In addition to the WFMU supported 4th of July concert (link) the Feelies are playing two shows at Maxwell's on July 1st and 2nd. Thanks to the time sensitive email from Brian Turner I was able to buy a pair of tickets before they sold out, in I think an hour. In anticipation of all this fantasticness I post an edited excerpt of something I found on the internets a few months back: A 1985 documentary on 'The Hoboken Sound.' (link)
Johnny Thunders has been dead for 17 years now. Whoa. I had the opportunity to see Thunders live in a few different bands he was in, but my most vivid memory of him was actually less musically oriented, and more humor and food oriented, sorta. Flash back to Englander's; a club/pub/bar in Hillside NJ that held shows (The Smithereens concur that their first gig was there). It was October or November sometime in the early eighties. I could not find the date searching online & am not great at retaining exact dates so far back. Fill in your own if it makes you happy. Englander's was situated on a main street, and I was parked with friends
on that street somewhat down a hill from where the club was. We were early, and Thunders was notorious for playing late, if at all, so we were hanging out in the car probably smoking weed and listening to tunes. I was sitting in the front passenger seat, and lo & behold I see a person struggling with something at the top of the hill, close to where the bar was. It was an object that was fairly large - larger than a bastketball, and they were having trouble handling it - it was obvious it was heavy. There was just a sheen of ice/frost on the sidewalk, and I could see that was making it difficult for the person we now were watching - deal with this item.
A beautiful heiress with 5 houses is not the usual neighbor. And for the locals who grew up in her Hillsborough, NJ nabe, the reclusive Doris Duke was not exactly a household word, or at least while she was alive. But once the televised summation of her will hit the airwaves, everyone had a story to tell about the kooky rich babe who built multi-story access ramps for her many dogs to let themselves in and out of the rambling mansion. Doris Duke spent a certain amount of down time in rural NJ, when she wasn't jetting to her homes in Hawaii, Newport RI, sunny California and elsewhere. But unfortunately right now some of what is left of her NJ presence is quietly being ushered out, to ready her estate for its next big thing.
In 1925 when she was only 12 years old, Doris Duke inherited $80 million of a family fortune, the other half mostly going to her father's foundation and namesake, Duke University. Born in NYC she continued into her teenage years in a townhouse that is now home to the fine arts department of NYU. In between several unsuccessful marriages and the 'accidental' death of a date,
whom she pinned to a tree with a car in Newport, Doris Duke fell head over heels in love with horticulture and all of its leafy greatness. She designed many greenhouses on her Hillsborough property, recreating gardens she had seen in Europe and Asia. Duke opened these gardens to the public in 1964. These greenhouse display gardens are still open to the public, free of charge right now, but only until the 25th of May. After that they will be closed indefinitely while the Duke Farm steers a new path into the future. Housed in Victorian styled glass mansions, these gardens are meticulous in attention to age old detail, and lush in growing splendor. Even the desert scape is designed to make you feel a bit thirsty around the edges.
When I first visited the greenhouses, in the mid 90's, her aging Irish butler, Bernard, had inherited a chunk of Doris's estate after she died, and was still living on the property. As a result, the grounds were kept under mission-impossible style surveillance. Visitors parked in a small lot by the front gate and were driven to our destination in a unmarked van, blindfolded. Naaah, but it sounded good... Today the massive grounds are open to walking, bike tours and family events.
Besides her 2,700 acre NJ refuge, Doris kept herself busy with jazz piano, gospel choirs, high fashion and amassing a huge Asian and Islamic art collection, most of it housed at Shangri-la, in Hawaii. But some did end up in NJ, and a small Thai village is in half-erected storage on what used to be the indoor tennis court, right next to the pool. Unfortunately most of the furniture was sold off to add funds to her charitable foundations, so the house isn't quite a replica of her time, but a strange tour all the same. Photos prompt a bit of what life was like under Doris, but it is best to get the guides who are willing to share some of the gossip. When I toured Rough Point, Duke's Newport home, our tasteful confessor filled us in on the camels sleeping in the sun room during hurricanes and stories of the Saudi prince that she got them from, as a gift with the purchase of his private jet. And if all of this house touring just isn't enough, HBO just showed an imaginary what-if-this-was-how-it-was-movie called Bernard and Doris starring Susan Sarandon and Ray Fiennes as the out of the closet butler, and confidant .
Doris Duke surfed with Duke Kahanamoku, adopted a 35 year old Hare Krishna woman she met at a dance class - only to 'regret' it later, and stole into the Newport Jazz Festival to invite jazz greats to jam at her ocean side mansion. It's not nearly as impressive as having a NJ rest stop named after you, but Doris did have access to better fashion designers than Molly Pitcher.
Foxtons Realtors® list over 10,000 homes for sale each year across New Jersey and New York. These are but a few....
Previously on This Week On Foxton Realtors®
I'm jobless again. After two tumultuous years of working like a dog with canine compulsive disorder, the powers that be finally put me out of my misery. When the news came down friday, I stared bewildered into the teary eyes of the two that get paid to bring the pain. Only I had no lump in my throat, no waves of emotion. I was complimented that I was acting incredibly professionally at such a horrible moment. One friend, laughing at this story said "Hadn't they figured out how incredibly cold you are?" Actually, any one of my colleagues would tell you that I was incredibly hardworking and managed the worst of the worst of our clients with aplomb.
I had often remarked that this was the first job, after a lifetime of work (literally stretching back into childhood) where I truly enoyed the company of my co-workers. Prior to this gig, I had worked for 16 years for the most American of corporations, opting to take a severance out. Surrounded by my weeping Union brothers and sisters, I remember checking the clock dispassionately waiting for an opportune moment to walk out the side door without fanfare. For the next eight months I enjoyed, for the first time in years an incredibly happy, healthy and creative time. I just didn't have a job to go to.
I am by no means a lazy person. I live alone in NJ suburbia and wake up on any Saturday morning around 8AM. That's after waking up at 6AM and remembering it's the weekend. I don't have to get up to milk cows or feed babies, I simply put in my 40-50 hours a week. I manage a home with the usual bills, mortgage, and taxes and have even scraped up enough to have some savings in an IRA. I probably have a little more than most of my friends, who have their own struggles.
This year, more performers than ever - around forty WFMUers - will musically soil themselves for your pleasure beginning 7:30 PM, Sunday, March 9. From Bacharach to Hawkwind, Charlie Feathers to John Cougar and including both Zager AND Evans, you'll hear a range of musical genres sonically strangled for your strange pleasure.
*House Band:Foxtons Realtors® list over 10,000 homes for sale each year across New Jersey and New York. These are but a few.... Previously on This Week On Foxton Realtors®
Visitors to my home sometimes remark on the interesting objects I've gathered over the years. Unintentionally, I've amassed collections of - among other items - radios, lighters, flashlights, knives, paperweights, electric fans, etc. I'm not interested much in simply adding to these collections: what usually draws me in is the appreciation I feel for well-made items from America's long-gone manufacturing past.
Yes, a few of the previously-mentioned items were found on eBay. But the bulk came from flea markets. I've been trolling them since I was 9 or 10. A cheap family outing on a Sunday meant driving one town west to Copiague, visiting my grandmother and then heading to the Johnny All-Weather Drive-In Flea Market. The Johnny All-Weather (because it had an indoor theater, too) was - supposedly - the largest drive-in in the country, so you can imagine the size of the parking lot. I'd rummage up and down the rows, scrutinizing every folding table piled high with other people's junk in search of anything that took my fancy, sometimes something practical - a toolbox - more often something utterly without utility: a stuffed squirrel. It was all the same to me because it was all A) a bargain and B) to be pressed into service somehow.
The toolbox is long-gone, since replaced by other flea market tool boxes, but I still have the squirrel, nick-named "Mr. Nibbles" by a friend. By his mere presence he once convinced a real, live squirrel - who had fallen through a shoddy suspended ceiling into the front room of my crummy Hoboken railroad apartment - to jump out the window I opened for him.
But where will tomorrow's stuffed squirrels come from if the flea markets go away? One of my favorite, the Sixth Avenue flea market in Manhattan (it was actually several markets, stretching from 25th to 28th street, on both sides of the avenue) is long gone, replaced by condo towers. Now I hear my favorite (and nearest) flea market, the open-all-year Meadowlands Flea Market, might also become a victim of development.
Located in one of the parking lots for Giants Stadium, it's been rumored the flea market will go away when:
Xanadu, for those of you who haven't been eagerly following its history, is supposed to be an "entertainment destination", with an indoor ski slope, Formula One racetrack, the country's largest movie theater, a giant Ferris wheel, etc., etc. The project was to be completed by now but has been mired in controversy and shady business dealings. Whatever it ends up being (and the surest bet is "glorified mall"), Xanadu will certainly gobble up any available parking at the Meadowlands. Which is why you should start patronizing the Meadowlands Flea Market now. It's open Saturdays, 9 AM to roughly 2 PM, has an ATM machine and bathrooms and plays a nice selection of 50's, 60's and 70's oldies over the PA system.
On our most recent visit, this past Saturday, my wife and I picked up a nice metal bistro set (two chairs, a small, round table) for the backyard for $35 (bargained down from $40) and I replaced the small Swiss Army knife that disappeared from my keychain for $4. Here's some other temptations:
Continue reading "Flea Market Finds: An Endangered Species?" »
I’m a Giants fan, and all season I’ve been defending Eli Manning to a football-watchin’ friend of mine from Philadelphia. This has not always been easy for me. When you see some of the shots of Eli, mouth-breathing and vacant-eyed, he looks kind of like one of those special-needs kids who has to wear a helmet to keep from hurting himself. But the Giants are my team, and Eli is my quarterback, for better or for worse. I finally got tired of my friend giving me a hard time—especially after that game with Minnesota, with the 4 interceptions for 3 TDs—and I just told him, “Quarterbacks are for sissy teams!” Then the Giants started winning on the road.
Yesterday they won the Super Bowl.
Sluggo and I watched it at our friends' party, and half-way through we switched to SAP--even though none of us speaks Spanish--just so we wouldn't have to listen to stupid Joe Buck and stupider Troy Aikman kissing Tom Brady's pretty butt.
Here is a joke I made up this morning. Pretend I’m “B” (for Bronwyn) and you be “D” (for Douche of the Week Fox Sports Guy):
B: Knock knock!
D: Who’s there?
B: Tom Brady.
D: Tom Brady who?
B: EXACTLY!
Thanks for reading my blog post this time, and may God Bless the Mannings.
Granted, I'm no health care professional, nor do I even resemble one of those gratingly cutesy actresses that pass for one on television, but I'm calling the last 30 or so days as I see it: a pandemic! More to the point: a feverish puke, sweat and shit filled phlegm fest. I gratefully managed to avoid the norovirus which struck about 70% of the people I know who either live or work in New York City. Victims were vomiting curbside while hailing a taxicab only to shit their pants on the way home due to the total absence of free public restrooms in the greatest city on earth. Meanwhile in the outer 'burbs, strange sweaty outbreaks were randomly occurring in the population accompanied by dizziness, a slight cough and general fatigue. The symptoms would seem to dissapear, in reality only going into remission gathering steam for the big kahuna -- an ass-over-teakettle upper respiratory smackdown with complementary bronchitis and a suffocation of the sinus cavities making one ponder the possibility of having been quiescently teabagged by an epileptic bricklayer. After see-sawing in and out of illness for three weeks, I was finally prescribed Levaquin and promethazine with dextromethorphan syrup. Then I really got sick. Unbeknownst to this humble host organism, a detrimental colonization was ON...
Continue reading "Captain Kleenex and The Green Sputum Cowboy" »
Congratulations to the New York Giants: in a nail-biter, they beat the favored Green Bay Packers 23-20 in overtime to win the NFC Conference Championship. They now head to Glendale, Arizona to take on the undefeated New England Patriots in Super Bowl XXLII on Feb. 3.
The last time the GIants earned a trip to the Super Bowl it was Sunday, January 14, 2001 and I was on the sidelines for CBS Sports as a "utility" audio person. Years earlier I'd become a member of IBEW Local 1212, Radio and Television Broadcast Engineers Union, whose members work the Meadowlands for CBS. I had previously been called to join the crew for three or four late regular-season Giants games and - even though my employment was sporadic and the pay was good (around $40 an hour) - I dreaded the gigs. First, to state the utterly obvious, it's damn cold in Giants Stadium in late fall/early winter. That wind comes whipping through the Meadowlands and buddy, no amount of layering fends off the chill. Second, it's a long day, usually 14 or more hours on your feet, constantly moving, ducking and dodging players, team personnel, photographers, security people, etc. You probably don't get a sense of it, watching a game on TV, but there are more people standing on the sidelines of an NFL game than live in some of your more quaint midwestern towns. The job's also intensely physical, involving lots of lifting and toting of heavy objects and coiling up of long runs of cable (f you knew how much of the stuff is involved in putting a sporting event on the air you'd tell your kids to forget college and go into the wire and cable business). By the time I'd head for my car I'd be mentally and physically spent, barely able to navigate the few miles home and glad I didn't have a regular job to report to the next day.
Continue reading "Now It Can Be Told: I Failed Terry Bradshaw" »
I expect a heated discussion on this, seeing as how anyone who lives in New York City, urban North Jersey, or who is affiliated with WFMU will have an opinion on the topic at hand. For those of you who reside on faraway shores, "PATH" is short for Port Authority Trans-Hudson, and is a highly-trafficked means of rail transport between Manhattan and some of New Jersey's primary population centers. (Newark, Hoboken, and WFMU's home in Jersey City). Basically, it's like a cheaper, slower subway that smells like urine, coffee, and heat all at the same time. There's a lot of negative mythology associated with the PATH system, mostly promulgated by Brooklyn transplants who somehow think their accursed L and F trains are better than the PATH. (I have met others who actually think that the PATH is just that -- an underground dirt path that connects New York with suburban Jersey. Others claim that it is actually a long stagecoach, pulled by a mule who is chasing a carrot tied to a stick and dangled in front of its face. All lies, I tell you.)
The fact is that the PATH is pretty much a way of life for everyone at WFMU from DJs to office staffers to volunteers. I find myself defending it frequently to the misinformed haters who spread ridiculous falsehoods such as "the turnstiles only take dollar bills" (they take your Metrocard, dummy), "it stops running after 11 PM" (it runs all night -- on a schedule, I might add), or "that guy Teddy always hassles me" (he isn't hassling you, he just wants to collect money to supply the local homeless shelter with juice, milk, and bread.) When riding the PATH train, I always recommend that you sit in the frontmost car, as close to the window as possible, and looking straight ahead. Careening through the old tunnels and observing the architecture necessary to bore a passage underneath a river is pretty amazing, and it feels like a demented version of one of those Disneyworld rides where animatronic pirates or dead presidents light the way ahead.
For those of you not fortunate enough to regularly participate in this modern marvel of urban transportation, here is a rough breakdown of all thirteen PATH stations and what you might expect to find at each of them.
Continue reading "Hot Rails to Harrison -- A PATH Train Primer for 2008" »
Isn't it great that WFMU doesn't interrupt our programming (or our blog) for fundraising more than once per year like some of those other public radio stations? The main reason we don't need to is because many generous listeners and readers like you choose to help us out with a year-end donation.
To entice you, we're offering up some great new swag in exchange for your pledge: WFMU's first-ever winter scarf (right), as well as a limited-edition set of screen printed art posters, featuring classic cover designs from WFMU's old 'zine, LCD (with illustrations by Gary Panter, Joost Swarte, and Drew Friedman).
To re-up on karma points for the year, head on over to our pledge page, and drop a few (tax-deductible) coins on your favorite freeform station!
Ever since the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was passed, the FCC has been required to periodically review the country's broadcast ownership rules. For those who may not know, the 1996 Act was responsible for widespread media consolidation: as ownership regs were loosened, companies like Clear Channel and Infinity Broadcasting were allowed to purchase many more stations across the country (and were also allowed to own more than two stations in a single market). Most recently, the FCC's 2006-07 review of the media ownership landscape has been met with unprecedented outcry; citizens are not happy about the homogenization of their airwaves, and are serving the feds with tons of public testimony and mounds of comments, urging them to steer clear of further ownership deregulation.
Localism, dull/homogeneous programming, and concerns about the lack of station ownership by women and minorities appear to be at the crux the public's beef with broadcast radio and TV. These sentiments were reflected during the FCC's town hall meeting on media consolidation in NYC last year which I attended, and you can read the wrap-up on this post (as well as listen to the whole damned thing).
It would seem as though the teeming masses who are upset with the current state of radio are simply asking for more community-based broadcasters. There is space reserved for community radio on the low end of the dial, but in many areas, religious conglomerates and NPR affiliates outbid local community groups for non-commercial, educational spectrum. So now, even non-commercial frequencies are sounding more and more alike across the U.S. No wonder the people are angry.
How do we solve the larger, interrelated problems of media consolidation and crappy programming? How do we allow more voices to be heard on the non-commercial end of the dial, especially those who don't have the resources to purchase and manage a full-powered FM station? A loaded answer would be LPFM.
A name can be a very strong signifier of a quality of place. Travel outside these paved flatlands and whisper New Jersey to strangers and watch the nodding heads announce the onset of mental images floating to the top of their musky brew of stories, true and false, of the people who choose to brave the stereotypes and call this place home. I am one of those people and this is my story. Well actually I am not B&R (born and raised) which I need to come clean with immediately, because depending on which side of Hudson County you live, this is truly, truly significant info. Any interaction I had with Hoboken authorities, when I lived there in the nineties, would start out with a birthplace question. Today, in Jersey City, when anyone in our house calls 'Downtown' the city employee on the other side of the phone frequently sums up their response with, " Well, you weren't born here where you?"
But what if I could shift your perception of New Jersey in a short afternoon? What if it involved no magical powers and no transferring of large sums of cash? I had just such an alteration this weekend that I would encourage to everyone. I took a boat ride on the Hackensack River through the innards of the Meadowlands marshes and it was gorgeous!...and weird...but gorgeous. It is truly surreal to be quietly floating within miles of NYC, surrounded by placid water and waving marshes, while in the distance the NJ Turnpike whooshes by, leaving nearby snowy egrets unfazed and uninterested. 
The Meadowlands was once a 21,000-acre glacial lake, home to great woolly mammoths, much later followed by Lenape Native Americans and eventually Dutch settlers. The area seriously tanked, post World War II, when industrial debris initiated the process of filling in/destroying the salt marshes. The building of highways I-95 and I-80, along with mountains of illegal dumping gave the Meadowlands the stench inducing image made concrete in Woody Allen's Broadway Danny Rose, and countless NYPD tales of high profile bodies gone missing. Today the water is significantly cleaner than it was in the 1970's, in part due to grass roots organizations like Hackensack Riverkeeper, and their legal efforts to make polluters accountable for the destruction. Unfortunately many of the toxic chemicals have not been permanently eradicated, merely temporarily plowed over until money can be found to do more lasting and costly clean-ups. But don't tell that to the nearly 300 bird species that have been seen enjoying the floating views of NYC, framed by fiddler crabs, marsh grasses, and long forgotten industrial sites. You can rent canoes and kayaks from April to October through Hackensack Riverkeeper, or spring for a boat tour of the marshes with captains Bill or Hugh. The crowd is not exactly Loisaida on a Saturday night, but you could always book an entire pontoon boat with a group of fifteen friends, pack your Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches, sunscreen, and a Pabst Blue Ribbon, and feel the open natural space, Great Blue Herons and abandoned moth ball factory vibe.
Further reading:
The Meadowlands by Robert Sullivan: information and character filled read on the Walden Pond of northern NJ
THE HARRY SANDS ORCHESTRA - JOSEPH & ELIZABETH"S WEDDING (live)
The bulk of this material was recorded live at a wedding reception somewhere in Northern New Jersey, sometime in the mid-1980s. The band hired for the occasion was the Harry Sands Orchestra, Mr. Sands being the drummer, lead vocalist, and MC. The other players are unknown.
This tape succeeds and enlightens on a number of levels. For one thing, it does take you right there, to a real New Jersey wedding reception, giving you every important element, from the intro of the bride and groom through the 'Hokey Pokey' (and Sands' brilliant 'everybody coicle, make a grea-big coicle'), right down to the signoff and the band actually congratulating itself on a job well done! Also, it gloriously allows Mr. Sands to reveal his full credentials as an musical 'outsider', both behind the drum kit and on the microphone. It also includes everything that give wedding bands a bad name: the corny (and demeaning) patter, the complete lack of real groove and taste, the horns blaring continuously over and through vocals, the rhythm section guys throwing needless jazz quotes in whenever possible, the hideous quality of the vocals themselves, the botched-up lyrics (especially Sands, who sounds like he is near seizure in trying to remember some of the words), and much more.
There are two remarkable elements to think about here. One is that, out of all the great bands available in this part of the country, these people chose and elected to hire Harry Sands of their own free will, and no doubt pay him a princely sum. They certainly had access to quality bands, and could preview them easily via their gigs, live showcases, or video, but this is the direction they chose. And, sadly, it points up the fact that if you get enough drinks into anybody, the quality of the entertainment becomes less important, as witnessed by the fact that, despite the music, it seems as if a good time was had by all. Now, you can have the same good time that the attendees of Joseph and Elizabeth's Wedding had, only in a slightly different way.
Continue reading "365 Days #237 - Nuptials In New Jersey! (mp3s)" »
It's time once again for Live Catch, your weekly guide to musical happenings in the New York and New Jersey area. There are plenty of potentially great shows to check out this week and since it's still summertime, at least a couple of them won't cost you a dime.
The first free event happens tonight around midnight at the midtown Apple Store: a DJ set from baile funk enthusiast and Hollertronix/Mad Decent honcho Diplo, an associate of both M.I.A. and Bonde Do Role. Also tonight, experimental guitarists Loren Connors and
Geoff Mullen perform in the Issue Project Room's new space at 3rd Street and 3rd
Avenue in Brooklyn. And at The Hook, you can catch legends The Mighty Hannibal and Young Jessie with DJ sets from FMU's own Dave The Spazz and Mr. Finewine.
This weekend, New Orleans' annual Ponderosa Stomp festival travels to the area with a lineup that includes soul legends Tami Lynn and Bobby Patterson, rockabilly pioneers
Tommy McLain (backed by Yo La Tengo) and Ray Sharpe, and the inimitable Roy Head. You can see the show on Saturday night at Maxwell's in Hoboken or for free on Sunday
afternoon at McCarren Park Pool with DJ sets from FMU's Dave The Spazz and Rex.
The one and only Os Mutantes are back in town on Tuesday night for a show at Lincoln Center's Rose Theater. Instrumental hip-hop artist Flying Lotus, who sounds a bit like J Dilla or Madlib, also plays on Tuesday night at Cake Shop.
On Wednesday night, Kompakt recording artist The Field plays his first New York live show at Studio B.
And on Thursday night Carlos Giffoni, Alan Licht, and Yasunao Tone will perform together at The Stone.
For comprehensive listings, check out our regularly updated Arbitrary Guide To Popular Culture.
Welcome back to Live Catch, Beware Of The Blog's weekly guide to live music events in WFMU's New York/New Jersey broadcast area. No MP3s this week, just a handy guide to this weekend's cornucopia of great free shows plus quick mentions of a few truly iconic artists who just happen to be playing in the area over the next seven days. First, the free shows...
On Saturday, the great Ghostface Killah headlines the Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival at the Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park under the Brooklyn Bridge. Register here for tickets. If that's not your cup of tea, you can check out an afternoon set by spastic post-punk rockers Ex-Models over at the East River Ampitheater. Last but certainly not least, the summer concert series at McCarren Pool launches on Sunday with performances by +/-, Oakley Hall, and Superchunk. In addition to the headliners' obvious WFMU connection, our own Todd-O-Phonic Todd will be DJing all afternoon.
Somehow Greenpoint's Club Europa has managed to book two absolutely legendary bands in the same week. French prog-rock innovators Magma play on Saturday night and heavy psych kings Hawkwind will be at the venue on Monday. Finally, Glenn Mercer of the Feelies plays at Maxwell's in Hoboken on Saturday night. Glenn and his band (which features fellow ex-Feelies Dave Weckerman and Vinny DeNunzio) stopped by Joe Belock's show this week to play some Feelies classics along with tracks from his new solo album Wheels In Motion.
Listen: Glenn Mercer - Live On WFMU (RealAudio)
For comprehensive listings, check out our continually-updated Arbitrary Guide To Pop Culture.
JFK - Inna inner Amen, 198? (2 .zip archives, download part 1 and part 2, total size 104MB)
The JFK cassette is another Sound of Pig release (SOP 137) that has always been a favorite. Who were JFK? All we have here are the name "Frank" and a Surrey, UK contact address. Seems the culprit was one Anthony DiFranco, sometime Skullflower bassist, who also released the "Sexodus" 7" under the name JFK in 1992. The sounds on this cassette are indeed similar to the projects Ramleh and Total, both Skullflower-related. Heavy guitar noise, drum machine, loops, vocals—everything run through impossible amounts of reverb and delay—with songs that hammer woozily on to the horizon. (Note: the red pen dots on the full insert are my own markings indicating which songs were favorites to be played on-air.)
Joe Band - The Chocolate Undertow, 1986-7 (2 .zip archives, download part 1 and part 2, total size 97MB)
The Joe Band were a post-punk, psychedelic, minimalist basement-pop trio from Hopelawn, NJ. If that seems like a lot of adjectives, so be it. Luke R. Kostu, Eddie Sparks and Kathy Grieb played a variety of instruments, though most songs are dominated by vocals, bass, drums and chintzy keyboard. Their Ralph Records-ish quickie pop tunes, skewed covers and C.A. Quintet-style psych jams were all somehow rendered through a filter that was pure Jersey. I also had the Joe Band play live on the air once, though that tape has yet to surface. (As with JFK above, the red pen marks indicate my favorite tracks at the time; "King of Spines" and "Mike is Cooler Than Tim," both from side 2, remain personal favorites.)
Here's a shot of WFMU's post-apocalyptic homebase of Jersey City. This blood-red sunrise photo was taken during a recent drive over the Pulaski Skyway shortly before 6 AM, while listening to the sinister conclusion of Mita's show.
In particular, her closing track ("Vampire Radio" by Douglas Breggar) [Streaming Real Audio] left me with a palpable sense of creeped-outed-ness, even as it gave way to the familiar strains of the JM in the AM theme.
Previous Jersey City-centric ramblings on this blog can be found here.
Here's a nice shot of the western approach to WFMU's homebase of Jersey City, if one happened to be driving through the exit 14C toll plaza of the NJ Turnpike. I can't remember the details of when or why this picture was taken, but I just found it lurking in the nether regions of my computer and thought it might add to the visual conjurings of this place for far-away listeners. (If they've got any, that is.)
And to further set your imagination alight, here's Bobby Long's fantastic and classic ode to our hometown. [Stream Real Audio]. Happy weekend, all.
MP3:
Zeb Scott - You've Got The Style, Girl (2:07)
Zeb Scott - Ever Since This Morning (2:06)
Zeb Scott - Big Dipper, Little Dipper (2:12)
Formerly an employee at a bubble-wrap manufacturer in NJ, Richard Zebulon Scott wrote, sang, and played every instrument on these compelling gems. "You've Got The Style" sets the tone, with Zeb's propensity for rhyming a word with itself at the end of a phrase to the fore. On "Ever Since", his far-reaching rhythmic concept is displayed (dig the 5/8 bar going into the second verse!). "Big Dipper" shows his wistful and vulnerable side. Through it all, the lyrics reign supreme: "But we're movin' on, can't you see, girl, in the world we live in today"; "Ever since this morning, I fell in love with you right now"; "Big dipper, little dipper, among the constellations of today". Zeb Scott is one of the true unsung giants of the 'New Jersey Locals'.
- Contributed by: Hoppy Stone
Media: Cassette
There's me and a kid at the end of my driveway: 8:30am, April 16th, the moment we realized we now live on an island. And there's the view north. Jump the flip for a little more Central Jersey Stormporn.
I had the worst flooding ever in my house today. Three pumps running non-stop and I still couldn't keepo the water out. I was lucky enough to rescue my bottom layer of vinyl and CDs though. But others in Hoboken had it a lot worse. There was a huge fire at 3rd and Clinton, flooding 4-5 feet deep in spots, and to top it all off, a mudslide on Sinatra Drive. Some pics courtesy of Hoboken411:
Can't wait to see what I find in the basement of WFMU Monday morning...
(Photo on left by Jilliecuse, photo on right by becksinthecity)
