Cleveland’s C-Level has carved a niche in the city, blending the wayfaring spirit of jam bands with highly energetic live shows that leave an impression.
Blistering riffs, comedic stage antics and rhythmic shifts from reggae to punk to blues keep audiences on their toes and moving their feet to the beat.
At the core of this musical madness are guitarist and vocalist Dave “Ziggy” Deitke, bassist Coda Crose and drummer Pat Boland, whom they record with.
C-Level performed with drummer Jay Sparrow at the Idea Center for "Applause "Performances."
Crose and Deitke first began playing tunes together at a neighborhood bar in North Olmsted.
“My mom worked at a bar called the Phoenix, and she saw Dave playing at the open mic there,” Crose said. “She just told me, ‘This kid can play like Jimi Hendrix and you gotta meet him.’”
The two began jamming, starting with covers of Bad Brains and Hendrix, fueled by a mutual love for eclectic sounds.
“When we first started playing, that was like my dream—to just be in a band with Dave,” Crose said. “I remember there was a good couple years of our friendship where I was just afraid to ask him. And then I finally asked him, and he was like, ‘Yeah, why wouldn't we be in a band together?’”
While Crose imagined a band, Deitke had quietly been writing original songs. Sharing them, he said, was terrifying. One of the first was a track called “Stomp.”
“To put yourself out there is kind of scary,” Deitke said. “It was one of those things where it’s just kind of like, I’m doing this and maybe someone will think it’s cool.”
The open mic night where the two met was hosted by Parma guitarist George “Furious George” Hartwig, a figure who would become both mentor and friend.
For Deitke, seeing Hartwig work as a full-time musician opened a door of possibility.
“Just seeing someone like that and growing up being like, ‘OK, it's a possible thing. I can figure out how to make my life work and do music,’” Deitke said.
Hitting their stride during a difficult year
Since forming in 2011, C-Level has gone from house shows to music festivals, headlining events like Nelson Ledges Winter Thaw Bash and playing everywhere from Lakewood bars to Cleveland clubs.
Over time, the band embraced a philosophy borrowed from a friend and mentor: Honest self-expression is the path to good music.
That openness is woven into their sound, which now blends lap steel guitar, harmonica and an amplified acoustic 12-string alongside punk rhythms and reggae grooves.
As C-Level hit their stride, Deitke started interviewing bands during shows—often in the tour van.
He recorded those interviews and turned them into a podcast, “Zig at the Gig.”
"To have your hero be like, ‘Yeah, it's a cool song.’ Like, we’ve done it."Dave "Ziggy" Deitke
“When you’re at a show and trying to fill time, I would try to make the most of every moment we had. You get there, you wait. You get there, you wait,” Deitke said.
Instead of waiting around, he would pull the musicians C-Level played with aside to record podcast episodes.
“I would interview people in my van, we would get all sweaty and then we would miss soundcheck,” he said.
When the pandemic shuttered music venues in 2020, he started interviewing bands remotely and developed a more consistent schedule.
“That’s when the podcast kind of took off,” Crose said.
That same year, the band also turned livestreams into lifelines. Through a week of streamed shows, the first effort saved Negative Space, a nonprofit art gallery.
The organized live stream included Negative Space founder Gadi Zamir painting live during C-Level’s set, broadcast from the gallery.
That single benefit raised more than $5,000, which was enough to keep the gallery open throughout the year.
The band then celebrated its 10th anniversary with socially distant shows at the Grog Shop and Beachland Ballroom, donating 100 percent of ticket sales to the venues.
The sold-out concerts raised $4,000.
C-Level also organized a benefit to help Deitke’s 11-year-old student get a service dog.
The campaign brought together 20 bands over a week of hybrid shows, streamed from Beachland Ballroom and The Winchester.
The effort raised over $9,000, meeting its goal and helping other families through W.A.G.S. 4 Kids.
As a band, they’ve organized dozens of benefit shows, raising more than $22,000 to support local causes and keep Cleveland’s arts and culture alive.
Finding catharsis in a concept album
After years of live shows and benefit work, C-Level is now channeling personal loss into their most ambitious project yet: a concept album called “Scream Like You’re at Coltrane’s Funeral.”
The title nods to avant-garde saxophonist Albert Ayler’s emotional performance when John Coltrane passed — a moment that resonated deeply with the band.
“It was for John Coltrane’s funeral, and he’s playing, he rips the saxophone and screams a couple of times — the first time out of anguish and the second out of joy,” Deitke said.
That contrast between grief and joy became a metaphor for C-Level’s own experience of loss.
“We lost my grandpa, who was one of our biggest supporters, and then we lost Dave’s mom — another huge supporter — and then my grandma,” Crose said. “So, it was just kind of a period of a lot of loss.”
More than a decade after first playing and recording music together as C-Level, the band is slated to release this intricate and inspired album in the fall.
It will include a mix of music and poetry, with distinct chord progressions known as “Coltrane changes,” which some music scholars liken to having spiritual or magic significance — especially as they relate to the number three.
While C-Level is a trio at its core, their new album features collaborations with artists who have inspired the band.
A notable feature is Pete Francis of Dispatch, whom Deitke first met during an “Zig at the Gig” interview.
Deitke and Crose used to listen to Dispatch on the way to their early shows, so collaborating with Francis was a full-circle moment.
Francis appears on the album’s first single, “Long-Legged Fly.” He hit the stage for the first time since 2008 to play with C-Level at the Winchester in June.
“It’s like the ultimate joy of what we do coming back to us, knowing that the people that inspired us are ready to work with us,” Deitke said. “And to have your hero be like, ‘Yeah, it's a cool song.’ Like, we’ve done it. We’re done.”
