R.I.P. Chas Smith
I'm a bit out of the loop with the Cle rock news, so I've just recently found out that Chas Smith passed away last month. I never got the opportunity to meet Chas, but I've always admired him for the vital role he played in any number of great Cleveland bands (most notably, to me, the Pagans and the Clocks). From all accounts, he was an all-around great guy, both as a human being, a rocker, and a professor (I was never bright enough to realize it probably would've been fairly easy to enroll at Cle State as a visiting student to take his course on rock history).
Since I only got to see Chas play live a few times (once or twice with Einstein's Secret Orchestra and once or twice with the post-GBV Cobra Verde), I'll best remember him for his contributions to the Clocks (by then the Radio Alarm Clocks) LP, Wake Me When It's Over. As a Northeastern Ohio kid in high school during the 90's, I became enamored with anything and everything connected to the 80's Cle underground rock scene, so it was a good day when I stumbled upon a copy of Wake Me When It's Over (probably at Record Revolution). It's been one of my favorites ever since and it's filled with a ton of great songs, from the frantic "Slave Planet" and "Kill Talk" to the pop brilliance of "Confidentially Renee" to the hip "Tick Tock Man." On top of it all, it has the Clocks' great version of "Time Is On My Side" (also heard on the Cleveland Confidential EP).
So yeah, if you ever come upon a copy of Wake Me When It's Over, be sure to grab it so you can take it home and dig those Chas Smith keys. In the meantime, if you're in Cleveland this Friday night, you can't go wrong by stopping by the Chas Smith tribute show that evening at the Beachland.
Thanks for the rock, Chas.
