Lenz played solo every Tuesday at The Northside (currently Jilly’s Music Room) in Akron. So I’d go there and I would sit in sometimes and bring a snare drum. During this time period I would juggle quite a few bands. I was also in the Wanda Hunt Band and the Mostly Blues Band. In the Wanda Hunt Band the guitar player was Tim Quine and he played guitar and harmonica. I was in the Wanda Hunt Band for about 8 years. I would say at that point (late 90s) I was probably 23. So I was in this Wanda Hunt Band and it was a great 7 piece band – r&b music. And in that time Tim used to say “hey man you gotta hear my nephew play guitar” and I was like “ok who’s that?” and he says “Dan” and I said “well how old is he” and he said “oh he’s like 18” and I said “oh --- has he played out any? Does he have any experience” and he says “no he just kind of plays at home”.
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Dan Auerbach, Jason Edwards and Patrick Sweany at The Grooveyard -
244 N. Water Street in Kent, Ohio January 2001. Photo by Bob Herbert.
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JP: Give me a date on that.
Jason Edwards: I think 1998. I recorded with Patrick Sweany in 1999 before Dan was in the band so I would say this was 1998. It’s tough to remember those specifics though – ya know I have some old calendars at home where I could maybe determine that – Anyway he came up and started singing and playing a couple tunes and he would do some old blues things back then that Mike was teaching him and he also learned and was listening to Junior Kimbrough.
JP: yeah and maybe R.L. Burnside and T-Model Ford? I think those players were floating around as influences through that circle by Mike Lenz and Pat Sweany around that time.
Jason Edwards: Yeah well I was fortunate enough to play with all three of them (Mike, Patrick and Dan) -- at separate times. Mike is more American Piedmont style, Sweany is more boogie/jump Hound Dog Taylor style but then also – all three of them would listen to certain things of the same nature but I believe Dan was always wanting to play in that ‘open d’ tuning which I am sure Mike taught him how to play.
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Daily Kent Stater photo showing Panini's and
The Grooveyard -- 244 N. Water Street in Kent.
January 2001.
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JP: So were you making a living doing this? Did you have a day job?
Jason Edwards: Oh yeah – plus I taught – I gave drum lessons. I had about 40 students. Sometimes I would do odd end jobs like at times I worked as a painter or as a dish washer. So I was teaching 40 students a week plus I was playing Monday nights at Mugs for three years with the Patrick Sweany Band. Tuesday night eventually became a night at Mugs with The Barnburners – so I’d just leave my drums there sometimes. Wednesday was Benito’s with the Mostly Blues Band. Thursday was The Barnburners at The Northside. Friday and Saturday was either the Wanda Hunt Band or Mike Lenz Band or Barnburners or Patrick Sweany Band. And then Sundays sometimes I would play with this zydeco band with Jen Maurer who is in Mo’ Mojo now and we would play up in Cleveland on the banks up there on the east side. So there was a time period there for a year where I did like 360 shows just locally. So here we are 20 years later and I am still playing though I am not playing that much obviously. Nowadays I run my own business: ProLogix Percussion. We manufacture drum pads -- but back to my story…
So we started that band with Dan Auerbach as The Barnburners but sometimes there would be conflicts. I would sometimes have to get a sub mainly because I was in all these bands. The way that would work is that I would usually honor whoever would book the gig first but sometimes there would be a conflict on a weekend where Pat Sweany had a gig and then Dan had a gig and I’d have to ask one of my friends to fill in or sometimes I would ask a student of mine to fill in.
Jason Edwards: Oh yeah – plus I taught – I gave drum lessons. I had about 40 students. Sometimes I would do odd end jobs like at times I worked as a painter or as a dish washer. So I was teaching 40 students a week plus I was playing Monday nights at Mugs for three years with the Patrick Sweany Band. Tuesday night eventually became a night at Mugs with The Barnburners – so I’d just leave my drums there sometimes. Wednesday was Benito’s with the Mostly Blues Band. Thursday was The Barnburners at The Northside. Friday and Saturday was either the Wanda Hunt Band or Mike Lenz Band or Barnburners or Patrick Sweany Band. And then Sundays sometimes I would play with this zydeco band with Jen Maurer who is in Mo’ Mojo now and we would play up in Cleveland on the banks up there on the east side. So there was a time period there for a year where I did like 360 shows just locally. So here we are 20 years later and I am still playing though I am not playing that much obviously. Nowadays I run my own business: ProLogix Percussion. We manufacture drum pads -- but back to my story…
So we started that band with Dan Auerbach as The Barnburners but sometimes there would be conflicts. I would sometimes have to get a sub mainly because I was in all these bands. The way that would work is that I would usually honor whoever would book the gig first but sometimes there would be a conflict on a weekend where Pat Sweany had a gig and then Dan had a gig and I’d have to ask one of my friends to fill in or sometimes I would ask a student of mine to fill in.
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Showing the current site of The Grooveyard as
BREWDOWN -- 244 N. Water Street in Kent.
Photo January 2020 by Jason Prufer.
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How I got in the Pat Sweany Band was I got this call because I had been recommended by his bass player Ansel Weese who is a great guy and a great player. Again we played every Monday at Mugs in Kent. You had to haul your gear up those steps in that place and that sucked but it was always a packed house and it was a pleasure to play with Pat and learn all these tunes. So a lot of history happened in there. A lot of music went on in that place.
JP: So then how does Dan end up in the Pat Sweany band.
Jason Edwards: Well I introduced those two because I told Dan that he had to meet Pat Sweany. We were looking for a bass player because sometimes Ansel wasn’t able to make it to the gigs. So Dan and Pat Sweany met at Mugs at my urging and they hit it off and they both wanted to play Hound Dog Taylor type stuff and we wanted him to play baritone guitar type of stuff.
JP: In the photos he’s playing a baritone guitar
Jason Edwards: Yeah he played some kind of old Japanese baritone guitar. I can’t remember exactly what it was. We didn’t just play Mugs. We would play parties and we would go on the road. We would play the Eureka Springs Blues Festival in Arkansas quite a bit.
JP: With Dan?
Jason Edwards: Dan came with us yeah. So Dan became the bass player so to say – the baritone guitar player for a while with Pat Sweany.
JP: So then how does Dan end up in the Pat Sweany band.
Jason Edwards: Well I introduced those two because I told Dan that he had to meet Pat Sweany. We were looking for a bass player because sometimes Ansel wasn’t able to make it to the gigs. So Dan and Pat Sweany met at Mugs at my urging and they hit it off and they both wanted to play Hound Dog Taylor type stuff and we wanted him to play baritone guitar type of stuff.
JP: In the photos he’s playing a baritone guitar
Jason Edwards: Yeah he played some kind of old Japanese baritone guitar. I can’t remember exactly what it was. We didn’t just play Mugs. We would play parties and we would go on the road. We would play the Eureka Springs Blues Festival in Arkansas quite a bit.
JP: With Dan?
Jason Edwards: Dan came with us yeah. So Dan became the bass player so to say – the baritone guitar player for a while with Pat Sweany.
JP: So Dan was with the Patrick Sweany Band and with The Barnburners at the same time? This was all concurrent?
Jason Edwards: yes – they would just be on different nights of the week. The Barnburners were The Barnburners and the Patrick Sweany Band was the Patrick Sweany Band.
JP: I found ads in the Daily Kent Stater from January of 2001 that say “Every Monday night Patrick Sweany Band at the Grooveyard”
Jason Edwards: So we may have done a couple Mondays there. It wasn’t very many.
JP: Patrick told me it was maybe 3 Mondays. Very short lived.
Jason Edwards: I believe it was after our Mugs stint and we were looking for another Monday night thing and that’s where we went.
JP: (shows Jason Edwards the photos) --- here you guys are in the Grooveyard but really this room is most famous as originally being JB’s Down -- though by 2001 this room wasn’t anything to anyone. But back in the day this is where The James Gang had their famous residency and DEVO played and that whole JB’s history in the 60s, 70s and 80s that sooooo many people experienced. It’s legendary. But ya know by the time you guys played there it had to have been a ghost town.
Jason Edwards: (looking at the Grooveyard photos) Pat would always say “dress up!” We had good clothes and shirts back then. So yeah this was like a stint we did probably after the Mugs stint because that was like a steady thing we’d do all the time. Sometimes after these gigs we’d go back to Pat’s house and just hang out and listen to music.
JP: Are you on this first album of Patrick Sweany’s that he reissued recently?
Jason Edwards: Yeah (shows me the original CD) -- it looks like he redid the artwork on his Facebook post. Yeah so I am on this record. I am on a couple tracks. This CD is from 1999 btw – before Dan. John Reynolds recorded us. He’s great. He’s a great musician.
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2017 photo showing the back of the former Mugs (at left with the awning
over the door) where Dan Auerbach, Patrick Sweany and Jason Edwards
would load their gear in every Monday night prior to their performances.
Photo by Jason Prufer.
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JP: When you were playing at Mugs with Dan and Pat Sweany what were the songs were you playing?
Jason Edwards: “Give Me Back My Wig” was a favorite -- a lot of that jump blues stuff. We played all kinds of things, Blind Lemon Jefferson, B.B. King. We would do some slow blues too. It wasn’t always fast. We weren’t doing the Mississippi style. This was more of a jump Chicago blues – straight up Otis Redding, Elmore James, Hound Dog Taylor -- boogie stuff. We had a lot of dynamics and showmanship. Pat in my eyes is always a great showman – to this day. So it was great to play with him and come up with that through the years.
JP: When you look in your mind’s eye and you think about those nights at Mugs what do you see?
Jason Edwards: I just remember people dancing like crazy and having a great time – sweating their asses off. It was hot up there. It was a release ya know? It was a place to get away from everything that was going on in your life. I was playing music with great people and it was great to watch people celebrate that music while you are playing. For a Monday night it was weird that that place was packed all the time. There was something magical going on and it was great to be a part of that. So just giving people music so they could release themselves from their daily lives and have a great time and dance away.
JP: And at that time you guys were not even known outside of that local crowd that would come out to see you guys play right?
Jason Edwards: Yeah I mean the internet was just coming around and people were just starting to put websites up and do things like that but there was no social media. It was just a different time. So as far as playing nationally goes I mean the only experience I had with that was going to the Eureka Springs Blues Festival at the time. So I went with Ansel one time and then the next time I went I believe Mike Lenz played bass and then we went again and then Dan played bass. I went like three times.
The time I went in 2001 was with Dan, Patrick Sweany and myself and we played this club called Chelsea’s. That was the club we’d always play in Eureka Springs, AR for the Eureka Springs Blues Festival. While we were there at this blues festival – we were there for a couple days – every night we would play out on this deck there. It was a blast. Great crowds. Great Memories. So for one of those shows somebody plugged into the board and recorded us. I think it was a straight to disc recording. It was a digital recording.
So there’s this guy down there, Zack Bramhall – Doyle Bramhall II has a younger brother named Zack and Zack had a band and they would play that same festival. So on one of those days Dan and I are down there and we are getting ready for a show and we had to run back to our vehicle to get our clothes. So we started running back and we started hearing this awesome sounding blues music. Like this authentic cool southern sound and we were like “who is that?” and they are playing like mid-afternoon at Chelsea’s. So we ask the guy at the board who that is and he says “it’s Zack Bramhall”. So the same guy who recorded us then plugged into the board to record Zack Bramhall’s band. Dan asked him to do it because he loved what he was hearing. So the guy records the music and he then gives Dan the recording before we leave Arkansas.
So anyway we run back and we’re gonna play our show now at this other venue down the street because they are having different bands at different venues. So we go to the next venue and we play our show and the next day Zack is playing again. And so we go to that show and Dan is asking him all these questions. He was asking him how he got his sound – which was like a real dirty sound – and Zack told him that his speaker was broken. His speaker cone was ripped. So later they took us back to their place. Their rehearsal studio or wherever they jam out at. And then we left town the next day. So through that I think Dan really got an inspiration. So he listened to that recording a lot – studied it. And then we (The Barnburners) incorporated some of that sound.
This one time Dan and I were playing a Barnburners show on a Thursday night at the Northside and then we jumped in the car right after that show and headed straight up to Michigan to play a show with Pat Sweany -- and on that drive he was playing me all those Fat Possum artists on these cassette tapes – Junior Kimbrough, T-Model Ford, R.L. Burnside etc. -- which was stuff I didn’t listen to at the time and through that we started incorporating some of those sounds into our music. We would take a song – maybe a cover song – and we would twist it where we would sing different lyrics from another song on top of that song. That was kind of the direction we took The Barnburners.
And since we were playing at Mugs with The Pat Sweany Band at that time on a Monday I talked to the guy who booked the place – I believe his name was Matt, and I got The Barnburners in on a Tuesday. So for a little stint it was Patrick Sweany Band with Dan on a Monday and Barnburners with Dan on a Tuesday. And then we also played The Robin Hood in Kent with The Barnburners a couple times in this period.
Jason Edwards: So that seems to be – yeah so Dan and Pat are both playing that one guitar at the same time. That was a good crowd moment there. I believe Pat played the bass line and Dan did a solo over top.
JP: What do you think it is about Kent that brings on the likes of all these great players. Why do you think all of this great music came out of this small college town?
Jason Edwards: There’s something about the atmosphere -- and the people there are very appreciative of music. What Kent brings is an organic live culture. So when you come to Kent you feel like you are part of this culture. It’s almost like you’ve gone to another state or country because of the architecture and the way the town is made up and the way the people act – the energy and the arts and culture are very strong in Kent which is important for a music town.
You can have live music there every night and there would be people down there. Whether you do or you don’t, there’s those people there anyway so it’s kind of a built-in crowd and there’s always something to do. It’s colorful, it’s a cool place to go and it’s a cool place to be a part of. And it’s a history thing too. Your DEVO and your Joe Walsh and your Chrissie Hynde and Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney now and all that stuff they all came out of or delved in some kind of scene there. So studying the history of that school and obviously music history is an important part of our lives and our culture because if you don’t study that then you don’t know what music is today.
Kent was great for me because it gave me the opportunity to play with people who were older than me. It was always a great drive to push me to work harder and practice and listen to new music. I’d always ask those kinds of people what they were listening to and what inspires them so I could listen to that same kind of music too and have that same feel. To sum it up it’s just about the arts and the culture and the people that are there that support you and what you are doing and celebrate it. That’s Kent.
JP: Going back to these days with Patrick Sweany and playing in Kent and the likes. What do you take with you from those days to today? What started there that is still with you?
 |
Dan Auerbach, Patrick Sweany and Jason Edwards at The Grooveyard
- 244 N. Water Street in Kent, Ohio January 2001. Photo by Bob Herbert. |
Jason Edwards: The passion to play music. I listened to metal first and I believe Patrick was into punk rock and Dan listened to rap, and I also listened to rap as well. So learning the blues and really becoming almost like a historian of it. I dug deep into it a lot. The different genres of blues even – Memphis Blues, Texas Blues and I was able to then perform that onstage. Performing that onstage back then -- I was so young. I still play that stuff today and sometimes I don’t realize that I’m 46 years old.
When I was looking up some of this information and finding some pictures today in my attic I thought – wow where has the time gone? It goes so fast. With all this technology today, we forget about going out and doing something such as this back then – like going out playing live music and people coming out all the time and watching and experiencing. It was something to always look forward to every Monday or whatever day of the week I was playing. So what I take from this was getting to know these guys and all of us playing together to make music and have that experience of creating music.
-------------------------
Some notes here at the end:
You bet I was around and active in Kent during this period. I was 25-26 years old when Patrick Sweany and Dan Auerbach were playing every Monday night at Mugs but unfortunately I missed every one of those shows. My personal explorations had turned to this scene in that period. I was however at the infamous Brownstones Living Room show on South Prospect Street in Kent back in May 2000 that Pat Sweany references above. Pat marks that show as the first night Dan became a full fledged member of the band. My personal recollection of the evening is that the band sounded fucking great -- they were real tight and they were all wearing straw hats and all the guitars being used were Danelectros. Also I remember that the band played all night. At certain hours the room was packed with people dancing and hootin' and hollerin' and then at one point I checked back in and it was way late and the band was going full force but the dancing and craziness had been swapped out for people passed out on the couches and on the floor. But that band still kept playing -- they never let up. I wish I could go back and relive that night again. I'd have paid a lot more attention knowing what I know now.
The building that housed Mugs had been around for ages and was the home of The Town Tavern in the mid 1990s and going back to at least the 1970s it housed The VFW. You can see it as The VFW up on the left in this 1976 photo of The Numbers Band. Going way way back to 1908 you can see it minus its brick facade as a more primitive wooden structure with a traditional roof as the last building up there in this ancient photo of Franklin Avenue. The building itself was razed in May of 2018 to make way for a new six story building that will feature a restaurant, bakery, wine bar and 16 upscale apartments. You can read more about that here -- though as of this writing (February 2020) the project hasn't even started. The former site of Mugs is just an empty dirt lot. Take a look at a recent picture of it here.
Back in this time period I was shooting a lot of video and I filmed The Twist Offs upstairs at Mugs. All that survived from the original shoot is this 17 seconds worth of video but this would have been the same room and the same stage that Dan Auerbach, Pat Sweany and Jason Edwards played during their Monday night residency.
Also -- as stated in the conversation above with Jason Edwards, the very short lived basement bar venue known as The Grooveyard which is shown in the majority of the photos above was most famously known as JB's/JB's Down for the better part of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s and nurtured the likes of DEVO, The James Gang and The Numbers Band as well as hosting a thousand other bands in that time both known and obscure. Though by 2001 when those photos were taken, that place was a ghost town and it's likely at that time it meant nothing to nobody. Going way back you can see the building at 244 N. Water Street right here (pre-brick facade) in this circa 1940 rephoto as a furniture store. And going way way way back to what must be around 1910 you can see it labeled as abolitionist John Brown's house in this ancient photo. The building itself wasn't even built on this spot. John Brown lived in it somewhere around 1835-1839 when it was on Mogadore Road across from the Atlantic & Great Western Railroad Yards (here in Kent). The building was moved to it's current location at 244 N. Water Street around 1882.
Some of the bluesmen named above such as T-Model Ford, R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough are featured in a fantastic documentary film from back in this time period called You See Me Laughin'. The film had a huge influence on me. Check that awesome music film streaming right here.
Check some great Patrick Sweany clips here, here, here, here and here. Also you can check out his most recent album Ancient Noise right here.
Patrick Sweany gave a terrific interview to Last.fm where he gave some great details about the period involving Dan Auerbach. You can see video of that interview right here.
There are only two known recordings of The Patrick Sweany Band with Dan Auerbach and both have been long buried under the murkiness of time. The one mentioned above is the soundboard recording made at the Eureka Springs Blues Festival in Eureka Springs, AK which dates to June of 2001. As of this writing that music is being delicately excavated off of some old media and isn't fully recovered. Stay tuned though...The other recording is Patrick Sweany's long out of print EP ...Show You How which was recorded in Mike Lenz's home studio in Mogadore, Ohio back sometime around 2000/2001. The lineup is the same as the photos above: Patrick Sweany -- guitar and vocals, Dan Auerbach - baritone guitar and Jason Edwards on drums. Recorded by Mike Lenz and you can listen to it now for the first time in many many years here below:
Also around this time Dan Auerbach recorded an EP with The Barnburners called The Rawboogie EP. That one hit the streets around February of 2001 so I can only assume it was recorded not too long before that. The EP was recorded in Canton, Ohio at a place called Joe's Garage which was run by musicians Doug Fulton and Joel Piciacchio (Doug would have engineered the recording) and was then mixed by Mike Lenz at his home studio in Mogadore, Ohio. The lineup for this recording is: Dan Auerbach - guitar and vocals, Kip Amore - bass, Jason Edwards - drums, and some guest lead guitar work from Mike Lenz. Between The Patrick Sweany EP and The Barnburners EP you can really get a sense of not only the sounds that an audience would have experienced at Mugs and at The Grooveyard but the full music experience that Dan Auerbach was immersed in immediately prior to forming The Black Keys. Listen to The Barnburners' The Rawboogie EP below:
An interesting thing too with this Rawboogie EP --- On the back of the original cover there's a website you can go to that as of right now is commandeered by some unknown raw boogying entity but if you throw the URL into the internet wayback machine you can visit the original site as it was back in 2001 and 2002. On the sight you can see photos of The Barnburners performing all over including pictures shot at Mugs in Kent and a photo of Dan Auerbach playing at a barbecue with T-Model Ford just outside of Greensville, Mississippi.
I tried to get a hold of Dan Auerbach to interview him for this piece but I suspect my messages didn't get through. Dan --- if you read this and want to add your insights and memories to this history feel free to get a hold of me. My email is jprufer@kent.edu
When I was looking up some of this information and finding some pictures today in my attic I thought – wow where has the time gone? It goes so fast. With all this technology today, we forget about going out and doing something such as this back then – like going out playing live music and people coming out all the time and watching and experiencing. It was something to always look forward to every Monday or whatever day of the week I was playing. So what I take from this was getting to know these guys and all of us playing together to make music and have that experience of creating music.
-------------------------
Some notes here at the end:
You bet I was around and active in Kent during this period. I was 25-26 years old when Patrick Sweany and Dan Auerbach were playing every Monday night at Mugs but unfortunately I missed every one of those shows. My personal explorations had turned to this scene in that period. I was however at the infamous Brownstones Living Room show on South Prospect Street in Kent back in May 2000 that Pat Sweany references above. Pat marks that show as the first night Dan became a full fledged member of the band. My personal recollection of the evening is that the band sounded fucking great -- they were real tight and they were all wearing straw hats and all the guitars being used were Danelectros. Also I remember that the band played all night. At certain hours the room was packed with people dancing and hootin' and hollerin' and then at one point I checked back in and it was way late and the band was going full force but the dancing and craziness had been swapped out for people passed out on the couches and on the floor. But that band still kept playing -- they never let up. I wish I could go back and relive that night again. I'd have paid a lot more attention knowing what I know now.
The building that housed Mugs had been around for ages and was the home of The Town Tavern in the mid 1990s and going back to at least the 1970s it housed The VFW. You can see it as The VFW up on the left in this 1976 photo of The Numbers Band. Going way way back to 1908 you can see it minus its brick facade as a more primitive wooden structure with a traditional roof as the last building up there in this ancient photo of Franklin Avenue. The building itself was razed in May of 2018 to make way for a new six story building that will feature a restaurant, bakery, wine bar and 16 upscale apartments. You can read more about that here -- though as of this writing (February 2020) the project hasn't even started. The former site of Mugs is just an empty dirt lot. Take a look at a recent picture of it here.
Back in this time period I was shooting a lot of video and I filmed The Twist Offs upstairs at Mugs. All that survived from the original shoot is this 17 seconds worth of video but this would have been the same room and the same stage that Dan Auerbach, Pat Sweany and Jason Edwards played during their Monday night residency.
Also -- as stated in the conversation above with Jason Edwards, the very short lived basement bar venue known as The Grooveyard which is shown in the majority of the photos above was most famously known as JB's/JB's Down for the better part of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s and nurtured the likes of DEVO, The James Gang and The Numbers Band as well as hosting a thousand other bands in that time both known and obscure. Though by 2001 when those photos were taken, that place was a ghost town and it's likely at that time it meant nothing to nobody. Going way back you can see the building at 244 N. Water Street right here (pre-brick facade) in this circa 1940 rephoto as a furniture store. And going way way way back to what must be around 1910 you can see it labeled as abolitionist John Brown's house in this ancient photo. The building itself wasn't even built on this spot. John Brown lived in it somewhere around 1835-1839 when it was on Mogadore Road across from the Atlantic & Great Western Railroad Yards (here in Kent). The building was moved to it's current location at 244 N. Water Street around 1882.
Some of the bluesmen named above such as T-Model Ford, R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough are featured in a fantastic documentary film from back in this time period called You See Me Laughin'. The film had a huge influence on me. Check that awesome music film streaming right here.
Check some great Patrick Sweany clips here, here, here, here and here. Also you can check out his most recent album Ancient Noise right here.
Patrick Sweany gave a terrific interview to Last.fm where he gave some great details about the period involving Dan Auerbach. You can see video of that interview right here.
There are only two known recordings of The Patrick Sweany Band with Dan Auerbach and both have been long buried under the murkiness of time. The one mentioned above is the soundboard recording made at the Eureka Springs Blues Festival in Eureka Springs, AK which dates to June of 2001. As of this writing that music is being delicately excavated off of some old media and isn't fully recovered. Stay tuned though...The other recording is Patrick Sweany's long out of print EP ...Show You How which was recorded in Mike Lenz's home studio in Mogadore, Ohio back sometime around 2000/2001. The lineup is the same as the photos above: Patrick Sweany -- guitar and vocals, Dan Auerbach - baritone guitar and Jason Edwards on drums. Recorded by Mike Lenz and you can listen to it now for the first time in many many years here below:
Also around this time Dan Auerbach recorded an EP with The Barnburners called The Rawboogie EP. That one hit the streets around February of 2001 so I can only assume it was recorded not too long before that. The EP was recorded in Canton, Ohio at a place called Joe's Garage which was run by musicians Doug Fulton and Joel Piciacchio (Doug would have engineered the recording) and was then mixed by Mike Lenz at his home studio in Mogadore, Ohio. The lineup for this recording is: Dan Auerbach - guitar and vocals, Kip Amore - bass, Jason Edwards - drums, and some guest lead guitar work from Mike Lenz. Between The Patrick Sweany EP and The Barnburners EP you can really get a sense of not only the sounds that an audience would have experienced at Mugs and at The Grooveyard but the full music experience that Dan Auerbach was immersed in immediately prior to forming The Black Keys. Listen to The Barnburners' The Rawboogie EP below:
An interesting thing too with this Rawboogie EP --- On the back of the original cover there's a website you can go to that as of right now is commandeered by some unknown raw boogying entity but if you throw the URL into the internet wayback machine you can visit the original site as it was back in 2001 and 2002. On the sight you can see photos of The Barnburners performing all over including pictures shot at Mugs in Kent and a photo of Dan Auerbach playing at a barbecue with T-Model Ford just outside of Greensville, Mississippi.
I tried to get a hold of Dan Auerbach to interview him for this piece but I suspect my messages didn't get through. Dan --- if you read this and want to add your insights and memories to this history feel free to get a hold of me. My email is jprufer@kent.edu
Check some killer footage of The Black Keys here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. Also check out where The Black Keys perform with The Rolling Stones right here. Also check this jamming footage of Dan Auerbach, Glenn Schwartz and Joe Walsh from Coachella 2016.
Also I wrote a book about the history of music in Kent, Ohio called Small Town, Big Music: The Outsized Influence of Kent, Ohio on the History of Rock & Roll and you can buy it right here on Amazon.
Also I made a film recently about the band Archie and the Bunkers who are FUCKING AWESOME. Check out that film right here.
And --- this is SUPER exciting for me -- I have a feature length film coming out -- MY FIRST EVER -- and it gets its premiere on Saturday, March 21, 2020 at the Cleveland Cinematheque!! It is called Out of Obscurity, Into Oblivion: A film about The Numbers Band. More info on that right here.
Big thanks to Patrick Sweany, Dylan Tyler, Bob Herbert, Ryan Olinger, Brandi Green, Jason Edwards, Jon Ridinger and Matt Napier for their help on this piece.
