"History of Tight Wadd" by the Bass Lord

Here is the history of Tight Wadd to the best of my recollection. Some of the facts are a bit fuzzy, I was drinking a lot of 50 cent Hamms at Smittys back in those days...

Pre-Tight Wadd - "Infra Redd"
It all started back in the summer of 1985 when I met DJ Axz. We were both working at the Cedar Point food warehouse at the time. We were B.S.ing one day, and I asked him what he liked to do when he wasn't busy loading trucks full of hotdogs and building sham forts. He said he was learning how to play the guitar. It just so happened that I too was learning to sling some axe. We got together and jammed a few times. We both liked the same kind of music: METAL. As some of you may remember, metal ruled the airwaves back in the 80's. We were both into AC/DC, Judas Priest, Ozzy, etc. We would get together and rock out once in a while, mostly during the summer or on break from college. 

Sometime the next year or so, we met another dude named Mark Stair who played drums. He went to Ohio State with Axz. They jammed a few times, and we decided to form a band. After a few tries, we found a singer in Scott Kirner. We also added guitarist Jude Gennari. "Infra Redd" was formed. We played a mix of oldies, metal, and hits of the day (U2, R.E.M. etc.)


1988 309 Fountain St. Akron

It was tough to get together, because we were all going to different schools. We did manage to practice now and then. We ended up playing a few parties at Ohio State and Akron. I remember playing at Daly's Pub and the Erie County Fair. The best gig in my opinion was when we played new years eve 198? at Chris Dahs' (Smith) barn. It was totally full of a ton of people. There were people from Perkins, St. Mary's, and Sandusky High there. Just a huge blow-out. A great, great time. 

Infra Redd fizzled out, as everyone went there seperate ways after college, but the seed of Tight Wadd was planted.

Tight Wadd - The Early Years
DJ Axz and I were now out of college. We had no band, but still had the desire to rock. I knew this kid named Jason Rip Rock who wanted to be a lead singer. He had no experience, but he had long hair.


1989 Jason Rip Rock

I remember meeting Rip Rock while I was working at Dalys Pub when I was in college. He was buddies with my neighbor Ed Muffler. I would let those guys in the bar even though they were under age. (This was back when Dalys was actually a place you would want to go to.) He too loved all that was metal, so we had an instant kinship.

We asked Jason to be in the band and he accepted. He had nothing else going on. Now all we needed was a drummer. I knew a guy named JP because he was buddies with my pal Cool J. I vaugely remember hearing that he played the drums. We got a hold of him, and the final piece of the puzzle was in place. Tight Wadd was formed.


1990 JP Johnny Load Wrong

Like I said, that era was kind of fuzzy as far as my recollection goes, but I remember DJ Axz and I were living on C Street. The band was practicing in my dads work shop, affectionalty call the "Rock Shed". We were cobbling together enough tunes to be able to play a 4 hour night. We played at "The Winery" in downtown Sandusky for a battle of the bands. We didn't win, and I can remember thinking we got the shaft. Our main venue was Smittys Saloon. We probably played there once a month. It was very convienent, because we were in there most of the time anyway. 


1990 Tight Wadd

The first real gig we had was at Smittys. Loader was nervous as hell. We had
a real crappy PA that overheated the first song because we had too many speakers plugged into it. Luckily Robbie Davis was in the crowd and got us fixed up. They had to move the pool table to make room for us to play. It was packed with drunken friends and under age women. Good times...good times....

We had way too much fun. We all hung out at C Street. At one point or another we all lived there. It was kind of like "The Monkees". There are so many good memories and funny stories that I could write a book. Kenny Canfield, Sunday night card games, Rip Rocks 14 different jobs, the brown thang, Tony & Trish, funny funny funny!!!!

  
Robisel & his Brother          No deposit - It's a closet

I'm not sure how long this era lasted. Maybe a year or two? At some point DJ Axz moved to Sylvania for a teaching job. I think we kind of dissolved slowly after that, maybe playing the odd Smittys gig here and there. Of course we would all see each other, and we were all still buddies, but Tight Wadd was on hold for a while...

Tight Wadd - The Second Coming

Well, bla bla bla, life went on. Marriages, kids, different jobs, etc. Tight Wadd was a distant memory of days gone by.

Thanksgiving 1999, I ran into Johnny Load Dumper out at the "Old Dutch". He suggested we "get the band back together" and play at Smittys for old time sake. Around Christmas 1999 we got back together and prepared for out big "reunion" gig at Smittys (since renamed Excuses Lounge). We practiced a couple of times in JP's basement. It was just like riding a bike. A big kick ass rock-n-roll bike. We played our gig which was a lot of fun. A bunch of people we hadn't seen in a while showed up. We decided that we had so much fun we should do it again.


2000 Excuses Lounge

We started playing about once every 3 or 4 months. We were too lazy to learn any new songs, so we just kept playing the same crap we played back in 1990. Nobody seemed to mind.

Sometime around 2004 we decided to beef up the sound by adding a fifth member to the band. Unfortunately our original back up guitarist "Cooter" had passed away, so we needed to find someone else.


1990 "Cooter"

Who would we choose? Why none other than our good buddy, and fellow metal head "Joe Mama". He had the same taste in music as the rest of us, and the same lackidasical work ethic. He fit like a glove, a black leather fingerless glove with studs.


1994 Joe Mama

Since then, we've been rockin' the north coast as best we can! We'll keep on playin' as long as the Shamburgler comes out to see us!

Long live rock! Long live Tight Wadd!