Jonathan Badger
“Aria 7″
Unsung Stories from Lilly’s Days as a Solar Astronaut

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Illustration: Kevin Durkin
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Animation: Eric Durkin
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The Brick City Sound Riot will be taking place this weekend at the Kilkenny Alehouse in Newark this Friday Saturday and Sunday. But this Saturday it will be ROCK N WRESTLING NIGHT! On Saturday, two fierce titans will settle a score the American way…with professional wrestling. The irresistible force will meet the immovable object when “Southern Spitfire” Bobby Blayze challenges “The South African Savage” Pupu for the Visine™ Heavyweight Championship.

Bobby Blayze knew that he wouldn’t be working on his dead Mama’s farm for the rest of his life, and two weeks ago he sold the farm for plane tickets to New Jersey to make his wrestling dreams come true. He’s a high-flyin’, red-blooded American spitfire babyface with a heart of gold, feet too fast to catch and a flyin’ forearm that’ll knock ya right into next Tuesday! And the ladies like him, too!

Pupu, the Cannibal from Cape Town, was captured by Sweet Daddy Longlegs, professional wrestling’s manager of the stars, from his jungle home along with a missionary by the name of Kaka, who acts as Pupu’s handler. Sweet Daddy put Pupu into the ring and let his savage nature come through, making him an undefeated, career-ending monster who hasn’t been stopped.

Will Bobby Blayze be able to conquer this ferocious monster? Will Pupu find a mate? Answers to these quesions and more will be revealed this Saturday night at the Brick City Sound Riot!

Video by Eric Durkin

“We are as delicate as the wings of a butterfly with AIDS. Anything could crush us. And until we all decide that art is the only thing that makes life livable, we’ll just be another instrumental five-piece from New Jersey. Emotionally and intellectually, I’m not sure if the rest of the band is there yet. But I am.”

That quote was attributed to Delicate Steve bandleader Steve Marion in a recent press release sent out by Luaka Bop Records. Only, he didn’t say it. He didn’t meet bandmate Mickey Sanchez at Hebrew school, either. And as far as Rob Scheuerman dating Gossip Girl‘s Blake Lively, Adam Pumilla living in Scotland to “explore his bass style,” or Mike Duncan’s bloodthirsty urge to fight a dog, these are all lies, too. Probably.

These are actually the words of professional pop culture geek Chuck Klosterman, who wrote Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs, Eating The Dinosaur and several other books about music and failure. He wrote a completely fictional bio of the band, and story behind it was covered much betterish by NPR, on Car Talk All Things Considered, but it is must-read.

The group just got back from a national tour with Akron/Family, which included several shows at SXSW, and ended with a wild show at The Stanhope House this past Friday. Steve also remixed a song by lady-rapper Dominique Young Unique(!), and the band will be playing the Our Band Could Be Your Life show on May 22nd at Bowery Ballroom, where they will be playing a set of Minutemen covers(!), along with the likes of Ted Leo, Dan Deacon, St. Vincent, Titus Andronicus and others. You can also see guitarist Christian Peslak at the Stanhope House on May 4th.

And duh, Rob Scheuerman didn’t date Blake Lively from Gossip Girl, he dated Hilary Duff, who appeared on Gossip Girl.

Check out Klosterman’s press release after the jump…

NEW BRUNSWICK, are you ready to get CULKED!?

On April 28th, ONLY THE LONELY will be staying HOME ALONE. Instead, you should be a PARTY MONSTER and come to THE MACAULAY CULKIN SHOW, a comedy and variety show hosted by Brian Macaulay and Brett Culkin! Keep the date SAVED!

Comedy has never been this MACAULAY!

RSVP here and message for address.

A new DIY comedy show is coming to New Brunswick’s The Woods on Thursday, April 28th. Brian Macaulay and Brett Culkin (aka MC Steinberg) welcome Jersey City’s Upset Triangle, whose show The Bear, The Cloud & God appeared all over the internet and internet-based television last year. They’ve also produced several television pilots, featuring the likes of The Office‘s Ellie Kemper and Kristen Schaal.

Also performing are several stand-up acts including Forrest Simmons, David Clarke, Griffin Newman, Angel Yau and the debuting Sally Burtnik, also known musically as Fairychaser or the girl whose Dad was in Styx.

Fuck Mountain in New Brunswick will be getting a treat next week when David Liebe Hart, the lovable(?) singing puppeteer and renaissance man from Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! graces the stage corner of the basement next Wednesday (April 6th).

Joining him will be the reunited We Are The Seahorses, fronted by Darren Mabee (aka “Beeeeaaaaannnnnsssss”), who has recently been romantically linked to comedian Charlyne Yi. They haven’t been around in a while due to the murders. Also performing: “fuzz poppers” Slow Animal, who have an album ready for download NOW, and sad “bathtub rapper” MC Steinberg, whose documentary Steinjive is streaming online NOW.

Marc Bluestein: Self Portrait

Armed with hair cutting scissors, pizza, and his digital SLR camera, Marc Bluestein proves that Chelsea is not just a place in New York, but a state of mind. Marc is a very good friend of mine, and I have been watching him grow as an artist over the past two years. His work has been showed in Philly and in New York. Currently Marc lives in Lindenwold NJ, which is right outside of Camden and Cherry Hill. His photography style is reminiscent of Andy Warhol’s short films, bordering the line between art photography and documentary style photography. Marc shows us the way he sees specific individuals, whether it’s in a positive or negative light.

I decided to turn the tables and interview him because normally he interviews his subjects before photographing them.

Let’s take a break from mourning over the loss of our favorite bands and crying/listening to Paul Baribeau this afternoon to recap last night.

New Jersey punks all gathered in their natural habitat last night at Asbury Lanes for Full of Fancy’s last crusade. Yes, crusade. I mean they entered the stage to theme of Indiana Jones- it was pretty triumphant.

Joel Allegretti, a long time writer from Fort Lee, New Jersey, was kind enough to sit down with me and let me ask him a few questions.  Joel is incredibly involved in the NJ literary scene. He’s a who’s-who kinda man.  He is a writer who is continually engaged within our metro community.  He believes that readings are essential to a writer’s success, and I couldn’t agree more.  Poetry is an art form that began as an oral institution, and it’s clear that Joel takes that pretty seriously.

The phrase “actions speak louder than words” is something both proven and challenged by 23 year old artist and humanoid from Watchung NJ, Danielle Lovallo. Her multi layered paintings offer a variety of color, textures, words, and actions. Her pieces also serve as an index to her process. Every piece created often goes through a period of experimentation, as she experiments with each piece Danielle will write notes on the canvas in regards to her process, how she feels about it, usually capturing emotions and momentary thoughts.

Beautiful (is Overrated and I want to be) Invisible 52″x72″

Normally, her paintings are often dark and chaotic with pessimistic titles such as Beautiful (Is Over Rated and I want to be) Invisible) in which the title of the piece is written over the painting it self but with invisible glow in the dark paint. Danielle’s action style paintings capture her physically aggressive and violent gestures. Wether it’s repeatedly scratching her nails into the canvas or stabbing an entire set of butcher knives into a wall, her actions speak just as loud as her words.

Eric Durkin and Kevin Durkin are two twin brothers from Roxbury, NJ that created the video you see above.

Eric is a digital filmmaker who has shot videos for the likes of Delicate Steve, Sparta Philharmonic, Rocky Votolato, and other artists, as well as documentaries for the McCreesh Skatepark Project and Philly’s underground bike scene.

Kevin is a graphic artist and the brains behind Irrelevant, a clothing line featuring his artwork. He has also designed ads for AIGA Philadelphia, and numerous bands around New Jersey and beyond. And move over Carl Sagan, he’s also working on a children’s book about the universe.

But now these two mega-powers of art and design have put their minds together for the first time since the womb. Currently they are working on a full-length documentary project about their lives. “Also, make sure to mention that Eric is a jerkoff,” Kevin added in a phone interview, “but I’m not so bad most of the time.”

EDIT: In reply to his brother’s allegations, Eric responded, “Kevin is a douche.”

Balance Hair Salon in Jersey City featured the work of 68-year-old Hoboken-based artist, David Huggins. The exhibition consisted of paintings based on his personal accounts of alien abductions. Whether or not you choose to believe his story is up to you, though personally I would like to believe him because of my fascination with UFO/alien phenomena. After speaking to Huggins for a few minutes and examining his artwork, I noticed that the content and stories behind the paintings seem to dominate over his artist techniques, so instead of speaking about the art itself you find yourself getting hung up on the typical alien questions.

Delicate Steve and friends – Butterfly from Eric Durkin on Vimeo

At the gorgeous Meatlocker venue in Montclair, Delicate Steve performed to a wild crowd of fans, friends and confused metal fans still around from the early show. Joined by Sparta Philharmonic, The French Kings and True Key, the band was celebrating the CD release of their record, Wondervisions, on the Luaka Bop label.

If you missed them here, you can catch them locally, at the Blockley Pourhouse in Philly and the Bowery Ballroom in New York, as part of their coast-to-coast tour of North America. Also, check out the video for “Butterfly” and their recent appearance on NPR’s World Cafe.

Michael Topley, drummer for Alien Father, has recently gone public with a hobby that’s been consuming a lot of his free time throughout the fall and winter.  He’s been using found lamp guts and shades and replacing the crapped-out bases with his own painted sculptures… creepy faces, mostly.

His first set of five (not including the first one he made for his gf Tiff around a year ago) are available for purchase via Etsy & fanhood is available via his new FB page.  Either way, check’m out… here’s how he describes the venture:

407 Mulberry hosted a large gathering of artists, musicians, friends, and good looking strangers for a night of drawing and dancing with DJ Space Jam, sadly no basketballs were involved. A series of tables were combined in a large row, scattered with art supplies and paper for everyone create sketches, doodles, and anything that was a form of self expression.

I’ve spent a lot of time and money at J.B. Kline’s New & Vintage Musical Instruments & Supplies but i’d never seen Jeff (J.B.) really perform outside of his 2nd-floor Lambertville music shop.   each time i’ve ascended the stairs — poker-faced about whether i had not a penny to spare or $2-grand in the bank & an itch for a new instrument — he’d usually be behind the shop’s desk stuck in some groove on his trusty Guild semi-hollow, which hangs separately from the instruments for sale just behind his seat (a guitar crafted in Hoboken in the mid-1960s… i’ve bought two Guilds of similar model/year from his shop).  other times he’d be trying out an instrument while listening to a customer haggling its worth… eyes to the ceiling searching for the fairest price on a unique hunk of wood he’d never feel again… playing something strange or fancy that’d probably be gone by the end of the week. always open to questions or conversation.  besides the custom drawn tags he’s got on nearly every instrument (with unique codes on the back that let him know, at least, who owns/ed it, how much he paid for it, and how much he’d like for it), the price can also be effected by how honestly and sincerely you answer the question “do you love it?” while you watch him play it one last time before it might leave the shop.

I’d also never seen him with his big white cowboy hat on, or with his white Telecaster. i’d certainly never seen him backed by a band.  as expected, they were seasoned professionals with as much of a heaping of white soul that you can fit into a narrow art gallery in Lambertville.  to say the least, i had a great time — a lot of that having to do with the fact that i’d never seen J.B. so happy, grinning, and completely in his element.

I am so glad to see a well curated art exhibition with the theme of science fiction, especially in good ol’ New Jersey. After finding a group consisting of 8 unique artists, curator of the Arts Guild New Jersey, Rachael Faillace, put together an exhibition that takes us into another dimension. Close Encounters was a blend of painting, sculpture, video, and photography. Science fiction has always been one of the most imaginative and forward thinking genres in films, writing, and other forms, so it’s no shock that artists like Madeleine Bliss, Liz Brown, Brian Scott Campbell, and Keary Rosen (my personal favorites out of the eight selected artists) are drawn to such a creative genre.

New Jersey based artist Madeleine Bliss, 24, showcased her cosmic space rocks, inspired from her grandfather’s rock collection and natural cosmic and geological phenomena. For Close Encounters Bliss puts together an installation showcasing her pieces in custom-made glass cubes, similar to the glass cases that protect crystals and moon rocks at the Museum of Natural History, giving this an authenticated feel. Most favorite of mine were her ceramic glow-in-the-dark rock specimens that came to life under a black light, replicating cosmic dusting. Along with the rock sculptures was a self-made fictitious Nova-style video all about space minerals and fictional planets, bringing this installation together into a full circle.

Actually starting on time for a change, the Meat Town show began with Sun Puddles, a nice preview of what was to come later in the night.

Next up was Shark Teeth, an interesting trio of dudes who were dressed in graphic t-shirts, including a nostalgic Lakewood Blue claws one. After the first song or so I started focusing on what they sounded like rather than what they looked like. Not necessarily the smoothest transition between bands, but not the worst either.