WKSU: The Ohio Histairical Musick Society

Everything about Jimi Imij is homemade. The T-shirt he's wearing -- he printed it himself with the logo for a local punk band.

His arms are decorated with homemade tattoos. The ring in his nose -- probably homemade. Even his name is a clever self-creation. Jimi Imij: first name spelled J-I-M-I; last name spelled I-M-I-J.

	So it should come as no surprise that when this veteran of the local music scene decided to create a formal archive of Northeast Ohio underground and independent rock music, he brought his timeworn, do-it-yourself sensibility. It's the punk rock way, after all. Imij is the founder of The Ohio Hystairical Musick Society, which started with his private collection and has grown to include an exhaustive web site, a series of CD's -- homemade, of course -- and a wide-ranging assortment of memorabilia from Akron and Kent-area rock bands. There are fliers, photographs, buttons, and videos, focusing mainly on the years 1975 to 1985. His partner in this project is Karen Kilroy, another veteran of the days when bands like Devo, the Rubber City Rebels, Tin Huey, Hammer Damage and Chi Pig were not yet legends, but heroes in their midst.

Commentary

Commentary by David Giffels, an award-winning journalist with the Akron Beacon Journal and an
on-going WKSU commentator.

listen (real audio) | listen (windows media) | transcript (word doc)

Songs

1. "Kidnapped" -- Rubber City Rebels
listen (real audio) | listen (windows media)

2. "Once They Get To..." -- Chi Pig
listen (real audio) | listen (windows media)

3. "Cincinnati Stomp" -- Teachers Pet
listen (real audio) | listen (windows media)

To learn more about the Ohio Histairical Musick Society, visit http://ohms.nu.