Two things about iconic hostelries. First, many had larger-than-life owners (consider Mushy Wexler’s Theatrical or Herman Pirchner’s Alpine Village). Second, their repute often was magnified by the renown of their customers (politicians, rock stars, actors, gangsters, etc.). Jim Swingos Keg & Quarter fits both bills. From 1968 to 1984, this eatery and adjoining hotel were the raucous hub of an otherwise moribund downtown.

Jim Swingos (1941-2015) was born into a Greek immigrant family. After graduating from Benedictine High School (the first non-Catholic ever to do so) he matriculated to Ohio State University as a Criminology major. Swingos ultimately found this too depressing a career path and joined his father in the bar business. Numerous restaurant-management positions followed until, in 1968, he purchased the faltering Downtowner Restaurant at East 18th Street and Euclid Avenue. The price was a pittance: 16 months in back rent.

Thus the Downtowner Restaurant became Swingos Keg & Quarter, serving garlic-drenched food to businessmen staying at the adjoining Downtowner Hotel. In 1971 Swingos bought the hotel—a dicey move given that Cleveland was hardly the world’s destination of choice. "Cleveland's hotel business was dead,” Swingos once recalled. “And I was trying to support a hotel with a restaurant. Then I got a call from a promoter wanting to make a booking for Elvis."

Suddenly no-one was singing Are You Lonely Tonight? at the Heartbreak Hotel. Elvis’ advance men blew in, liked what they saw and booked four floors. Moreover, Elvis wanted to use the hotel as the base of operations for a Midwest tour. Swingos quickly renamed the place Swingos’ Celebrity Inn and from then on, it was Shake, Rattle and Roll. “We were booked by every big name, little name and everyone in between. The one exception was business travelers: You get someone like Led Zeppelin in town for a concert. They stay with us. They get done with the concert and they want to party and make noise. Below them may be a businessman who needs his sleep for a big meeting the next day. We lost the businessmen in the commotion."

Swingos’ restaurant and hotel thrived without the suits, catering to a near-continuous parade of actors, musicians, athletes and the almost famous. In fact, the place was featured in Cameron Crowe’s 2000 movie "Almost Famous," which told the story of an uber-groupie whose real-life counterpart once plied Swingos’ halls and rooms. More publicity came courtesy of the Rolling Stones, who wore their "Swingos: Have you slept there lately?" T-shirts for a spread in Rolling Stone magazine.

Naturally, the rockers were a handful. Ian Hunter, leader of the British group Mott the Hoople, noted that Swingos was "a place you remember checking in and out of, but you can't remember anything in between.” The Who’s Keith Moon once walked up to female patron in the K&Q bar, slapped a pair of handcuffs on her and casually walked away. Deep Purple’s Ritchie Blackmore engaged in a late-night screaming match with Yul Brenner. Members of Kiss flaunted 10-inch heels and 10-foot tongues. Led Zeppelin, the four horsemen of havoc, were among Swingos’ favorite guests. "I loved Led Zeppelin, because they always traveled with their accountant," Swingos remembered. "Whatever damage they did to their rooms, the accountant always took out his checkbook and paid for everything down to the penny. I didn't mind because I always got new stuff for whatever rooms they stayed in after they left."

But the game changer was Elvis: “Always our biggest draw,” according to Swingos. “[The first time Elvis came] he ordered a chopped steak and a Boston strip steak. They had to be cooked well-done. He requested that I bring the meal up and that I cut the strip into tiny pieces for him. Then he inspected the cut-up steak and asked me to put it back together like a jigsaw puzzle before he would touch it.”

Which is not to say that non-rockers didn’t add to the commotion. Sports stars and carousers like Muhammad Ali, Wilt Chamberlain and Billy Martin were frequent patrons. Basketball legend Dave Cowens once accosted a bartender. Jerry Lewis would make bizarre noises into the PA system and regularly change the locks on the door of his room. “He drilled them out himself,” recalled Swingos. Frank Sinatra—consistently generous and courteous (but also demanding)—became Swingos’ close friend. Down at the bar, a cacophony of locals mingled with celebrities. “The FBI would be in one corner; Hells Angels in another; mob guys at the bar; and George Forbes and the Stokes brothers at a table.”

Through it all, the Keg & Quarter restaurant managed to maintain not only dignity but quality. Its food received consistently high ratings from critics and customers. Male waiters—exceptionally well-trained and always dressed in tuxedos—buzzed around, consistently adhering to Swingos’ mantra that customers are always right, even when they aren’t.

Swingos expanded his foodservice empire. He opened two additional restaurants at Nick Mileti’s Coliseum (where he was listed on the Cavaliers roster as “team dietician”). He also took over Marie Shriver's at the Statler Hotel, renaming it Swingos at the Statler. And when he cashed out at 18th and Euclid in 1984, he opened the moderately successful Swingos on the Lake in the Carlyle Apartment (now condo) complex on Lakewood’s Gold Coast.

But none of Swingos’ other endeavors matched the success or notoriety he achieved at East 18th and Euclid. For more than 15 years, Swingos was the shining center of a comatose universe. "In the 1970s,” explained former WMMS program director John Gorman, “downtown was dead. There was no reason to come. That is, until Jim Swingos gave them a reason."

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"Everybody’s doing a brand new dance now; come on baby, do the locomotion!" Sound familiar? It’s the cover hit, "The Locomotion," by Grand Funk Railroad. The band recorded many hit records, as did many other bands during the 1960s and 1970s, including The James Gang and Wild Cherry. These three bands had one thing in common; their hits were recorded and produced at one location - the Cleveland Recording Company. The Cleveland Recording Company operated during a time of technological advances in music recording. The CRC produced local and national hit records, helping shape Cleveland's growing reputation as a musical capital.

In 1934, Frederick C. Wolf founded the Cleveland Recording Company, first located in the Carnegie Hall Building at 1220 Huron Road, which had been built as a multistory auto garage before being turned into an office building, marketed primarily to performing arts organizations. A native of Prague, Czechoslovakia, Wolf accompanied his younger brother James to the United States; while James went to Chicago, Wolf stayed in Cleveland. Wolf developed a dream of ethnic radio broadcasting, so in the mid-1930s he purchased transcription equipment from Crystal Recording. Once set up, Wolf and his friends moved into the space at 1220 Huron, broadcasting classical music and polkas. Since Cleveland was known as the "Polka Town," every Sunday Wolf and company broadcast their respective half-hour shows of eastern and central European polkas.

Of the many polka groups that recorded in Cleveland, the most well-known was Frankie Yankovic, the future "King of Polka." Yankovic started working with Wolf in 1938, recording some of his first polkas at Cleveland Recording. Yankovic joined the Army in 1943, leaving little time to continue his recording sessions. Yankovic recalled that "there wasn’t any time to fool around; if we got a note wrong, we just had to keep going. But I insisted we leave the clinkers in, because people like it better that way." When Yankovic left, Wolf held on to some of Yankovic’s money until he returned.

In 1947, a Chicago real estate operator purchased the Carnegie Hall Building, including its common stocks and open spaces. This purchase also meant a name change—from Carnegie to the Huron Building. The transition prompted Cleveland Recording to move into the fourth floor of Loew's State Theater, at 1515 Euclid Avenue. Wolf was no engineer, so he needed additional help working on Cleveland Recording’s technology. So, in 1950 Wolf hired Ken Hamann. After he left the Navy, Hamann received an FCC operators' license and accepted an open position at WDOK, another radio station Wolf founded the same year. Once there, Hamann used his skills in aviation electronics, inventing and building his own recording equipment.

By the late 1950s, Hamann worked to improve the recording process at Cleveland Recording. Like other hi-fi hobbyists, Hamann experimented on what was called the "ping-pong stereo" method, recording environmental sounds on an Ampex 2-channel recorder the studio had. The process involves combining multiple tracks into one, mixing together and overdubbing on track recorders. This included recording sounds at Euclid Beach Park and its roller coaster. Hamann played with other types of recording equipment. He experimented with recording sounds using a 3-channel recording system. Clients for Cleveland Recording varied from high school students to professional musicians, and every time a recording session took place, Hamann tried to improve the recordings and upgrade the technology. Hamann worked so much Wolf promoted him to chief engineer by 1956.

In the late 1960s, Wolf's health began to decline, but he continued to help with Cleveland Recording. Due to his struggling health, Wolf sold Cleveland Recording to Hamann and fellow engineer John Hansen in 1970. Hamann had known Hansen since high school and worked with him in his early years at WDOK. However, local talks about a new parking garage to replace Loew's State Theater made Hamann and Hansen move the Company to a new place; this time to 1935 Euclid Avenue, previously known as the Corlett Building. Although Ray Shepardson and allies ended up saving the State Theater, Hamann and Hansen took no chances. They received help from a Cleveland bank to occupy the old Chevrolet auto space, home to what was more recently the Cleveland Cadillac Company (1925-1965), and Hamann and Hansen’s families with local construction works helped renovate the space into a studio. It was there that Cleveland Recording produced some of the most well-known hit records of the 1960s and 1970s.

Thanks in part to Hamann’s innovation in recording technology, the music to come out of Cleveland Recording was known locally and nationally. Hamann and Hansen were quick to see the potential of local artists, where Hamann stated in the Plain Dealer, "The area of Ohio, Michigan, and West Virginia has been rich in talent." The artists that came to Cleveland Recording not only brought talent, but new ideas to bring into the recording process. Bands ranged from local (The Human Beinz, The Lemon Pipers) to national (Grand Funk Railroad, The James Gang).

In 1977, Cleveland State University bought the property at 1935 Euclid, which meant another expensive move for Cleveland Recording. Hamann and Hansen disputed over money issues. Musicians were notorious for being poor-paying customers, compared to the more "straight-laced" commercial clients. Hamann described the "divorce" of Cleveland Recording between himself and Hansen. The studio was separated into two main sections; one for music, run by Hamann, and the other commercials, run by Hansen. Hamann allowed most musicians and bands to stack up their bills, driving Hansen antsy. The two split up the equipment; Hansen took whatever he thought was needed, and Hamann took the rest.

Hansen took the name of Cleveland Recording Company and continued producing radio and commercial jobs until his passing in 1990, which led Cleveland Recording to go out of business. However, it gained a successor when Hamann created Suma Recording, located in Painesville. When Hamann died in 2003, his son Paul Hamann took over until he passed away in 2017. Suma Recording is still open, with recording equipment available for use via appointments.

The Cleveland Recording Company contributed significantly to the national music scene of the 1960s-1970s. Once Frederick Wolf opened CRC in 1934, polka and classical music played on the radio, yielding to rock and roll in the 1960s and funk in the 1970s. Ken Hamann's technical prowess and innovation created sounds unheard of at the time, sending bands of the Midwest into national stardom. This spreading of popular music shaped the city of Cleveland into a hub of entertainment, continuing to this day through Suma Recording and other recording studios. The Cleveland Recording Company really did "play that funky music."

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On September 15, 1964, the Beatles descended upon Cleveland Public Hall. A horde of approximately 11,000 screaming fans piled into Cleveland Public Hall to see the Fab Four perform their particular brand of musical magic. At first glance, the aging Public Hall may not have appeared to be a particularly monumental venue, but it was about to cement its place in the city's eventual reputation as a rock and roll capital.

The facility was initially opened in 1922, and was part of the city's ambitious Group Plan, which sought to formalize the layout and architecture of downtown Cleveland in the mold of the City Beautiful Movement. At its opening, it was splendid and the largest venue of its kind. However, by 1964, other venues such as Municipal Stadium were available for large events, making Public Hall a different and interesting choice for The Beatles' Cleveland debut.

The Beatles made numerous landmark appearances throughout the country in 1964. Seven months after their appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show on February 9 of that year, they arrived in Cleveland. According to reports, the crowd of screaming fans, mostly adoring young women, rushed the stage at such a volume that the concert was stopped by police for ten minutes. It was the first time a Beatles concert had ever been stopped and it had everything to do with the layout of Public Hall. When The Beatles greeted fans that day in 1964, the stage was raised at one end of the concert hall, with police barricades in front, and a floor full of folding chairs and concertgoers. The fact that the stage was so close to the fans – it was in fact, practically on the floor – made it seem as though The Beatles were one with the fans. According to Steve Bellamy, a fan who attended the concert, "... girls, started standing up on the seats, but the seats would kind of collapse on them, their ankles would get caught in the seat, they started screaming and panicking." The sheer chaos of the scene set the Public Hall concert apart from other Beatles performances in Cleveland and ensured it would live on in public memory. But The Beatles weren't the only band to leave a lasting mark in Public Hall.

Next up on our musical journey of Cleveland Public Hall is the infamous Rolling Stones concert on November 3, 1964. By comparison, the crowd was small, with only about 1,000 people in attendance. This reportedly made the Rolling Stones “furious,” as the two groups had been positioned in the media as rivals for the rock and roll crown. Although the crowd was smaller, they were no less determined to get as close as possible to the band, again causing police to stop the show. While there was not much press coverage of the show itself, the Plain Dealer reported that a 17-year-old girl fell from the balcony during this show. The girl was not seriously injured, although she was transported to St. Vincent Charity Hospital and given X-rays and treated for bruises. This led to the “concert ban” by current Cleveland mayor Ralph S. Locher. Although the ban did not explicitly prohibit all rock concerts, it did ban major rock acts from performing at publicly owned venues, a policy that stood until the summer of 1966 (when Locher himself lifted the ban). Nonetheless, when The Beatles returned to Cleveland in 1966, they chose Municipal Stadium as the venue.

Between the infamous shows of 1964, until David Bowie appeared in 1972, there were a number of notable concerts that took place at Public Hall. The year 1968 brought some incredible talents to the city. The Jimi Hendrix Experience played to a sold out crowd on March 26, 1968, in support of their Axis: Bold as Love album. Cream sold out Public Hall on May 12, with support from Canned Heat (the first and last time Cream played in the Greater Cleveland area until 1975). On August 2, 1968, when The Doors appeared at a sold out Public Hall, the crowd was anxious to see what the infamous band would do. The Doors did not disappoint. Frontman Jim Morrison brought his usual antics, at one point diving into the crowd during “Light My Fire," an act that seemed utterly outrageous at the time. The following year, on October 24, Led Zeppelin played Public Hall, followed by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young on December 12. At a Creedence Clearwater Revival show on July 17, 1970, the Hell's Angels biker club, by then notorious for their violence at the Altamont Free Concert in 1969, “…took over the first three rows,” according to CCR drummer Doug Clifford.

September 22, 1972, was an extraordinary moment to be a rock music lover in Cleveland and illustrates how Cleveland earned its reputation as a rock and roll powerhouse. David Bowie and his Spiders From Mars backing band took the stage at Public Hall, marking the American debut of Bowie's legendary Ziggy Stardust persona. Famed Cleveland Plain Dealer rock critic Jane Scott described the performance as “electricity.” It has been posited that Bowie chose Cleveland to begin his North American tour because his Ziggy Stardust album was getting significant radio play on Cleveland's trailblazing WMMS, while other cities were largely ignoring his music. The band received a ten-minute ovation. Bowie claimed it was the first moment he sensed the success of his show.

Public Hall, in its rock and roll heyday, was in the unique position to offer the best of several types of venues. With a capacity of approximately 10,000 but maintaining an intimate feeling due to the closeness of the stage to the fans, it offered musicians an almost-literal connection to their audience. Its grandiose ornamentation and stately civic architecture lent a sense of importance to the events inside, at a time when rock and roll was still fighting for recognition. Cleveland Public Hall, which still operates as a venue for popular music today, is Cleveland at its finest, with equal parts splendor and warmth.

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The Euclid Tavern was established in 1909 but became a prominent fixture in University Circle only in the late 1970s and early 1980s. With its laid-back atmosphere and unrefined reputation, the Euclid Tavern attracted a varied clientele that ranged from local college students to blue-collar workers and Cleveland police officers. Bob Jost and Paul Devito, owners of the Euclid Tavern during this time period, operated the establishment with no specific business model in mind. Reportedly, regular patrons were free to go behind the bar to get their own drinks and place money in the cash register themselves. When the bar ran out of pitchers for serving beer, the bartenders were known to fill empty Tropicana glass bottles instead.

During the 1980s and 1990s, the Euclid Tavern emerged as a popular place for Clevelanders to listen to local and underground bands and just have a good time. "The Euc," as it was known by many, did not try to compete with popular Cleveland dance bars like the Agora, Spanky's, or Filthy McNasty's. Instead, the Tavern embraced a more low-key style and scheduled weekly appearances by bands that played their own original music.

In the early 1980s, the co-owners of the Euclid Tavern had a difficult time filling the Monday night performance slot. In place of hosting a band, Jost, Devito, and Jimmy Cvelbar took employee Jerry Suhar away from making his "Pittsburgers" in the kitchen and placed him at center stage hosting an open mic night. Unfortunately, there were rarely any volunteers from the audience willing to perform. Suhar, a seasoned performer with training from Cleveland Institute of Music, took up the slack, singing and playing guitar for the college students who showed up on Monday nights. Suhar played in the Monday night slot from 1980 to 1990 and became known for leading sing-a-long arias and singing novelty songs like "Mighty Mouse" and Freddie Blassie's "Pencil Neck Geek."

When Suhar retired from performing at the Euclid Tavern, another employee from the tavern kitchen, Derek Hess, began booking Monday night shows featuring touring underground rock bands. Burgeoning "alternative" acts like Helmet, Pantera, Pavement, and Green Day - whose tours might have skipped Cleveland before Hess helped restore the city's reputation as a rock and roll destination - now had a place to play in Cleveland where they knew they would be treated well. As word spread among touring musicians, the Euclid Tavern's booking calendar grew fuller and the club expanded its musical offerings from Monday nights to hosting a concert almost every night. In addition to booking the shows, Hess, a Cleveland Institute of Art alumnus, also produced the show flyers advertising the bands. In time, Hess's poster art became a ubiquitous presence in Cleveland's art and music scene, helping to give the Euclid Tavern a distinctive identity and eventually propelling Hess to national prominence as one of the world's best-known poster artists (a number of Hess's works from this era have been added to the permanent collections of the Louvre and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum). Within a few short years, the Euclid Tavern had gone from one of the city's best neighborhood hangouts to one of the nation's best rock and roll clubs, losing none of its local character in the process.

The Euclid Tavern was also a filming location for the 1987 film "Light of Day" starring Michael J. Fox and Joan Jett.  The director of the film, Paul Schrader, came to listen to the Generators and decided to include the Euc in the film because he liked its atmosphere. The Euclid Tavern was the venue for Fox and Jett's fictional band The Barbreakers to perform at the end of the film. In preparation for the film, the Tavern was slightly uncluttered and was supposedly given the famous neon sign that still hangs in the front of the building.

In 1997, after nineteen years of ownership, Jost and Devito sold the Euc to Dan Bliss and John Michalak, owners of a number of local Cleveland establishments including Peabody's Down Under in the Flats. Unfortunately, the new owners were unable to keep the business afloat; the Euclid Tavern closed its doors in 2001. In 2013, after a series of failed re-launches, University Circle Inc. took ownership of the property. The Euclid Tavern re-opened as a second location of Happy Dog in 2014 but closed four years later.

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After a stint distributing records for jukeboxes, Hank LoConti opened the original Agora club on February 27, 1966, at 2175 Cornell Road, in the former Ripa Hall, which had been home to an Italian hometown society for immigrants from Ripalimosani, Italy. With its location in Little Italy just across the railroad tracks from Case Institute of Technology and Western Reserve University, the original Agora was a simple venue intended primarily for students. The Agora grew steadily from the start, opening the nation's first in-house recording studio in 1968 and producing many live albums. As LoConti later reflected, from there the Agora “grew to the magnitudes no one had ever dreamed.”

As word spread and crowds began to swell, some residents in famously-protective Little Italy decided the Agora – with its raucous fans and loud music – didn’t fit with their vision for the neighborhood. A large group of locals formed one night to publicly voice their disdain for the college students’ unwelcome invasion. Moved by the group’s grievances but also pleased with the Agora’s rising success, LoConti arranged for a second lease at 1724 East 24th Street near Payne Avenue, opening a new club in July 1967, likely intending to reduce crowds on Cornell Road. For the next 18 months, LoConti operated two Agoras, nicknaming the original "Agora Alpha" and the new club "Agora Beta." Agora Beta would become the stuff of legend.

Throughout the 1970s, the Agora’s reputation grew as it began to host increasingly prominent acts and even expanded for a time into a chain with clubs in a dozen other cities. Deanna R. Adams’s book *Rock 'n' Roll and the Cleveland Connection* compares the Agora to other famous venues of the era, describing it as Cleveland’s counterpart to San Francisco’s Avalon Ballroom and New York’s Bottom Line. The Agora’s floor plan allowed fans to experience live performances up close, fostering an electric atmosphere that artists and audiences loved. Artists like Bruce Springsteen, Meat Loaf, Alice Cooper, Roxy Music, Southside Johnny, and more came back to Cleveland time and again to play the Agora.

WMMS, Cleveland's leading rock radio station – and a national cultural force in its own right – also played a crucial role in the Agora's success. Disk jockeys like Kid Leo championed emerging rock acts and used their platforms to create buzz around upcoming shows at the Agora. WMMS’s Buzzard brand became synonymous with Cleveland’s rock identity, frequently broadcasting live performances from the Agora, and giving the club a regional and even national audience. Meanwhile, "Onstage at the Agora" became an internationally syndicated television show years before MTV brought rock music to the living room. At the Agora, attendees experienced a sense of community that went beyond entertainment, reinforcing Cleveland’s image as a “music town.”

As Cleveland underwent economic challenges and transformations in the 1980s, so too did the Agora. A fire broke out at the Agora in 1984 and forced the location to close. Due to a dispute with the property’s landlord, Cleveland State University, LoConti eventually opened the Agora in its present – omega? – form at East 55th and Euclid Avenue, formerly WHK Auditorium. Despite the apparent setback, the Agora, along with WMMS, continued to build its reputation as a proving ground for up and coming acts and bring a sense of cultural relevance to the city. Where once young Clevelanders had bemoaned having “no place to go,” the city now had rock and roll bragging rights.

The Agora’s legacy was ultimately recognized in the early 2000s, as Cleveland began to understand the importance of preserving its musical heritage. By this time, the Agora had solidified its reputation as a historical landmark, a status that attracted both financial support and media attention. The Agora was claimed to be “one of the hottest places to catch rock shows of every style and persuasion.” Seating an impressive 2,700 people in its theater and ballroom, the Agora was as welcoming as it was entertaining. The City of Cleveland acknowledged the Agora’s role in shaping Cleveland’s identity through renewal projects and official landmark status, recognizing it as more than just a concert hall but as a space where generations of Clevelanders have gathered to celebrate music and community. This support from the City of Cleveland, coupled with Cleveland’s broader efforts to promote its cultural assets, has allowed the Agora to continue evolving while honoring its roots.

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