Just like any other Cleveland sports fan, Borger, a stocky guy with the jowls of Cheers’ Norm Petersen, spends his mid-December Sundays watching the Browns. When their final drive against the Jacksonville Jaguars is cut short by a controversial call, Borger isn’t shocked by the reaction of the fans as they litter the field with bottles and debris.

"The field looks like Cheese’s basement," says Defnics’ bassist Scott Stemple, who’s over to watch the game.

As the bassist in the Pink Holes, who formed in the early ’80s and still play the occasional reunion gig, Borger has seen just how ugly things can get. At a recent show just before Christmas, Holes singer Les Black decapitated a baby doll while shoving it headfirst through the crotch of his jeans. Then the crowd ripped apart a large stuffed dog the band tossed into the middle of the mosh pit. Black, who at one point tore open his shirt to reveal a rough sketch of a Christmas tree scrawled on his chest, forgot some of his lyrics and told the audience, "If you really think you like this, you’re stupid." He brought the show to an end with a particularly hostile kiss-off — "This is our last show, fuckers. I fuckin’ hate this shit. Fuck off. That’s it. You’ll never see me again."

Given the chaos of a Pink Holes show, it’s no wonder Borger scoffs as players and refs duck for cover and run to the exits at the conclusion of the Jacksonville game.

"I had someone throw a shopping cart at me at a show at the Cleveland Public Theatre," Borger boasts as he sips another drink, well on his way to what he calls "beer heaven."

As unlikely as it might seem, Borger lives in a modest two-story house in Painesville that’s scrubbed clean every other week by a maid. The living room’s painted a soft pink and lace curtains hang in the windows — leftovers from when his girlfriend shared the place with him. Even though she’s moved out, Borger continues to confine his punk-rock activities to the basement, which serves as a practice space and storage area for his old albums, miscellaneous reel-to-reel tapes and cassettes.

Borger’s one of the biggest supporters of Cleveland punk bands, both old and new. His basement collection’s served its purpose, too. To date, he’s released two albums, Pie & Ears, Vol. 1 and Pie & Ears, Vol. 2, compilations of previously unreleased cuts from Cleveland punk bands. In the past year-and-a-half, he’s also worked with Smog Veil Records on reissues of Pink Holes albums, which include previously unreleased material.

Additionally, Borger was instrumental in helping former Clevelander Mark Vocca set up the website Clepunk.com, which has served as a community builder and oral history resource since launching last year. Perhaps more than anything, the internet has contributed to unifying the local punk scene as old band members have gotten back in touch with each other and fans have reconnected with the music. The Rubber City Rebels reunion that took place last year came about partly because the band got so much response after launching a website. And Clepunk.com allows fans to post messages about shows that they’ve seen, both past and present.

Borger wasn’t always such a proponent of Cleveland punk. Like many of the scene’s elder statesmen, he spent a good portion of the ’90s in veritable hibernation. It wasn’t until a year-and-a-half ago, when he received an e-mail forwarded from Speaker\Cranker keyboardist Jim Jones (a Pere Ubu/Electric Eels/Mirrors alumnus), that he considered getting back into the mix.

"I had to get out of it for a while," Borger explains. "It was just a period of my life when I got a little more serious about my job. And I got into a thing where I’d buy a house, fix it up and sell it and would occupy myself with that for a while. I got this e-mail that said, ‘Has anyone seen the reclusive Cheese Borger? Tell him about the [local punk band] St. Jayne gig.’ I went down there thinking it was the best way to spend the last night of my 30s. It was August 26, 2000. I went to that show, woke up the next day, and decided I wanted to put out a compilation."

Borger’s renewed interested in Cleveland punk comes at a time when old acts have gotten back together and recent reissues of albums by the Pagans, Pere Ubu and the Electric Eels have gotten national attention. A forthcoming Rocket From the Tombs album, scheduled for release next month on Smog Veil Records in the U.S. and on Glitterhouse Records in the UK, is already slated for review in Spin. Zines such as Shredding Paper and Superdope have included Cleveland punk acts in retrospective articles. In its October 2001 issue, the British music magazine Mojo listed Rocket from the Tombs/Pere Ubu’s "30 Seconds Over Tokyo" and Ubu’s "Street Waves" amongst the top 100 punk singles of all time. "Sonic Reducer," a Rocket from the Tombs/Dead Boys track, also made the cut.

It’s hard to say why now seems to be the right time for a punk resurgence. Perhaps it’s a sign that with the recent economic downturn, punk has again become an outlet for the frustration and anger that’s starting to build as layoffs and store closings mount. Then again, perhaps it’s just the cyclical nature of the music business, or the fact that aging punk rockers have suddenly discovered they have disposable income now that they’re in their 40s and not weighed down by familial obligations. Whatever the reasons, the reunions and reissues, as well as a good crop of new talent, have created a renaissance of sorts for the Cleveland punk scene.

"When somebody’s willing to put their money into things and put out these records that don’t have commercial viability, that helps," explains Mark Leddy, who owns the Beachland Ballroom, where many of the reunions have taken place. "We’ve tried to create an environment where all those bands can play. You have a young audience and old-timers. It’s a fun night out and a chance for people to get together and see each other."

Leddy also says that the mere "passing of time" has created a filter so the good old punk music can be separated from the bad. That both old and new bands are involved in the record release parties and on the compilations has meant that the shows have cross-generation appeal. And when examined after the passage of time, most Cleveland punk holds up, even though it’s more abrasive than its counterpart in New York, which tended to have lofty, artistic tendencies, or in London, which was often more explicitly political.

"Cleveland really does have a unique sound," explains the Defnics’ Stemple, whose band recently played a reunion show. "It’s very sarcastic. It goes back to being the butt of the country’s jokes. People who live here, grew up here, have a good sense of humor about themselves. So even in Rocket from the Tombs and the Eels, you had a lot of sarcasm. When we grew up, the river was burning and downtown was a shithole. We learned to laugh at ourselves."

Smog Veil owner Frank Mauceri, who now lives in Reno, Nevada, agrees. Mauceri started the label 10 years ago when he still lived in Cleveland, and has put out 30 releases since that time. He let the label lapse in the late ’90s after he moved, but started it up again just over a year ago. So far, he’s reissued albums by the Defnics and the Pink Holes and put out new studio releases by Cleveland punk acts Stepsister and Numbskull. On April 1, he’s also planning to reissue albums by Cleveland punk bands the Agitated, the Offbeats and the Generics. He’s also going to reissue an Electric Eels side project called Amoeba Ratboy in March, and reissues by the Clocks and the Baloney Heads are in the works as well.

"You’d be surprised how wide the interest in this stuff is," says Mauceri. "I get e-mails and distribution requests from all over the place. It’s really cool to see people interested in Cleveland punk rock that’s 20 years old and see reviews in Japanese and German magazines. I think there’s a unique Cleveland attitude in the music that I don’t see anyplace else. That attitude is this cynical, humorous, smart-aleck attitude that when you put it together with the music makes some wild rock ‘n’ roll. I think you can look at every single Cleveland band and find that in there, from the Pagans to the Electric Eels to Rocket From the Tombs to Stepsister. It’s there in every band."

Historically, Cleveland’s role in punk’s development is often considered as significant as those of London and New York, the two cities usually cited as the epicenters. In Clinton Heylin’s 1993 book From the Velvets to the Voivoids: A Pre-Punk History for a Post-Punk World, Cleveland figures strongly. "Cleveland was the only other U.S. city to have a contemporary wave of pre-punk exponents," Heylin writes. In the book, he interviews various members of Cleveland’s formative punk bands and tells the story of how the Electric Eels, the Mirrors, Rocket from the Tombs, Pere Ubu and the Dead Boys went against the grain and emerged from a steel town best known as a classic-rock hotbed.

As has often been repeated, the story begins with the Electric Eels. When the Electric Eels formed in 1972, guitarist John Morton was a private-school reject who’d try to antagonize people by walking around town with bleached-blond hair, wearing eyeshadow and earrings. Morton was a frustrated art student who’d drag lawnmowers and sheets of metal onstage in order to break from convention. The Eels’ recording sessions were taped but never released before the band imploded in 1975. Their single, "Agitated," wasn’t issued until 1978, when British label Rough Trade put it out on the recommendation of rock scribe Jon Savage. That single — snotty vocals and noisy guitars — is often cited as one of the first punk songs ever. And up until its reissue late last year on the eyeball of hell (Scat Records), the original 45 of the song was selling for hundreds of dollars on eBay.

"I think [the Eels] are a really unique band," says Scat owner Robert Griffin. "A lot of what’s written about them focuses on how violent they were and the whole mythology. If you dig into their music, there’s a lot more there. I’m thinking particularly of some of the slower songs and [singer] Dave E.’s contribution to the band. He really had a unique take on life. You could say in hindsight that they were the first punk band, but I don’t know. Does it make a difference if the monkeys know they’re typing Shakespeare? It’s almost a metaphysical question."

Morton, who now lives in Brooklyn and works as a visual artist, was recently in Cleveland to host a Borger-sponsored punk show that took place last month. Still capable of madcap antics, he covered himself in Silly String before introducing the Pink Holes. Half-heartedly trying to wipe the Silly String sticking to his goatee, he conducts his interview sitting in the kitchen of the Beachland Ballroom and Tavern, preparing for his next skit.

"For me, the situation that existed then and why I did what I did is existing again," he says as the Pink Holes play Johnny Cash’s "Ring of Fire" in the Ballroom next door. "It’s like war. It’s great for business, and it’s great for punk. Punk is disaffected youth, and we’re still disaffected."

Morton says he looks back at what Charlotte Pressler, wife of Rocket From the Tombs’ late singer-guitarist Peter Laughner, said about growing up in Cleveland: she was promised the end of the world and then didn’t get it. That, she wrote in a CLE magazine article called "Those Were Different Times: A Memoir of Cleveland Life 1968-1975," was the inspiration for many of the proto-punk bands. To Morton, that sentiment is still relevant.

"You know what’s good about the World Trade Center bombings is that I’m a nihilist and this is the world as it’s supposed to be," he says. "It’s kinda sad, but it’s true."

The eyeball of hell suggests the degree to which the Eels embraced a violent, apocalyptic world. From songs such as "You’re Full of Shit" to "Spinach Blasters," which features the line "pull the trigger on the niggers," the songs are purposefully offensive. The Eels weren’t racists, but they often employed Nazi symbolism for shock value, and were subsequently kicked out of clubs and banned from radio. They only played a handful of shows before calling it quits.

Just as legendary and shrouded in mystery was Rocket From the Tombs, the band that would eventually spawn Pere Ubu and the Dead Boys. Formed in 1975, Rocket From the Tombs was both an outlet for singer David Thomas and Cinderella Backstreet singer-guitarist Peter Laughner, who joined shortly after its formation. Laughner, reputedly slated at one point to be Richard Lloyd’s replacement in the New York band Television, clashed with Thomas. The two would go on to form Pere Ubu, but Laughner would eventually leave the group before dying from liver disease at age 24. "Peter’s death was the end of an era for me," wrote rock critic Lester Bangs. "An era of the most intense worship of nihilism and deathtripping in all marketable forms."

Rocket From the Tombs never put out an official album, but Laughner’s performances with the group have been the subject of numerous bootlegs, taken mostly from a WMMS broadcast and various live shows. The forthcoming release, titled The Day the Earth Met the Rocket From the Tombs, will feature previously unreleased rehearsal tapes and recordings of 1975 concerts at the Agora and the Piccadilly Inn. It will also include a 12-page booklet of liner notes, and is scheduled for release in late February.

"It’s great rock ‘n’ roll inspired by New York Dolls, T.Rex and Marc Bolan," says Smog Veil’s Mauceri, who’s heard the album. "It’s amazing to think of the songs included on there because they became anthems for other bands. The other day, I was on a website that listed all the bands that have covered Rocket From the Tombs material, and it’s amazing. I think there were like 50 different bands. That’s just crazy."

Thomas is rather cynical about the renewed interest in Rocket From the Tombs, saying it’s a result of "the sexiness of being ‘in-the-know.’" Still, he thinks "history is important," and as a document of the history of Cleveland punk, the album’s an important release. As ornery and discontent as he is, Thomas still holds respect for the past. Why else would he get on the Beachland stage two months ago to sing "30 Seconds Over Tokyo" and "Final Solution" with former Dead Boys guitarist Cheetah Chrome?

"Those who were involved in the time, like me, are interested because it is part of our lives and we were dedicated to music and rock music especially as a language, as an art and as a means of finding adulthood/meaning/substance," he writes in an e-mail exchange. "The people inside of something have different motivations and perspectives to the people outside, especially in a secretive craft like music. You are outside. I can’t answer for why you or anyone else should think it matters. It’s not my problem."

Unlike Laughner and Dead Boys singer Stiv Bators, Thomas didn’t lead a life of excess that led to an early demise. Even though he’s best known for the legacy he left behind in the ’70s, he continues to record with Pere Ubu, which has an album scheduled for release this spring. Thirsty Ear, a Connecticut-based indie imprint, has not only released much of Ubu’s back catalogue but also his solo material.

For Thirsty Ear owner Peter Gordon, part of Ubu’s appeal stems from the fact that it was recorded at a time when there was a "certain innocence" to the music industry. "The importance of mass media back then versus now is very different for what you need in order to have a hit and be successful," he says. "It was a period of discovery. It was a period of excitement. Music was open-ended. Today, the media is everywhere. The importance of mass communication in our lives is at a ridiculously high point of bombardment. As a result, it’s tightly controlled and record labels only want to deal with things that have mass appeal. In that sense, there’s nothing quite like Pere Ubu anywhere. They’re a band that heavily influenced people, but it would hard to be a direct imitator. They showed that you could try different things and exercise creative license. How many bands can you say that about?"

Last year, when the Pagans played their first show in over a decade, they only did three songs, but the capacity crowd at the Beachland chanted until singer Mike Hudson returned for an encore. The Pagans were significant because they kept the punk fire burning in the late ’70s. The band, which also saw its albums reissued on Crypt Records last year, cranked up distorted guitars and spewed vitriol on songs such as "What’s This Shit Called Love" and "Street Where Nobody Lives."

"The Pagans never made it out of Cleveland," says the Pink Holes’ Borger. "They self-destructed. Their shows were maybe 50-60 people. Their singles became fuckin’ huge across the world. They might have had the strongest impact in making the rest of the world know about Cleveland."

For Hudson, who now runs an alternative weekly newspaper based in Niagara Falls, New York, the Pagans are symbolic of the way Cleveland bands failed because of a lack of hometown support during their day. He’s been particularly critical of the lack of press the Pagans received not only in their prime, but also now.

"To this day, I think I can count on my fingers the number of times the Pagans have even been mentioned in Scene magazine and The Plain Dealer put together," CovHudsonRGB.jpg" align=left hspace=3 vspace=0> he says. "Like this past summer, when the reissues came out on Crypt. We were on the cover of magazines in Spain, Germany and Japan, as well as here in the States. One of the discs charted in Rolling Stone’s ‘On the Edge’ chart, and still there was zero press locally about it. We’ve come to expect that. I think there’s a certain sense that because [Plain Dealer contributor] Anastasia Pantsios never covered it, because [former Scene editor] Mark Holan never covered it, and because [Plain Dealer columnist] Jane Scott never covered it, it’s almost like they fucked up if they start covering it now."

Pantsios, who’s photographed and written about local music for 30 years, maintains that Hudson’s misinformed. She says she saw most of the Electric Eels and Rocket From the Tombs shows and that, because her taste in music is broad and not tied to any one scene, she’s been misjudged.

"I was probably one of about 10 people who saw the Mirrors one night at [the defunct club] Clockwork Orange," says Pantsios, who considered Laughner a close friend. "The fact is that [the punk bands’] excellence and importance is in the minds of the people that were involved in the scene. They’ve gotten a lot of ass-kissing from a certain clique of critics. Their importance is so inflated. There was a real attempt to keep out people they didn’t think were cool enough. The hatred comes from the punk scene because they’re so militant. Because of latter-day adulation, a lot of them have gotten really big heads, but if you really listen to all of it, some of it is interesting but a lot of it doesn’t hold up. Was it really that great in retrospect? Not actually."

It’s hard to say how today’s young punk bands will be perceived while still solvent. Whether, as Pantsios says, a small group of critics will heap praise upon the bands in their circle, or whether, as Hudson maintains, the best bands will be ignored. There’s a way in which the youth seem to be on the same path as their forefathers.

It’s taken four years for the Chargers Street Gang, for example, to gain much of a local following. In that time, they’ve impressed national acts such as Rocket From the Crypt, which took the group on a Midwest tour last year, and guitarist Rick Sims, who recently invited the band to open for his band, the Gaza Strippers, at a sold-out show in Chicago. At the end of 2001, the band played 19 shows on a 20-day tour of the Midwest and South. And it played a particularly rambunctious show at the Grog Shop on Christmas Day. At that show, singer Joe Holzheimer handed out free cans of beer, climbed atop amplifiers and kicked empty bottles all over the place as he ran through the crowd like an unleashed animal. But it’s been a struggle to convince a wider audience that its music matters.

"People who are in other bands and geeky record collector people like us," says guitarist Lachlan MacKinnon. "We’re trying to get everyone else to know about us. I would like to think that we’re carrying on the tradition of Rocket From the Tombs and Pere Ubu. But the bands that inspired us were Quazi Modo and the Revelers — bands like that that were playing out when we started going to shows. I never saw Pere Ubu play. I never saw the Dead Boys. I would hope that people think we’re tapping into that same thing, but we’re a bad example, because we don’t put that much thought into what we do."

The current climate, however, has enabled young bands to make a connection to their past. The Chargers are included on Pie & Ears, Vol. 2 and played at the CD-release concert along with acts such as the Defnics, the Easter Monkeys and the Pink Holes, who reunited for the show. The Vacancies opened for Cheetah Chrome when he played in town two months ago. At that show, both former Dead Boy Jimmy Zero, who still lives in town and played in a band called Lesbianmaker until it dissolved last year, and David Thomas, who now lives in London, joined Chrome on stage.

"It’s kinda cool," Vacancies singer Billy Crooked says of the series of reunions that have taken place. "I started playing in punk-rock bands seven years ago. Even though it’s been seven years, I never had a chance to see and didn’t even really know anything about the Pink Holes. That’s the stuff I’ve since learned about, and it’s cool to still see them now. It was a lot of fun when we opened for Cheetah Chrome, even though it’s been a long time since the Dead Boys were around. Just to be able to share a stage with him was an honor. Here’s Cheetah, all these years later, playing his hometown with a band that’s influenced by him."

In the past 12 to 18 months, the countless reissues and reunions have returned that honor. The number of new punk bands — acts such as the Sign Offs, who have toured regionally and have an album coming out next month, and the GC5, who toured last year with New Jersey’s Hudson Falcons — continues to grow and includes countless others. And the connection with the old guard has been cemented. Granted, the old bands were initially recognized by only a handful of critics, as Pantsios says, but here in the first freeze of another economic winter, these bands are no longer being shut out in the cold. And with any luck, they won’t meet the same fate as John Morton and the Electric Eels.

"We never got any acknowledgement when we were here," Morton says. "It all came after we broke up. It’s been 25 years. We didn’t even exist to anybody, and now we’re somewhat popular. We always thought, ‘Why don’t people love this music?’ We expected adoring audiences. They hated us. They said ‘You guys are wrong.’ Now some people are saying we were right."