Leonard Francis Coogan

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.

Chuck Wrenn

Alright man, whatcha got in mind?

Leonard Francis Coogan

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

Chuck Wrenn

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.

Leonard Francis Coogan

Yeah, what else happened that night?

Chuck Wrenn

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

Leonard Francis Coogan

When was the first show you organized?

Chuck Wrenn

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.”

Leonard Francis Coogan

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

Chuck Wrenn

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.

Leonard Francis Coogan

How’d you get to know Bruce Springsteen?

Chuck Wrenn

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.

Leonard Francis Coogan

Speaking of pot, didn’t you have a club called “The Health Club”?

Chuck Wrenn

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.

Leonard Francis Coogan

Tell me about your drug experiences?

Chuck Wrenn

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

Leonard Francis Coogan

Are there any trips you remember distinctly?

Chuck Wrenn

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.

Leonard Francis Coogan

Where did the laughter go?

Chuck Wrenn

That’s what I’m wondering!

Leonard Francis Coogan

What time was this?

Chuck Wrenn

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.

Leonard Francis Coogan

The ’80s?

Chuck Wrenn

Yeah, that would’ve been the disco time.

Leonard Francis Coogan

Cocaine and disco.”

Chuck Wrenn

Not any fun. Neither one of them.

Leonard Francis Coogan

When did you buy your house in Church Hill?

Chuck Wrenn

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

Leonard Francis Coogan

You bought it when the area was completly different.

Chuck Wrenn

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

Leonard Francis Coogan

Not a place to raise children.

Chuck Wrenn

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.

Leonard Francis Coogan

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

Chuck Wrenn

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.

Leonard Francis Coogan

This was at your workshop, right?

Chuck Wrenn

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.

Leonard Francis Coogan

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

Chuck Wrenn

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.”

Leonard Francis Coogan

Make sure it’s not a person.

Chuck Wrenn

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

Leonard Francis Coogan

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

Last modified on 2024-03-10