During its 40 years, the Akron Roundtable has invited hundreds of stars of business, law, outer space, literature, education and local politics to speak at its monthly functions. But for the speaker series’ big 4-0, it welcomed a bona fide homegrown rock star in the form of Black Keys drummer Patrick Carney, who talked with fellow famed Akronite and The Hard Way on Purpose author David Giffels on Monday night.
The friends spent an hour on stage at the John S. Knight Center in front of a packed ballroom of about 500 people recalling, among other things, their first meeting, prompted by Giffels purchasing a four-track recorder from the teen-aged, music-loving Carney.
“You were the hippest 16-year-old I’d ever met. You knew all the cool bands. All the old Akron bands,” Giffels said.
Carney offered some new perspectives, including his longtime obsession with Devo — a love shared by Giffels, who wrote Are We Not Men? We Are Devo!, a biography of the Akron band.
Carney also talked about the origins of the Black Keys and the band’s slow grind to the top of the rock heap. That led to a serious bout of stage fright and uneasiness with the band’s new fame after their platinum-selling, Grammy-winning album Brothers, which he partially attributed to his Akron roots, and the post-Grammy Twitter beef with pop star Justin Bieber and his legions of “Beliebers.”
Throughout the talk, the pair elicited laughs and applause from the crowd.
Carney got some laughs when he talked about the band losing its Northeast Ohio underdog status. “Success weirded me out. We’re supposed to come in second.”
“We’re so good at almost winning,” Giffels added, drawing more laughter.
“If the Indians win [the World Series], we all might want to build a bomb shelter. It’s just unsettling,” Carney said.
Through some fancy smartphone technology, the crowd was able to ask Carney and Giffels a few questions ,which included fun questions such as:
• “Swensons or Skyway?” (Answer: “Swensons all day but I‘m all about the Sky High,” Carney said.)
• “Every landlord in Highland Square tells potential renters you lived in their apartment building. Can you tell us where you actually lived?” (Answer: Carney said he briefly lived in an apartment on North Portage Path formerly occupied by Devo.)
Throughout the talk, Carney continually praised Akron.
“I haven’t lived here for like seven years, but I come back a couple times a year and every time I come back I’m impressed at how much different the city is than when I was young.”
Shortly before they took the stage, Carney and Giffels admitted they hadn’t done much planning for the evening.
“We talked for about an hour a few weeks ago. People want to hear … I don’t know what they want to hear, I think we’re just going to wing it,” Carney said.
Carney, who says he doesn’t generally enjoy public speaking, said he was enlisted for the Akron Roundtable by his parents, Mary Stormer and former Beacon Journal reporter Jim Carney.
“It’s cool to see people come out and support things like this. It’s always fun to come home, even if I’m just blowing through. I always want to support Akron. It’s my favorite city and it’s always good to see my friends who I don’t see enough,” Carney said.
The sold-out event also celebrated the Roundtable’s four decades of bringing a wide range of interesting speakers to Akron. The evening included dinner and remarks from Steven P. Schmidt, president of the Akron Roundtable board of directors, and former Deputy Mayor David Lieberth, author of the book The Akron Roundtable: Bringing the World to Akron for Forty Years.”
During the cocktail hour, guests mingled.
“I think it’s a community institution,” said Barbara Feld, former board president. “People tell me all the time, ‘Sometimes I don’t know the speaker but I always leave knowing more than what I knew when I came’ and that says it all to me. It’s a learning experience and people love to be informed about new things or to get a new perspective on things.”
Malcolm X Abram can be reached at mabram@thebeaconjournal.com or 330-996-3758. Read his blog, Sound Check Online, at www.ohio.com/blogs/sound-check, like him on Facebook at http://on.fb.me/1lNgxml and/or follow him on Twitter @malcolmabramABJ.