C-Level

Northeast Ohio band C-Level celebrating 10 years with sold-out gigs at Grog Shop, Beachland Ballroom

Bonkers.

That’s how C-Level singer-guitarist Dave “Ziggy” Deitke describes the fact the Northeast Ohio band is celebrating its 10th anniversary.

“It’s one of those things like, man, it’s been that long?” Deitke said. “It’s kind of surreal. Things feel like they’re just starting for us, which is cool. I don’t think it really hit me yet.

“Our bass player brought up our anniversary. He was like, ‘We’ve been doing this for 10 years, we have to do something special.’”

Something special indeed is what C-Level — Deitke, Coda Crose (bass) and Pat Boland (drums) — has planned for its anniversary with not one but two sold-out shows — Nov. 13 at the Grog Shop in Cleveland Heights and Nov. 14 at the Beachland Ballroom in Cleveland.

The trio will be playing a different set each night along with guests from other local groups for what should be two memorable sets.

The first gig includes Wanyama, Furious Geroge Hartwig, Mimi Arden and James Muschler; The second night includes The Quasi Kings, Lea Marra & the Dream Catchers, Old Souls, Crazy Marvin Braxton, Jay Sparrow.

“We have four artists each night,” Deitke said. “Throughout our set, we’re going to incorporate those artists into our music and then we’re going to play their songs as well.

“These are all people who throughout these 10 years have inspired us and have been a part of the scene. We kind of want to share them with our audience and vice-versa.”

Considering the various genres C-Level calls home, the funk-punk-reggae-rock trio is one of those acts that seemingly fits on any bill. Deitke said over the last decade the act went from being more edgy and lo-fi to a polished and instrumentally experimental outfit.

That latter can be heard on the threesome’s new album, “Burn Your Own Gasoline,” which came out earlier this year.

“Songs on the new album that define the record are the heavy rock ‘Easy For,’ the straight-up reggae 'For Some Account’ and straight-blues ‘Cleanest Hands,’” Deitke said.

“Then there’s ‘Hard Funk,’ which people have described as country-funk. With this record, I ran a lot of 12-string acoustic guitars through Marshall amps to get a weird guitar tone.”

Socially distanced audiences can expect to hear those C-Level tunes this weekend at the Grog Shop and Beachland Ballroom, which are part of a local “Save Our Stages” effort that finds local venues struggling to stay open during the pandemic.

While the novel coronavirus pandemic has devastated the concert industry, the other side of the coin includes musicians struggling to keep their crafts and sounds alive.

“Being a music teacher during the day, I feel like if you’re not doing it, it’s kind of a little bit inauthentic,” Deitke said. “As a musician, part of the goal was to have that place to open up for those people and to have a chance to prove yourself in some way. It’s like growing with some type of supportive attention.

“Without the venues, without having these places — Beachland, Grog Shop, Happy Dog, Mahall’s — it’s not pointless, but you really can’t support your talents and our friends’ talents.”

That’s why C-level is using its anniversary shows as fundraising benefits for the two iconic Cleveland venues.

“The Beachland and the Grog Shop have always been places we played,” Deitke said. “It’s been a goal to be able to share that stage that so many people we’ve been inspired by have played on.

“Hopefully one day we’ll open for them when stuff goes back to normal. Those venues are the pinnacle. They offer the most opportunity for local bands.”

Cleveland Magazine
C-Level Celebrates 10 Years With Two-Night Benefit Concert
The local rockers will welcome eight guests over two nights at the concert, which will raise funds for the Grog Shop and the Beachland Ballroom.

All things considered, Dave “Ziggy” Dietke is having a pretty great year. C-Level, his band with Cody Crose on bass and Pat Boland on drums, celebrated the successful release of Burn Your Own Gasoline in January, and followed that up with its first appearance at Brite Winter in February.

But 10 years into honing its sonic fusion of funk, blues, punk and reggae, it's no surprise the seasoned music scene vets have weathered the pandemic better than anyone. “When Cody came to me and said, ‘We’ve got to do something for our 10th anniversary,’ I was like, ‘We’ve been doing it for that long?’” says Dietke. “This last year, it’s really felt like things have started to turn around, and we’re just really excited we’re still going and that we’ve found the right group of homies to do it with.”

This weekend, the band celebrates its milestone with a special two-night event, including a Friday night show at the Grog Shop and a Saturday night show at Beachland Ballroom. Proceeds from the socially distanced concerts, which will include temperature checks and other precautions, will go directly to support the venues, which have both been affected by pandemic-related shutdowns. The band will be joined by The Quasi Kings, Wanayama, Lea Marra and the Dream Catchers, Mimi Arden, Old Souls, Furious George Hartwig, James Muschler, Jay Sparrow and Crazy Marvin, all of which have played a significant role in the band’s development over the years.

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Each show will feature four guest artists who will sit in with C-Level to play one of the band’s songs and one of the guest artists’ songs. Negative Space Art Gallery will also be doing pop-up art galleries at each show. A livestream will also be available on the Facebook event page. “Everything is going to the venue, except we’re going to throw some gas money to the homies who are coming out to play,” says Dietke. “Each person on the bill has done something for us or with us or has meant something to us along the way, so we want to share them with everyone who is now into us and do this whole celebration of the people we’ve known throughout the years.”

We talked to Dietke about what he’s learned over C-Level’s decade as a band, fostering a community in the music scene and more. Ticket Info: beachlandballroom.com; grogshop.com

Q: How did C-Level start as a band?
A: I’ve been playing with Cody since he was 12 and I was 15, and we met at an open mic night. I was playing up there, and Cody’s mom was working the bar, so she brought Cody up. I knew a drummer who wanted to start a project, but didn’t have any songs. I had all these songs, so we started playing my songs. Cody wasn’t even a bass player. He was using my bass. We went through, like, five drummers until we got to Pat, who’s been the guy for about four years now. But it just kind of clicked [between Cody and me].

Q: How has C-Level’s sound evolved over the years?
A: It’s definitely changed. It started out as funk-punk, reggae-rock, and it still is. But now I’m able to incorporate a lot of things that I wasn’t able to when we were always switching drummers. We were always catching a new drummer up to what we had written previously and not what we were writing. Now, we’re doing a lot more slide guitar on the 12-string acoustic in open tunings through Marshall amps. So style-wise, it hasn’t changed much, but guitar tone-wise, it’s become a lot more polished and experimental.

Q: As a music teacher for autistic children, a podcast host covering the local music scene and someone who runs the music program at Negative Space Art Gallery, you’ve given a lot back to the music scene. Why is it so important to you to give back to the scene?
A: Playing open mic nights and going on tour with the band State Radio really sold music for me. It completely changed what I wanted to do with my life. Our friend George Hartwick, who’s going to be playing with us this weekend at the Grog Shop, was hosting that open mic night where we met. He’s kind of like our sensei. He taught me how to play, and he’s responsible for bringing us together. Most musicians who extend those opportunities to others do that because it’s happened to them. So making sure that those opportunities exist for the next generation is a huge thing to me.Q: For someone who’s never been, what is it like to experience a live C-Level show?
A: I hope it’s energy. When I'm playing with Cody and Pat, there's just this madness energy that comes out in front of people that doesn't happen in the studio. That’s what we try to go for because that's what draws us to shows. If a band is really kicking in, you just pick up on that vibe and you're just like pumped up for no reason because you're thinking about rock ‘n’ roll. So hopefully that's the experience. And you’ll also get some guitar switchin’ and guitar chops that guitar players can appreciate and some handstands, maybe acrobatics that you can appreciate or make fun of. We’re just all about that positive rock ‘n’ roll energy. - Cleveland Magazine

For their latest album, C-Level kindles a fiery blend of funk, punk, blues and reggae.

On “Burn Your Own Gasoline,” the Cleveland genre-bending trio of Dave Deitke (vocals, guitar), Cody Crose (bass) and Pat Boland (drums) ignites a blazing sonic wildfire that’s quickly spreading along Ohio’s north coast and the Midwest. It’s the band’s first release since 2018’s “Rights” concept EP.



“It’s about burning your own gasoline, running off your own fuel and inspiration, and the driving force behind it. We’ve been hustling real hard to get better spots and other sounds and stuff together, and we’ve been running off our own ambitions,” said Deitke about the band’s fourth album, which dropped Friday.



C-Level’s sizzling nine-track album opens with a timeless blues cover, “Bac Bac Train,” originally recorded by Mississippi Fred McDowell and later reinterpreted by Aerosmith. It features a rousing combination of bluesy, vibrant guitars and pounding drums chugging back toward the station – “Way way down/Way way down/Way way down that lonesome road/Bac bac train/Bac bac train will take you home again.”



“That’s a traditional blues thing that Cody and I used to cover in a lot of renditions of the band. A lot of this record is getting stuff we’ve done down the way we wanted to have it,” said Deitke, who formed the band with Crose in 2010 and added Boland to the lineup three years ago.

Deitke, Crose and Boland also shine on the album’s melodic third track, “Wherever I Go,” which weaves tremolo guitars with delicate cymbal taps and pulsating drums into a heartfelt ode reminiscent of the John Butler Trio – “Leave a mark they can’t remove/Streets wear through souls and wear through shoes/Breathe in cold air/Exhale, find a trace of her there/Wherever I go, I hope you are there/And wherever I go, I hope you are there.”

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Another sultry track includes the funky reggae-inspired “For Some Account” with island-like guitars and deep, relaxing bass to transport listeners to a tropical getaway. A chorus of “oohs” beautifully backs this six-minute mental escape – “Know these words you speak are true/Cuz everything I see I like in you/Don’t turn it inside out/And leave me with no room to doubt/I know/For some account I know.”



“Burn Your Own Gasoline” album artwork by Gadi Zamir

Along with his bandmates, Deitke spent several months recording the nine tracks for “Burn Your Own Gasoline” at RCR Recording Studios in Solon, Ohio. Boland and Crose tracked drums and bass while Deitke recorded and tweaked the guitars and vocals separately during weekly studio sessions. These studio sessions allowed C-Level to transform longtime stage favorites into polished recorded versions.

“I’ve had a lot of these songs, and I heard them a certain way, and I wanted to get them recorded and put down in a certain way. Songs like, ‘Easy For’ and ‘Wherever I Go,’ Cody and I have played for a long time, but just because of the configuration of who was playing with us, they never felt right. We finally get those done in a way I’ve always heard them,” said Deitke, who’s inspired by B.B. King, John Lee Hooker, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jimi Hendrix.



C-Level also teamed up with Mimi Arden’s vocalist and guitarist Michelle Gaw for a groovy folk-rock cover of Devendra Banhardt’s track, “Lover,” from the 2008 rom com-drama “Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist.” The cover blends fuzzy guitars and steady drums and bongos with lush harmonies from Deitke and Gaw – “Well, I-I, I wanna be your man/I wanna make you understand/Because it works for you/Well I-I, I wanna be your cup/So I can fill you up/Because it works for you.”



“I ended up learning it for an ex-girlfriend, but I learned it all wrong, so it just became its own thing we would play a lot when Michelle Gall and I went on a tour to New York,” Deitke said. “We did four days and played seven shows, and she would sing that with me every night that we played, so it made sense to record it.”

In addition to the album’s striking nine tracks, “Burn Your Own Gasoline’s” cover art tells a captivating story. Created by Cleveland-based artist and owner of the Negative Space nonprofit art gallery, Gadi Zamir, “Shooting Words” reflects an Israeli man’s desire to pursue music instead of military duty.

“His whole motive was that he wanted to fight with his own means, which was making music. That’s why the album cover has a guy playing guitar and at the end of the guitar is a gun. The painting also has are all these words – ‘hope,’ ‘love’ and ‘inspiration’ – written on it,” Deitke said.

Zamir also will join a host of musical guests and visual artists during C-Level’s “Burn Your Own Gasoline” album release show tonight at Negative Space. The show will feature Lea Marra of Lea Marra and the Dream Catchers, Green Soul City Machine, Braxton Taylor of Sam Fox, Rubix Groove, Mike Miller of Vibe and Direct, and Charlie Wilson of Wanyama and Uncle Gnarly. Visual artists also will include Tessa Lebron and Nichole Whitney as well as live painting by Justin Roberts.

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“We’re going to do everything off it, and we’ve been playing a lot of those songs, and that’s become our sound for this record for the last few years we’ve been playing with Pat,” Deitke said. “We’re going to do some songs off the last one, and we’re going to have a couple of new songs we haven’t put out yet. We’re also including a lot of people who really inspired us along the way, and we wanted to share a night with them.”

After tonight’s release show, C-Level will tour the Midwest and East Coast, including a March 8 show at Arlene’s Grocery in New York City. The band also will record new material for their next project and collaborate with other Cleveland-based artists.

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We already have eight songs ready to go for a concept record of 12 songs. I’m all gung-ho, I’m a little manic, and I need something to do. I need to go in and track these songs and be done with them. We also have a lot of people sitting in with us, and we want to do some split singles with other bands,” Deitke said.

Lori Stratton
in Uncategorized January 18, 2020 - The Stratton Setlist