electricbananaclub.net<\/a>, a comprehensive archive of shows at The Electric Banana, since 2014.<\/p>\n\u201cI got real interested in the punk rock scene and the punk rock music that was coming out,\u201d Landolina said. \u201cAnd then I found out that we had a scene up here. So I went to The Banana late in 1980 and I had some friends with me and my cousin. I think they came to laugh at the punks, you know. I was the one who was interested.\u201d<\/p>\n
He ended up getting hooked on the music and atmosphere of the smoky venue. For the next four years, before he got married and got a \u201creal job,\u201d he spent many nights in crowds of varying sizes at The Electric Banana.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was loud. People might imagine it was overbearingly loud, but only Black Flag fit into that category. The people were nice. It seemed like they were all kind of united because they liked the music,\u201d Landolina said.<\/p>\n
He cherishes many of his memories there, especially getting to see his favorite band, Minutemen, perform.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was a terrific show. I actually have a bootleg of it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
What was it like playing there? The members of the band ATS met at The Banana in the 1980s \u2014 and are still playing shows and putting out records around town today.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we considered The Electric Banana like a punk rock college, or an academy,\u201d ATS guitarist Evan Knauer said. \u201cLike a training ground.\u201d<\/p>\n
The three members played at the club more than any other band. They described playing to almost-empty weeknight crowds, opening for legendary favorites and out-of-town bands, and getting free beers from Judy when Johnny wasn\u2019t looking.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was carpeted. There were posters and T-shirts on the ceiling. It smelled like cigarettes and beer. And it was dark and Johnny\u2019s voice, you could hear it above the band sometimes,\u201d Knauer said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know what the women\u2019s room looked like, but the men\u2019s room was pretty abysmal,\u201d joked Kip Ruefle, ATS\u2019s drummer.<\/p>\n
Bill Poznanski\u2019s band The Imprints played The Electric Banana for the first time on Aug. 11, 1980.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we played that first time, we had two people show up, and they left after about the fifth song,\u201d Poznanski said.<\/p>\n
The more performance-art-focused band pulled stunts like bringing the club\u2019s cigarette machine up onstage when they opened for The Dancing Cigarettes and holding \u201cRenovation Night.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe brought in paint cans and tools and tarps and everything. We didn\u2019t really go renovating The Electric Banana, we were just more concentrating on props and everything. Johnny would often do like an Alfred Hitchcock thing and come onstage and participate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Johnny was well-known for his big personality and Judy was well known for cooking amazing meals for the punk rockers who came through the club. They got a reputation for treating the counterculture musicians and fans like their kids.<\/p>\n
And Johnny Zarra did enjoy the music that came through \u2014 especially the guitar-heavy acts.<\/p>\n
\u201cNobody would book them for years,\u201d Zarra said. \u201cThere wasn\u2019t a club owner in the city that would go near it.\u201d<\/p>\n
But he saw much promise in the kids with mohawks whose parents were dropping them off at his club.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were really all nice kids. Honest to God nice kids. Never had any trouble with them. \u2026 I used to watch out for them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The club was a mythical place for a great night out. But it was also important as a home for the evolving punk subculture in Pittsburgh, much like similar clubs in cities like Columbus and Buffalo where bands cut their teeth.<\/p>\n
At their Aug. 14 show at the Pavilion at Star Lake, the Goo Goo Dolls\u2019 lead singer Johnny Rzeznik brought up the band\u2019s time playing the club during their early hard-rock\/punk days in the late 1980s: \u201cAll the way from The Electric Banana to here,\u201d he said onstage to loud cheers from the crowd.<\/p>\n
John Hargnett was playing in the alt-rock band The Axis Y around Greensburg and Latrobe in the early 1990s when they decided to branch out into the city, sending tapes and press kits to venues around the region.<\/p>\n
\u201cI came home to a message that my mom had written and said that Judy from the Electric Banana called, and I thought, \u2018OK, so we\u2019ve made it.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n
He also remembered the passion and love that Johnny and especially Judy put into the club \u2014 including one instance when The Axis Y\u2019s drummer was ill and Judy made him soup.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt did work. I\u2019ve heard many stories like that, of Judy especially feeding the bands and taking them in,\u201d Hargnett said.<\/p>\n
When Judy died in August 2025, she was remembered fondly by many musicians. And while The Electric Banana may have been replaced by Zarra\u2019s Restaurant at the turn of the century, the memories live on in many punks\u2019 heads, on the internet and within the DNA of the building itself.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember asking him, \u2018What did you guys do with the posters?\u2019 \u201d ATS\u2019s Ruefle said of a conversation with Zarra. \u201cAnd this warmed my heart, because he said, \u2018Oh, I didn\u2019t have the heart to take them down, so we just put drywall up in front of them.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In their 2006 song \u201cPittsburgh,\u201d college rock band They Might Be Giants sang, \u201cI still have dreams about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":279707,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74],"class_list":["post-279706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}