Cleveland musicians band together to fill gaps in the home of rock and roll

In the birthplace of rock n roll, a local nonprofit is helping indie musicians learn from each other, fine-tune their brands and build success on their own terms, DIY-style.

This week Cleveland Rocks: PPF, the nonprofit founded in 2012 by Cindy Barber of the Beachland Ballroom, hosted one of its regular workshops. The workshop, “Building It Yourself: DIY Organizing, Underrepresented Voices, and What Comes Next,” featured three local entertainment organizers sharing personal stories. They spoke about their successes and failures and their do-it-yourself way of putting on music festivals and other large events.    

“Cleveland is known internationally as a music city,” explained Maura Rogers, programming/operations director for Cleveland: PPF. “But … it was lacking crucial music industry infrastructure. It was lacking professional artist services and audience development.”

Cleveland: PPF also offers showcases, incubators and other artist development programs all based on a 2023 survey asking artists what support they needed, Rogers said. Local artists are hungry for the offerings. 

“When I saw what was going on, I moved my work schedule to get here,” said Joe Rangel, a musician who is also interested in organizing small-scale events.

Industry workshop series

Robin “Hyperius” Blake, an event organizer, curated this week’s panel. About 30 Cleveland-area musicians turned out to The Sixty6 on Euclid Avenue to hear from local music industry professionals.

“This is stuff you can’t look up on the internet,” Blake said. “This is stuff you can’t, like, get on social media. This is from the horse’s mouth. We learned from experience and, you know, came up out of the dirt.”

Incubator program

Cleveland Rocks: PPF has a host of other services and big plans for 2027. The organization’s music incubator program selects artists through project proposals and builds a team around them to help support their work. Selected artists can receive loans for up to $2,000.   

“Artists present submissions based on projects that they feel will help their musical career move forward,” explained Rogers. 

Selected artists are then paired with a “connector,” a person with experience in the music community willing to make  networking connections for musicians. “It is a valuable tool for any motion forward,” said Rogers. “Networking with people can connect you to better recording experiences, better booking and gigging experiences.”

Alonzo Johnson is an artist currently in the music incubator program as a singer, songwriter and pianist for the band Fox Ears. Blake is his connector. 

“Connecting with [artists] on a different kind of focus level has been great,” said Johnson. “The monetary support has been super helpful just to continue pushing what we’re doing forward. The support from Robin [Blake] and just the communication, small things.”

Waterloo Makes Music showcase

Cleveland Rocks: PPF uses the free monthly Waterloo Makes Music showcase, hosted at various venues in the arts district, to provide musicians with opportunities to perform live for in-person as well as online audiences. The performances are streamed online. 

“Online engagement is a huge part of music audience development, and so those are things that we are constantly working to bring to the musicians that we serve,” Rogers said.

Incubator space coming to Waterloo in 2027

Cleveland Rocks: PPF’s next major project is the Northeast Ohio Music Arts Development hub, or NOMAD, a physical space expected to open in Collinwood’s Waterloo Arts District in 2027. 

“It’s bringing music creatives, audio creatives, and film creatives all together under one roof,” explained Rogers, “and the focus is to capture and document what Northeast Ohio bands are doing and give them what they need to promote themselves beyond Cleveland [like] high quality recordings and videos.”

“We are getting there,” said Blake on Cleveland’s music business infrastructure. “We have talent, We each got to focus our energy and come together.”