Rock and Roll Gallery "Space: ROCK" Opens on Waterloo

Damnation of Adam Blessing

The grand opening of the Cleveland music history and photography gallery, Space: ROCK at 15721 Waterloo Road, took place on Friday, April 5 during April’s Walk All Over Waterloo. Its inaugural exhibit, The Golden Age of Cleveland Rock: 1969-1974, spotlights an era when many northeast Ohio bands were getting signed to record labels and attracting national attention. The show will run through the end of May.

Among the bands featured through posters, photos, album jackets and promotional materials are the James Gang, the Raspberries, Damnation of Adam Blessing, Rastus, Wild Butter, Tiny Alice, Eli Radish, Rainbow Canyon, and Michael Stanley, along with the “Youngstown auxiliary” — Glass Harp, Blue Ash, and Left End.

All of these bands benefited from the record industry shift in emphasis from singles to albums and eclecticism of the psychedelic era, a period when record labels were actively seeking diverse rosters. Just as they were looking for the “next Seattle” in the ’90s, they were looking for the “next San Francisco” in the late ’60s. Cleveland was on their radar, thanks to factors like the area’s hunger for new rock music and the number of former Clevelanders rising in the echelons of the labels.

In conjunction with the exhibit, the Beachland Ballroom will be hosting a public oral history taping with Jim Quinn, guitarist for Damnation of Adam Blessing and longtime area band manager. It takes place at 2 p.m. Saturday April 20. Admission is $5, food will be available, and the bar will be open.

Space: ROCK is a project of Cleveland Rocks: Past Present and Future, a new nonprofit formed last year to bring more attention to Cleveland music history and to support the music scene’s growth into the future. Its offices are on the second floor of the Space: ROCK Gallery.

For more information about Space: ROCK, contact Anastasia Pantsios at aastasjoy@aol.com.

Anastasia Pantsios is a Cleveland writer and photographer with an emphasis on music and the arts. She is the director of the Space: ROCK Gallery on Waterloo.