The Jockey Club in Newport Kentucky was really one of the best punk clubs in the entire midwest. Punks regularly came from mid-Ohio, Kentucky, & Indiana to catch a glimpse of their favorite touring bands. It was the foundation of the Cincinnati hardcore scene; and if you ever went there in the 80s, your life was changed forever. You were no longer one of “them”. You were officially punk.

When I went back to Cincinnati for the Sluggo reunion in 2010, I managed to scan a handful of Jockey Club flyers and photos to add to the smattering of images I’ve kept or found online. A great many of these shows I was lucky enough to attend. There are a few I greatly regret passing on.

Many of the people pictured here were (or are still) my friends, others I just knew by face. There were so few people into this music in the midwest in the early 80s, you kinda knew everybody. If you saw an unfamiliar punk on the street, or at school, or sitting in the back of a crosstown bus, you were almost compelled to introduce yourself – just to find out who they were, who their favorite band was, and how the hell they had gone unnoticed thus far. It was a small scene, but we banded together, and made the most of it.

My intention is for this blog post to serve as a permanent archive of all things Jockey Club. I claim no ownership for any of the photos. Unfortunately, most images that I’ve collected from the web are fairly low resolution. If you have any images to contribute, I’ll take whatever you got – bigger the better. If you see something of yours you want taken down, please let me know.

“Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you got til it’s gone…”
- Joni Mitchell