La Cave: Cleveland’s Legendary Music Club
Cleveland Stories Dinner Parties
Storyteller: Steve Traina
Doors open at 5:00pm, with the storytelling beginning promptly at 7:00pm
- Weekly series combining great food with great stories about Cleveland’s past
- FREE ADMISSION – NO COVER CHARGE
- In addition to our regular menu, a Prix Fixe 3-course dinner special is available for just $25
Story topic this week…
La Cave: Cleveland’s Legendary Music Club
In a dingy basement music club in inner-city Cleveland, something incredible happened, and kept happening throughout the ‘60s. Except it didn’t just “happen.” It was created by a slightly-built visionary named Stanley Kain, and he named this happening “La Cave.”
Stan’s vision was the future and its language was written in musical notation, fueled by post-adolescent angst amidst a backdrop of the military draft, war, race riots, and social upheaval in general. For a buck, maybe two, suburban kids, college students and other young adults could absorb the wisdom of their elders – future musical Hall of Famers, still unknown, perched behind guitars, mere feet away on a tiny stage, dispensing that wisdom with a 4/4 beat.
Performers like The Velvet Underground, Neil Young, Gordon Lightfoot, Moby Grape, The Fugs and countless others were the professors of this new ideology. Mix in political drama, street theater, psychedelic drugs and cheap beer, and you have a microcosm of 1960s America. You have La Cave. History was made nightly, and was it ever fun!
Steve Traina Bio
Steve Traina is the longtime host of the music history program Steve’s Folk Radio Show on WRUW-91.1 FM in Cleveland. He spent many of his formative teenage nights at La Cave, courtesy of an older sister’s intercession. It made a deep impression on him. A common refrain from many attendees is “I grew up there.” So did America during the years La Cave existed, 1962 to 1969. In 2009 Steve met Stan Kain and Larry Bruner, former Resident Wizards of La Cave, and, pack rats both, they gifted Steve their incredible collections of La Cave memorabilia in anticipation of him telling their story. In his spare time, Steve is the father of six and grandfather of nine music lovers.
The goal of the Cleveland Stories Dinner Party is to bring to life some of the fun, interesting stories about Cleveland’s past – from sports, to rock ‘n roll, to Millionaire’s Row, — the series will focus on tidbits from Cleveland’s past that will really thrill the audience. The Music Box is presenting this series in partnership with the Western Reserve Historical Society’s new Cleveland History Center. We think the Cleveland History Center is one of the most important museums in Cleveland. An unknown gem that Clevelanders should know more about, and support. It is the only museum in Cleveland dedicated to preserving and documenting the history of Cleveland. The Cleveland History Center includes two mansions, the Crawford Auto Aviation Museum, Chisholm Halle Costume Wing, Research Library, Kidzibits Hands-On Gallery, rotating exhibitions, and the Euclid Beach Park Grand Carousel.
See all Cleveland Stories dates here.
