My bedroom was the area behind the paper umbrella where I had a waterbed, a coat stand, and some bookcases. That gave me all the privacy I needed; all six of us carved out spaces defined by curtains or wallboard. The area in the foreground of the image was a sort of living room. Later we built a low stage in that space for performances; for a while a giant rectangular frame hanging from the ceiling defined the space as if it were a movie screen. When we had a party, this is where the bands played.

One night firemen investigating a leak climbed through those fifth-floor windows from a hook-and-ladder truck. They thought they'd find a damaged sprinkler system but it was me emptying a damaged waterbed. I stood there naked wondering why they were climbing through my window.

We watched a downed traffic light going from green to yellow to red in the center of an intersection a couple blocks away. Nothing moved as far as we could see. We didn't leave the place for two days.

Fran and Fred in Fred's space; behind him on the wall were a series of Polaroids (and blowups from Polaroids) with Binder as model. If Sandy was around we shot her; if Binder was there we shot him. When we had guests we took pictures of them, too. We built a darkroom and exposed a lot of Tri-X.

Because Curt was a DJ at local dinosaur rock station WEBN, we managed to get on the bill with Patti Smith when she did her first gig in Cincinnati. (Curt tried but they were never going to play a Patti Smith record. You can't shine shit, said the program director.) It was February 2, 1978. We put a Portapack setup together and recorded both of our sets. I believe the first —perhaps even both—was recorded by Viv Pinger. We'd gone to school together and even went out a few times. She later became a formidable Cincy punk scenester in 80s bands like The Dents. In this frame grab from the video Bob was on the left, Curt in the middle, and me at the mic. Byron is just to the right out of the frame and the wandering spotlight.

I told Patti we had a video setup downstairs and asked if we could tape her show. No problem, she said, just not the new stuff. She was crying and seemed under the influence; there was no sign of it once she was on the stage. Later Lenny told Curt our band needed some practice. I heckled him at CBGBs one night out of vengeance.

Radio Ethiopia had just been released and we played it non-stop back at the loft. Like the Ramones Patti was a huge influence on us, and not just because of the music she made. WJLY dedicated stuff to her. We do it because of you, we said, on the program for one of our biggest shows.

We hung mattresses from the ceiling to isolate the drums and did some fine 4-track recording there. The track posted below, other miscellania, and selections from our farewell concert at the loft can be found on the Ed Davis LP Keith Richards' Dead from the Italian label Rave Up.

Doug Hallet, a keyboard player from The Dents and many other bands, put a chart together documenting the "wave scene" in Cincinnati from 1979 to 1981. I remember seeing it on the wall at Mole's Records during a trip back to town: I was really surprised and secretly pleased. He starts things with Ed Davis and in particular with the Patti Smith show mentioned in another item on this page. I think Doug is far too kind calling Ed the first punk band in the city. We played fast and we played loud, true, and we had an excess of attitude, but my definition of punk does not include items like "Young Don't Wait" or most of "House Guest in Los Angleles," or after Fran joined the band, "The Girlfriend Song." We never looked like punks, either: my hair was too long.

One emendation to this incredible job of work: Fran is listed as a "Stevens" when she was actually a "Slater."

Here's a solo 4-track demo of Young Don't Wait. So far I haven't been able to find a live band recording; Byron had a real feeling for this tune. It's about the last day of the 60s and love, love, love.

People in the Cincinnati music scene would often be found at Mole's Records, a used record store not far from the University. I bought dozens of LPs there. Jess Hirbe (left) who ran the place, wanted to get some local bands on vinyl. He started with The Ed Davis Band and funded the single Keith Richards' Dead b/w Asshole. We recorded it live at Fifth Floor Studios. (The tapes were still in storage there when the studio was destroyed in a fire a few years later.) I will never forget the ever-gracious Jess presenting me with a fifth of Jack Daniels just before I started singing. I think we did around five or six takes of each tune; Asshole had a single edit where the ending from one take was spliced onto another.

A curious thing about Keith Richards' Dead is that no one understood that it was a homage to Keith (see the NME blurb mentioned below). The guy singing the song has just heard the bad news and goes home to play Satisfaction bout twenty times. I think because people thought of us as a punk band they assumed we could only be critical of the Stones. The truth was that Keith was a hero to us, especially Byron. Take a look at the lyrics if you don't believe me.

Five hundred copies were made and distributed all over the world. We got a blurb in UK's New Musical Express (they didn't like it). Bleecker Bob's famous record shop in NYC carried it. We heard there was radio play in Detroit, Cleveland, and maybe Los Angeles. In Cincinnati rock station WEBN wouldn't touch us even though drummer Curt was one of their DJs. The record and the band did appear on Michael Riley's outstanding WAIF show Danceable Solution, and I vividly remember one night in bed at the loft when I heard myself vocalizing through the darkness. Michael (who also worked at Mole's) was the single most important DJ for local acts like ours. Later my New York band Desi Desi and Desi played on his show during a brief midwestern tour.

Though Byron took this photo of Charlaine long before we had a single, obviously it needed to be on a record called Keith Richards' Dead. The flip side of the record (shown to the left) was crowd-favorite "Asshole." There was a very English oi-oi-oi! chant at some point in that tune and the crowds would repeat the phrase until we played it. Sometimes the gigs sounded like a football match.

Charlaines's brother Forrest was also involved in local music and played for a time with The Customs, a great rockabilly outfit that released their debut single on Shake It! Records when Jess Hirbe got that label up and running. The Customs also shared the stage with Ed Davis at our last loft party in front of about six-hundred people. I had to chase high-school kids doing Quaaludes off the roof; the elevator got stuck in the basement and people had to crawl out through the trapdoor in its ceiling; some guy trashed my bedroom with a garbage can while I was in the middle of my set. I wasn't the only one doing lots of cocaine that evening. It was stupid and irresponsible but no one died and the police were not called.

Thirty-six years later Byron and Charlaine were married in a seafood restaurant on the west side of Manhattan and I was very pleased to attend.

We soldiered on with this lineup through the first half of 1979. Bob took over on guitar and I went from just singing to bass. Fran beefed up our vocals with her girl-group voice and we started to cover (with only a little irony) sixties tunes like "Lightning Striking Again." L to R Fran, Curt, and Bob; I took the Polaroid.