Chi-Pig

• Formed: 1978, Akron, OH
• Disbanded: 1980, Akron, OH
• Genres: Rock
• Representative Albums: "Miami

Biography

Chi-Pig was an Akron, OH-based new wave power trio consisting of guitarist and keyboard player Susan Schmidt, bassist Deborah Smith, and drummer Richard Roberts. Schmidt and Smith were already longtime mainstays of the Cleveland/Akron scene, having participated in the teen all-girl group the Poor Girls from the late '60s. In the mid-'70s they played in the Peter Laughner-led groups Cinderella's Revenge and Friction. Not long after Laughner died, Schmidt and Smith founded Chi-Pig, naming themselves after a local barbecue and rib joint. They performed in matching outfits modeled on the garb worn by 1940s Latin-American entertainers, but their music was in no way "Latin" and had no relation whatsoever to disco. Chi-Pig's music consisted of informed, literate, and exceedingly well-written pop songs that addressed the concerns of women living in a consumer society, with a dash of humor added for good measure. Schmidt and Smith's many long years of experience playing in various Cleveland and Akron groups paid off in the tight precision of their music-making; Deborah Smith deserves singling out as being an exceptionally able and imaginative bass player.

Both major and minor labels were swarming around Akron in the late '70s, picking up Devo and Tin Huey in the process. Despite self-producing an excellent single, "Bountiful Living"/"Ring Around the Collar," and recording a full-length album with producer Bruce Hensal in 1979, the band never managed to land a record deal. Chi-Pig hung on until about 1982, but ultimately tired of playing bars and decided to call it a day, and thus the album was scrapped. By that time, female-led groups that had developed a style similar to that of Chi-Pig were just starting to break out -- for example, the Go-Go's and the Pretenders, featuring Chrissie Hynde, who as an Akron teenager had been an avid fan of the Poor Girls.

In 2004, 25 years after it was recorded, Chi-Pig's abandoned album, Miami, was dusted off and released. This is tremendously good news, as Chi-Pig truly was a pioneering and innovative band whose music stands exactly midway between the producer-driven 1960s heritage of girl groups such as the Shangri-Las and the more self-directed female groups of the 1980s. The emergence of Miami likewise helps to fill a major historical gap in listeners' knowledge of the extraordinary northern Ohio scene of the 1970s, which also brought listeners Devo and Pere Ubu -- the first fruits of so-called "modern" rock. ~ Uncle Dave Lewis, All Music Guide

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