Four-piece band The Axis Y playing The Electric Banana for the first time. (Courtesy of John Hargnett)
In their 2006 song “Pittsburgh,” college rock band They Might Be Giants sang, “I still have dreams about a place / called The Electric Banana, where we’re falling into space.”
The tiny club they’re talking about had a big reputation. After starting their business as a dance club in the 1970s, the Electric Banana’s owners, couple Johnny and Judy Zarra, aka Johnny and Judy Banana, pivoted toward the burgeoning punk scene in 1979. What occurred over the next two decades is the stuff of legend for scene kids and punks of the era…