Last year, local musician/Bowieologist Thomas Mulready presented a series of multi-media lectures that focused on the times David Bowie played Cleveland. Mulready didn’t see Bowie’s first show here in 1972 or the second one that came at the end of the tour. He did, however, see Bowie play Public Hall in 1974, and he says that he then had “the prototypical Bowie experience of catching up” to what the Thin White Duke was doing and then being thrown for a loop by his next release. He’s been obsessed with the artist ever since.
For 2026, he’s expanded his lecture series into ten segments he’s calling the NEO Rewind Series. He’ll talk about Bowie, but he’ll also talk about Northeast Ohio’s punk scene more generally too.
“This a culmination of historical shows about music that I started doing in 2013,” says Mulready one evening from his Lakewood home when asked about the 2026 lecture series. “It all began at Baldwin Wallace where they do a Beatles Fest every year. They were doing The White Album, and they didn’t know that every song had a story about it. So I put a presentation together, and they were wide-eyed. They knew the music, but they didn’t know all the stories. And then, Bowie’s penultimate album came out. I did a whole career-spanning presentation on him. I have hard drives filled with alternate tracks. That went over really well too.”
Mulready says Northeast Ohio’s role in the development of rock artists can’t be overstated. In the 1970s and 1980s, WMMS played new artists on the radio, and Belkin Productions brought them into town.
“It’s about time we understand how important Northeast Ohio’s legacy is when it comes to rock ‘n’ roll,” he says. “There will only ever be one Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, one Alan Freed, and one Moondog Coronation Ball. Get over it people, rock ‘n’ roll is our brand. We still don’t understand that Northeast Ohio was as important as London or New York in the formation of punk. The Kent State massacre, our disappearing industrial base and a river that caught fire turned an entire generation into DIY rebels whose influence stretched for decades. We still aren’t aware of the amazing chart busting contributions of women rock ‘n’ rollers from Northeast Ohio going back to the 1960s, when that was no mean feat.”
Coming up, Mulready and local glam rockers Vanity Crash will present their newest Bowie program on Friday, Jan. 9, at the Bop Stop with former WMMS DJ Billy Bass as a guest. Then, the program repeats on Saturday, Jan. 10, at Jilly’s Music Room in Akron with local photographer and writer Anastasia Pantsios as a guest, and on Sunday, Jan. 11, at the Beachland Tavern with former WMMS program director Denny Sanders.
“With this new Bowie presentation, we take it further and look at this important concert from September 30, 1995, when Bowie and Nine Inch Nails connected and decided to tour together and blended their sets,” says Mulready. “Bowie came on, and Nine Inch Nails stayed on stage, and they traded off. For part of that tour, they brought in Prick, which is Kevin McMahon. When I saw that show at Blossom, it was amazing. David Bowie is inarguably one of the most important artists of the past half century. But we still don’t fully comprehend that without Northeast Ohio breaking David Bowie outside the UK, he would probably be about as well known as [glam rocker] Marc Bolan.”
In February and March, Mulready and Co. will be back at it. They’ll discuss women’s role in the Northeast Ohio music scene with a program on Friday, February 13, at Jilly’s Music Room in Akron. The local punk band Queue Up will perform at that event. They’ll also present the program on Friday, March 13, at the Knight Stage in Akron, and on Thursday, March 19, at the Music Box Supper Club.
“I want to show women artists and get them to sink their teeth in a little more,” says Mulready. “I just heard from Elliott Carter today. Her band used to be called Detention. She is 21 and from Kent. She worked with us the last time around and is so articulate. The video interview we did with her was a year and a half ago. She pointed out that this country is so different now when it comes to women in 18 months. She has a lot to say about what that means for artists and for culture. Seeing the war on women intensify over the past few years, a show like this has never been more relevant. It’s important to look at women and respect what they’ve done. Rock has a misogyny problem. Even the Rock Hall acknowledges that. They’re working on it and trying to bring in more women.”
In addition, Mulready will discuss the birth of punk in Cleveland, Akron and Kent with programs that take place on Wednesday, May 13, at Music Box Supper Club, and on Saturday, May 23, at the Knight Stage.
“I want to find people from that very first wave of punk rock,” he says. “Some of the people are still around, but many of those people are not with us or they have health issues or they’re in jail. Maybe they can, maybe they can’t work with us. There are younger artists too. Punk never went away. It’s still with us. In my opinion, it’s the most important wrinkle or phase or style of rock ’n’ roll since Bowie.”
Finally, the series will end with another talk about Bowie in Northeast Ohio on Saturday, July 11, at the Knight Stage in Akron and Thursday, July 16, at Music Box. Mulready says he’s still looking into possible collaborations with local artists who share his passion for Bowie and punk rock in general and hoping to announce special guests closer to the date.
“There are groups in this town that are at such a high level,” he says. “I want to see if we can do some songs we couldn’t do before. We have these stories, and we’re still exploring who we can partner with. It’s exciting. Every night, I lie down to sleep and go, ‘What did I get myself into?’ These shows are not tribute acts: no one wears wigs and pretends to be some famous artist. It’s not an exercise in nostalgia. We honor the incredible musicians from Northeast Ohio, and we bring them into the future by telling their back stories while celebrating their hits alongside original music performed by artists on the scene today who acknowledge the influence of the masters.”
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