Sat 6/21 @ 6:30PM
A lot of things impact why a band that seemed so promising and was setting their local market on fire ends up derailing — and most of them do. Usually, a mix of personal issues and career challenges unite to make the situation ultimately untenable, no matter how much talent is there.
One of the — briefly — hottest bands in northeast Ohio in the early/mid ’90s was Kent’s Dink, who adopted the electronic/industrial sound that was big at the time. They managed to catch the attention of a lot of influential people in the area, including at WMMS-FM, which played their song “Green Mind” to death. Sadly, that was their only standout song, and some bad management and label moves following their signing to Capitol Records alienated their local radio supporters and assured their Capitol album would flop. They were widely referred to locally as “Stink.”
But there was more. There always is. And that “more” is exposed in a new 82-minute documentary film called Gangrene: The DINK Documentary which, appropriately, is screening at the Kent Stage. It was made by Jorge Delarosa, who was a teenage fan in the mid 1990s when Dink was at its peak, but the idea to make a film came much later, around 2010. He was able to interview all the band members except vocalist Rob Lightbody (who said he wanted nothing more to do with them after the label persuaded them to fire him, and he’s stuck to that), including vocalist/guitarist/programmer Sean Carlin who passed away in 2023.
Get tickets to the screening here.