Innocuous Ohio. Many might recognize the Buckeye State as a football nation, through and through – and you would not be wrong. I was seeing red in September on High Street, in the historic German Village, downtown, and at the famed Columbus Zoo.
But Columbus, and especially Cleveland, have a long history of rock ‘n’ roll mythos. Now home to the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame, Cleveland’s rock history is defined by DJ Alan Freed, who coined the term “rock and roll” and hosted the first rock concert in 1952. Columbus itself is home to The Newport Music Hall, the longest-running rock venue in America.
My partner and I made our pilgrimage to his hometown of Columbus to visit some old friends and make new ones, especially at the Sparks concert at the fairly new live music venue, Kemba! Live. Here’s all the geeky music nerd stuff we did along the way!
Little Rock, AR
Columbus is approximately a 3-day drive from Austin, TX. Luckily, my partner likes to drive, so the time flew by. Being music nerds, we had to stop at all the coolest historical music sites, record stores, and bookstores along the way.
Every Texan knows that getting out of Texas. Takes. FOREVER. It’s one of the main reasons many of us never leave!
Our first night was spent in Little Rock, AR, which took approximately 8 hours to reach from Austin. There’s not much from here to there, except a whole lot of trees and cows. But because of the lack of city lights, if you’re driving that direction at night, the moon can get really big and beautiful. I managed to capture some pretty good photos with my DSLR camera, all from the passenger seat.
Memphis, TN
Soulsville, U.S.A! Memphis (approximately 3 hours from Little Rock) is the first real city you get into once you leave Arkansas and just before you hit Nashville (approximately4 hours from Memphis.)
We hit two very different but excellent museums in Memphis, Stax Museum A.K.A. “Soulsville, U.S.A.”, and the birthplace of rock ‘n’ roll itself, Sun Studio & Museum. The museums are just a few minutes away from each other by car, and the city of Memphis itself is quite cozy and small. While Stax is located in a suburban area, Sun is in a more tourist-central area in town.
I highly recommend you visit both of these if you’re a soul and rock fan, of course. Other famous sites we didn’t get to see include the Rock ‘n’ Soul Museum, Elvis’s former home and now museum, Graceland, and the iconic Beale Street. If you’re looking for a good lunch, Flame Ramen – just a few minutes from Stax – serves some of the best food we’ve ever had!
Nashville, TN
On this particular trip, we didn’t get to make time for Music City, U.S.A. However, in 2022, we did come to Nashville to see Sparks for the first time!
If you’re a music nerd (and especially a country music nerd) in Nashville, you’ll surely be overwhelmed. Here’s what we got up to, based on our tastes: seeing a show at the Ryman Auditorium; checking out tons of cool guitars at Gibson Garage, an instrument and merchandise shop; strolling through the Johnny Cash museum and Ernest Tubb record store on Broadway — the famous music street in Nashville with all the bars and clubs. Broadway itself is about as overstimulating as a country-fried Times Square, so be prepared!
If we had time, we would have loved to have stopped by the flagship Third Man Records, Jack White’s record store and label HQ; the National Museum of African American Music on Broadway; as well as the Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum, complete with a tour of the legendary RCA recording studios. There’s also the Grand Ole Opry and Dollywood, if you still haven’t had enough country music history and theme park fun.
If you’re doing this trip in 3 days and resting for one night in Nashville, you may have to choose between spending your evening/morning in either Memphis or Nashville. Luckily, though, the longest and least exploratory part of the drive is done (Texas to Memphis), and it’s pretty smooth sailing from Tennessee into Kentucky and Ohio.
Louisville, KY
From Nashville to Louisville, it’s about 3 hours. Technically, you can skip downtown Louisville because it’s faster to take the highway that circles the city, but I wanted a photo with the big bat, located at the Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory. Known for its Bourbon and horse racing, Kentucky is beautiful, and Louisville seems like a cool city.
Columbus, OH
From Nashville to Columbus, it’s about a 7-hour drive. When we initially got to Columbus in the late evening, my partner drove around and showed me all his old haunts. I enjoyed exploring the city at night, but the next morning we went to the German Village for an early lunch, and that was one of my favorite parts of the whole trip!
The German Village
If you’re looking for a romantic lunch or dinner spot, there are tons of places in this historic area, including the renowned Katzinger’s Delicatessen and Schmidt’s Sausage House Restaurant. Schmidt’s has an incredible Sunday Buffet, and it made our whole trip!
The Book Loft in the German Village is my favorite place in all of Columbus. So beautiful and so big, we had to visit twice! Bookworms, be ready to spend a couple of hours in this lovely indie bookstore.
Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum
A small but fascinating museum located on The Ohio State University campus. Dedicated to all things cartoon, drawing, animation, and art. Definitely worth a stop to check out vintage Sunday cartoons and original Disney movie sketches alike. This library is free and open to the public, and houses the world’s largest collection of materials related to cartoons and comics. It also holds the largest collection of manga outside of Japan! If you’re a super fan, you can even schedule an appointment in the Reading Room to handle and read any of the over 2.5 million comics and artworks in the collection. Super fun!
During our visit, we ran into Red and Rover comic creator Brian Basset, who is having his work featured in the museum very soon.He was incredibly friendly and cool guy. Overall, this place will impress comic aficionados and casual fans alike!
Topiary Park & Columbus Metropolitan Library
The main branch of the Columbus Metropolitan Library and Topiary Park is a romantic activity for you and your significant other, or a fun, free thing to do with the family. This beautiful park features hedges designed to depict figures from Georges Seurat’s 1884 painting, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. It is the only park based entirely on a painting.
Natalie’s/I Like It Like That Speakeasy
Columbus is known as an important and central music town in the Midwest, thanks to legendary alternative college radio stations like WCSB 89.3 and venues like the historic Newport Music Hall. It’s safe to say, in this college town, there are plenty of places to see both established acts and cool local bands.
During our visit, we stopped by a friend’s favorite hangout, Natalie’s, and its attached speakeasy, I Like It Like That. We had some delicious pizza, and happened to be serenaded by Cbus legend Sgt. Peppercorn himself! (Sgt. Peppercorn’s Marathon is an annual live music event in Columbus, Ohio, where musician Joe Peppercorn and his band perform the entire catalog of The Beatles in over 13 hours. According to Wikipedia, the Sgt. Peppercorn band is the only known Beatles tribute band to play all 214 songs recorded by the group in chronological order in a single live concert, and the event has occurred every year since 2010.)
Pictured here is my partner, & Joe Peppercorn under the original Aardvark Video sign, an old-school Columbus video store, now long gone — but whose spirit lives on in the owner’s new enterprise here at Natalie’s.
High Street
Columbus’s High Street is their version of San Antonio’s St. Mary’s strip or Broadway areas, or Austin’s Red River/6th St., or Guadalupe areas. It’s near the University campus, which could be considered the city’s #1 attraction in and of itself. Thus, this strip has lots of bars, clubs, oddities shops, live music venues, and more.
Buckeye Donuts, a 24-hour pastry shop, is an institution and definitely worth a visit, with how affordable their delicious donuts are!
Catch a local Midwest emo band on the weekend or Punk Rock Karaoke on Monday at Spacebar; play some retro games at Old North Arcade; go crate-digging at long-time record store Magnolia Thunderpussy; or find some cool comics and manga at The Laughing Ogre. There’s no shortage of fun and quirky places on High Street!
Sparks @ KEMBA Live!
This was pop/rock duo Sparks’s first time in Columbus since the ‘80s! My partner and I bonded over this group, whose excellent 50+ year career influenced many popular glam rock, new wave, and indie rock groups since the 1970s. My partner’s long-time friend Mark Wyatt – who, along with his brother Matt, make up part of the legendary Cbus indie rock group Great Plains – was in the fan club in 1976, and this was his first time seeing them live. It was a blast!
This was my fifth time seeing them, and my partner’s sixth. Sparks’s new quirky synth-pop album, MAD!, is pretty great, much like a majority of all their albums. For more information, check out the unique documentary, The Sparks Brothers, directed by Edgar Wright, who’s known for films like Shaun of the Dead, Baby Driver, and Hot Fuzz.
Cleveland, OH
A trek from The Live Music Capital of the World (Austin), through Soulsville U.S.A. and the birthplace of Rock ‘n’ Roll (Memphis), and Country Music City (Nashville), is only perfectly topped off, of course, with a visit to the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame (in Cleveland, OH.) If you’re a classic rock geek and only have a day or so to spend in Cleveland, the Rock Hall was certainly an experience. Prepare for overstimulation. It felt like Disneyland for ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s rock nerds. We didn’t get to do much else in Cleveland, but we’re looking forward to exploring more of the city next time!
Overall, we had such a wonderful week and a half on the road. I hope our trip inspires you on your future music geek travels!
