The crowd that packed a Point Breeze bookshop Friday to celebrate a book release by Pittsburgh-bred photographer Erik Bauer could’ve been pulled right out of a 1981 punk show at Oakland’s now-shuttered Electric Banana.
Or cheering on The Bats, a local post-punk outfit led in May ‘84 by Pulitzer Prize-winning “Mysteries of Pittsburgh” author Michael Chabon.
Or at The Lion’s Walk in North Oakland. Or Swissvale’s Phase III club. Or even Antonino’s, a South Craig Street pizza shop whose makeshift stage was graced in ‘77 by punk forebears The Ramones.
“It’s weird — this is like a homecoming,” said music writer Jason Pettigrew, 62, of Greensburg, who met Bauer in 1979 and wrote the band bios for his book on Pittsburgh’s underground music scene. “I’m just glad this document exists, that this book exists. It was a labor of love.”
Hundreds of Pittsburghers — some current, some former — overflowed out the front door of Bottom Feeder Books Friday night, breathing in the nostalgia and buying copies of Bauer’s “Had To Be There: A Visual History of the Explosive Pittsburgh Underground (1979-1994).”
The Gettysburg Street book shop, with its gallery-white walls and quaint, checkerboard floors, will exhibit prints of images from Mind Cure Records’ first foray into book publishing through Jan. 26.
Bauer was an early student of punk rock.
A chemist by day for Kennametal, a machinery manufacturer based in Westmoreland County, Bauer started reading about the then-budding genre in 1974 and ‘75. He became an early devotee of Patti Smith and The Ramones.
It wasn’t until March 8, 1979, armed with a new Nikon FM 35mm camera, that he found Pittsburgh’s underground. Bauer caught John Cale, a founding member of iconic ’60s-era rock band The Velvet Underground, at a Swissvale club known as Phase III.
A couple months later, he went to a benefit show seeking to keep open Phase III at a North Oakland club, The Lion’s Walk, and saw his first Pittsburgh punk bands.
He was hooked.
Between 1979 and 1994 — the scope covered in the newly published book — he turned up at hundreds of underground punk shows, from dive bars to scheduled affairs like the Syria Mosque’s Pittsburgh New Music Convention to informal gatherings in South Oakland basements bearing names like Hell House.
And he faithfully documented the nascent but vitriolic scene.
“Photography was what I could do,” said Bauer, 69, of Chalfant, who’s been busy scanning old photo prints and digitizing cassette tapes since he retired three years ago. “I’m not a musician, I’m not an artist. But, it was what I was able to do for the local scene.”
Some images in the book shimmer like unearthed time capsules:
A shirtless John Creighton, holding a lit cigarette as he fronts punk band No Shelter during an outdoor concert in an almost-unrecognizable Market Square in Downtown Pittsburgh on Sept. 13, 1980.
The way former Mind Cure Records head Mike LaVella deeply furrowed his brow when roaring in hardcore heroes Real Enemy at Electric Banana on April 23, 1983.
Members of Pittsburgh hardcore act Half Life hoisting “Cherry,” the fire-engine-red-haired singer for Japanese band Zouo, over their hands at The Chesterfield House on Jan. 19, 1985.
As a crowd of at least 200 clustered around the carefully framed photos this week, the memories flowed.
Dave Martin stood still for a moment in front of an image of an old friend, indie-rock icon Karl Hendricks.
The Karl Hendricks Trio released seven LPs in 12 years before Hendricks lost his battle with cancer in 2017. Martin had released an early Hendricks EP before leaving Pittsburgh for New York City in 1996 to work at Matador Records.
“I do wish Karl could be here,” said Henry Owings, 55, of Atlanta, who was catching up with Martin. “There are a lot of people I wish could be here.”
When it came to local music, Martin, a music lover who grew up in Edgewood, got the hook in his mouth early. He turned out to the Electric Banana to catch New York hardcore band Agnostic Front during Memorial Day weekend in 1985.
“That was my first show — it was life-changing and I tried to go to every show after that,” said Martin, 55, of New York City, who was head-to-toe in black at the book-release party. “Being right there? Next to the band? It was amazing.”
Owings, who designed Bauer’s book, only lived in Pittsburgh in part of 1990 and ‘91, what the octopus-armed local drummer Damon Che called “the good year.”
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Owings trekked to Pittsburgh from Georgia to celebrate the community that Bauer’s book froze in time.
“I have had and will continue to have a kinship with Pittsburgh, really close ties to this city,” said Owings, who wore an obscure button reading “Look Blue Go Purple” on the lapel of his red shirt. “The Pittsburgh scene was not dissimilar from the Athens, Ga., scene — meaning, ‘We’re not New York, we’re not L.A., we’re not Seattle!’
“This books proves it, that there’s gold in them hills and I think it’s important to celebrate it.”
One of the men of the hour, current Mind Cure Records owner Mike Seamans, worked the book-release party crowd Friday and shared his own recollections of punk in the ‘80s and ‘90s.
Seamans grew up in Wilkinsburg and started going to local shows in the early 1990s at Turmoil Room, set just two blocks from his home, at age 12.
Underground punk fans of the era told Seamans he was too late.
“People were all saying, ‘Oh, you missed Half Life,’ ” laughed Seamans, 41, of North Point Breeze. “I’ve always had this built-in nostalgia for everything I missed that came before me.”
Seamans, a former New York University photography student, met Bauer years ago. During the covid-19 pandemic, he floated the idea to some old scene icons about encouraging Bauer to publish a comprehensive book of his work.
“I realized there was this well of material that was really deep,” Seamans said. “He documented everything and meticulously went to shows.”
Bauer also likes to reminisce about Pittsburgh shows from touring bands of the era.
He caught Elvis Costello at The Leona Theater in Homestead in 1978, Blondie and The Clash at The Stanley in 1979, and, later, pioneering Washington, D.C., hardcore band Bad Brains at Carnegie Mellon University’s Skibo Hall.
In ‘73, Bauer went to see Mott the Hoople at the since-demolished 3,700-seat Syria Mosque in Oakland. He remembered the opening act on the three-band bill.
“It was this no-name band out of Boston that had one record,” Bauer laughed. “I think they were called Aerosmith.”
Seamans and others dropped hints Friday that a book is in the early planning stages that might feature Bauer’s photos of national bands during their stops in Pittsburgh.
As for Bauer, the book ends around the time he wound down his work. He stopped religiously documenting live shows around 1994.
Though Bauer hasn’t turned out for a show since covid crippled the U.S., he still likes a good concert. Before the pandemic, he caught The Who at PPG Paints Arena, The Mekons at The Warhol Museum, and Belle & Sebastian at Carnegie Music Hall in Oakland.
Pettigrew, who started interviewing Pittsburgh bands for their capsule-sized bios a couple years ago, wrote for the Tribune-Review from 1982 to 1984. His definitive work, though, came during 30 years working in Cleveland as an editor for the influential music magazine Alternative Press.
His roots in southwestern Pennsylvania music are deep.
Once a self-described “surly young record clerk” at a National Record Mart location at Greensburg’s Westmoreland Mall, Pettigrew played the role Friday of scene historian.
“It is great seeing all these photos again,” he quipped, standing in the rain outside Bottom Feeder Books. “It’s great this lost chapter of Pittsburgh history is getting addressed.”