Chuck Wrenn on Richmond's Hippie Scene in the '70s

_Hey everybody! In this episode I’ll be interviewing Chuck Wrenn. Chuck Wrenn is
someone who had a heavy involvement in the Richmond music scene from the first
psychedelic dance in VA, all the way up to High on the Hog. He’s lived in
Richmond his whole life and has been part of some crazy scenes. I love Chuck.
I’ve known Chuck since I was born and he helped raise me, so this is a very
special interview to me. The music used is an improvised piece by Peter Lyon
Huff that he recorded in my basement for this interview._

Alright man, whatcha got in mind?

_You were telling me earlier that you used to explore abandoned buildings in
Richmond. Did you ever have an encounter with the police?_

My closest experience with old buildings and police was when there was an empty
building downtown -- not all the way downtown, but I guess around first street
I'd say. Foushees. It was a vacant building that had a stained glass window in
the side of it. And me and my brother and law at the time said, "I'd really like
to get that stained glass window, and I said "alright, we can go get that." We
took our tools, just hand tools to go in and pry that window out. While we were
in there working on the window, somebody called the cops. So the cops showed up
at the place. There was no way out. We couldn't get out. And the cops were
heading in the house, so he and I opened up the door and got behind the door up
against the wall and the cops came in with flashlights and looked all around and
walked out the room. We were right behind the damn open door up against the
wall. Boy that was one helluva a night.

*Yeah, what else happened that night?*

Just waited for the cops to leave. If they had a dog, we would've been shit.

*When was the first show you organized?*

The first big one... I started out doing that stuff in highschool. I had friends
in bands and I'd put on a show and advertise it around school and a couple
hundred people would come and we'd rent a place to put on a show. The first
really big one I did -- there used to be a ballroom called Tantilla Ballroom, it
was down on Broad St. It has a really long, great history. It was considered to
be the major ballroom in the South, it's torn down now. Me & a couple of buddies
rented this ballroom and put on the first psychedelic dance in the state of VA.
We rented a bunch of equipment to put the show on. We rented so much equipment
-- we sold the show out -- and rented so much equipment we lost money on it.
That was a big one. Gosh, since then, there's been countless shows. Up to "High
on the Hog." Now, I wasn't the only guy that did the "High on the Hog."

*Tell me about Woodstock. Did you have any role in organizing it?*

I didn't have anything to do with putting it on, but before that there was a
festival called Atlantic City Pop. A buddy of mine had a leather good store. And
he was gonna go out in a booth and sell the stuff that he'd made. It was a great
time. Saw a lot of great bands. We were just up there running his booth. But
while I was up there, I noticed a lot of people wearing tie-dye shirts and
people were selling them. Came back to Richmond and said, "we can do this at
Woodstock." So my wife and I and a couple of friends started tie-dying t-shirts
at our apartment. We tie-dyed a shit ton of them. We'd go out and buy big cases
of white Hane's t-shirts and come home and have a couple of pots on the stove.
And my wife and I (we were the only people that went up to Woodstock). We loaded
up all the t-shirts and went up to Woodstock. We got up there Thursday before
they closed the interstate and got within a mile from the stage. Fairly close at
the time. People were just coming in and parking on the side of the road, so if
you were there you weren't going anywhere. There wasn't no way you'd be getting
out. So we set up our little tie-dye shirt thing. I had some pipe and we opened
the doors and duct-taped the pipe and started hanging up the t-shirts. So we're
selling t-shirts up there. I had a big cooler of beer with me. It was going
great. Then people started coming by and a guy came by and said, "I'd really
like to get this shirt, but I don't have any money. Would you take some hash for
it?" I said, "yeah sure." So we're doing that. Now other people would come by,
"I don't have any mother either, but I like the shirt. Would you swap for some
acid?" And next thing I know, we've got pot, hash, acid -- along with the
t-shirts. So I set a sheet over the hood of the car and I started putting out
the stuff with prices that we'd swapped for. So now we're selling tie-dyed
t-shirts, pot, LSD. Hehehe! We never got to the stage until Sunday. We got there
on Thursday. But it was such a crazy scene. And then people were going "I'm
drinking this beer." I said "you got anmyore of that beer, you wanna sell some?"
They said, "okay!". So now I'm selling beer. Just crazy. Crazy shit.

*How'd you get to know Bruce Springsteen?*

Well, Bruce started coming to town -- first time I saw Bruce and his band was in
Monroe park and they came down and played free. No one had heard of them. They
were just kids from New Jersey. They came down in a beat-up old truck and
equipment and set up in Monroe park and played. I knew they were gonna be a big
deal, because even as kids -- I guess Bruce was like 18 -- and they were good
from the start. First time I ever saw them, I said "man, these guys are gonna be
_something_." And they were one of the first bands, maybe the first band, I ever
heard that mic'd all the amps through the PA. So instead of just having the amps
and playing at that volume, they put mics in front of the amps and put them into
the PA so you get this huge sound. They'd come to Richmond and they didn't have
a lot of places to play. They had Asbury park in NJ. Richmond got to be one of
the places that were real popular from them. They'd come down every month or
two, I guess, and play. I got to be friends with 'em and did a lot of posters
for the band and that kind of stuff -- just liked 'em. Bruce never stayed at my
house, but most of the band did. And at that time, my wife, my wife at that time
would make up a big spaghetti dinner and feed the band and they'd sleep on the
floor. We did that for a while. They got to where they didn't need to sleep on
my floor anymore. Ahehehe! Bruce used to come to my apartment and eat dinner and
stuff, but Bruce always pretty-much stayed to himself. He was not a party guy at
all. Didn't drink, didn't take any drugs, didn't smoke pot. The rest of the guys
were pretty much rollin', they were a rock 'n roll band.

*Speaking of pot, didn't you have a club called "The Health Club"?*

Yeah! Heh, T-H-C. It wasn't anything official, it was just some guys, friends of
mine. At that time we were into 10-speed bikes and we'd go out to the park early
in the morning and ride laps. We had another group called "The Bothers". Our
motto was "we do both". I drew a t-shirt that had a joint and a bottle of beer
walking down the street arm-and-arm. The beer was holding a joint, and the joint
was drinking holding a beer. The bothers, "we do both." All those apartments
around "Harrison St" and "Park Ave" were where a lot of kids lived. It was a
real social thing. You'd come over and knock on someone's door, "hey what's
happening?" smoke a joint. Everyone was just hanging out. Listening to records
and all that kind of stuff.

*Tell me about your drug experiences?*

Taken -- well, not every drug, but I've taken a lot of drugs. Not for any length
of time. Just for the experience.

*Are there any trips you remember distinctly?*

One experience -- I used to live on the corner of Harrison St and Grove Ave.
There was a 3-story building that burnt down, not there anymore. But I had an
apartment on the third floor; and I had taken some LS-- acid. Across the street
there was a laundromat that had a soft drink dispensing machine. I had decided
that I would like to have a Coke. Came downstairs, stood on the sidewalk. There
was a stoplight. I was waitinga nd nhe light would change and I'd step off a
couple of steps and the light would change back and I'd walk back. I could never
get across the street! Ended up just going back to my apartment. It was just
crazy shit like that. Funny stuff. It was all in good fun. Not anything at the
time about. Just everybody laughing.

*Where did the laughter go?*

That's what I'm wondering!

*What time was this?*

That was the late '60s. Then it got to a point where cocaine came on the scene,
and that was a whole different thing. That was awful.

*The '80s?*

Yeah, that would've been the disco time.

_Cocaine and disco."_

Not any fun. Neither one of them.

_When did you buy your house in Church Hill?_

I bought that house with my first wife in 1975. I was there 45 years and Hollie
was there with me for 25.

_You bought it when the area was completly different._

Trashed. Real dangerous to be up there. It was not a developed place like it is
today at all.

_Not a place to raise children._

Nah, I mean _dangerous_. I got shot twice when I was living up there. It was not
a good neighborhood. Most of the houses were just flop houses, crack houses.
When I bought my house, the upstairs of the house was uninhabitable, the
downstairs had pad-locks on every door and a heater in the middle and
mattresses. I took 15 mattresses out of that place when I bought it. Our
parents thought we were nuts to buy that house, that we were gonna be killed.
You walked in Libby park and there were just syringes and wine bottles and
liquor bottles laying around the trees. You couldn't go out at night.

_Speaking of which, you have two bullets in your body from being shot._

Yep, I told him that. I was in a robbery. I wasn't robbing, but I was being
robbed and ended up getting shot twice. Once in the side here, and once in my
but over here. I was obviously running. The guy shot me in the back.

_This was at your workshop, right?_

Yeah, I had a workshop that I rented with another guy. It was up on 33rd and
Marshall. I've been half-shot lots of times, but when you get really *shot*. It
burns. It's just hot. It's like someone hit you really hard with a paddle.
That's what it feels like. But it didn't do any real damage. I was in the
hospital five days. It wasn't anything life-threatening.

_There was a certain story I heard about you in Church Hill regarding your dog.
Tell the story, Chuck._

This was my first dog with my first wife, Mira, the dancer. We lived on Franklin
St. We had separated, so it was just me and the dog on Franlkin St and my wife
moved into another place. I was working in the restaurant business, as usual.
The dog was really old, and I had put a sheet and some plastic down in the
downstairs room. The dog was incontenent. Put the food bowl down. It was warm in
the summer, had a window fan in there for the dog. And I came back from work one
night and the dog had eaten dinner then laid down in front of the fan and died.
It was just there. So I was thinking, "what am I gonna do?" I wrapped the dog up
in the sheet and said, "I'll just have to deal with it in the morning." I went
upstairs and I couldn't sleep. I just couldn't sleep like that. I came back down
and put the dog in my van and got a shovel and put on my boots and went over to
the Libby Park overlook, which is where we used to always walk. And I dug a
significant grave for the dog at the overlook. There was a cop up there named
Mongo. Mongo was his name. He was a really good guy and friend of everybody on
Church Hill. Everybody knew him. It was back when the police had a beat. His
beat was our neighborhood. He'd go by and stop and help people take groceries in
the house and he was a good friend. So he pulled up and wanted to know what I
was doing. The dog was still wrapped up in the sheet in the truck and I'm
digging this grave.

He says, "what's going on?"

I told him tearfully and sentimentally, "my old dog died and I'm burying him. I
know I shouldn't be doing it [here], but this is a special place."

He said, "I'll let you go do that, no problem, but first I need to look at the
dog."

I opened up the truck and showed him the dog and pulled the blanket back and he
said, "go ahead."

I finished burying the dog and all that and the night was over. But it was
pretty damn funny. "I don't know what you're doing, but I need to look at the
dog."

_Make sure it's not a person._

Make sure it's not my wife! Yeah, that was pretty funny. Well it is now, but it
was rough then.

_Alright thanks for listening. In the next episode I'll be interviewing Gen Ken
Montgomery who ran the Generator Sound Art gallery in NYC.