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…

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.

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.

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.

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.

Psssst. Hit the 720p button. Shit sounds better, son!

So I guess this was kind of a JOYdropper show, perhaps the first of its kind, although I have to give it up to Nneka and Tom for making 97% of the magic happen. In a special kind of way it just felt like a Saturday night at Meat Town, and in a more real, and techical way, it was.

I could wax poetic about how great this show was, but I shot a bunch of snazzy video, so you can just scroll down and pretend you were there. You’ll need a girl in crutches telling you about how some dude fell on her or some shit for the full experience.

I almost forgot it was the middle of winter when Dry Feet came on wearing snorkeling gear and swim attire. Just kidding. The surf rock band is from a mystical land called “Philadelphia Beach” but they had me fooled into thinking they were some beach band straight out of California. Not kidding that time. Nevertheless, the “half instrumental, half not” band is worth checking out on Myspace.

This was only the beginning to what would be one of Meat Town’s more exceptional events.

Sparkle Shit killed it. No, they didn’t just kill it; they slaughtered it, served it for dinner, then mounted its antlers up on the wall. I don’t want to get too carried away though, so I’ll just say that Sparkle Shit’s performance gets better with each and every show. I don’t think Possibility will ever get old. Between the mesmerizing keyboard and insane vocals, it’s impossible not to move at least a part of your body in some dancing fashion.

was a BLAST.  i do hope some kind words are written about the event and that some photos or video or other captured memories will rise to the surface to be felt, but for now… speaking personally… i had a great fuckin’ time.  and on behalf of JOYdropper and my band Alien Father, THANK YOU for comin’ to support us and dancin’ when there was dancin’ to be done.

three cheers for all musicians, models, attendees, organizers, coordinators, booze-pourers, fans, ken the door guy, and for those who couldn’t make it!

peace&love,
Conor

First attempt at recording w/phone and condenser mic. Lesson number one: point mic directly at what you’re recording. Otherwise you pick up a lot less of the band and a lot more of the dude in the audience calling someone “Mr. Social Media over there”…ahem…someone.

This means more videos from us…S O O N.

I hate New Brunswick, NJ.  i try to avoid it as much as possible.  every once in a while though, i’ll get convinced to go up there to celebrate a birthday for some old friend that wound up at Rutgers (mercy!) or to see a show that i’m half-interested in enough that i’m up for the 45-minute drive (…driving anywhere through Jersey off schedule can be very therapeutic).  but i just can’t see what’s so appealing about a town built around a piece of that college education disease, sticking thousands of college-going half-grown assholes looking to party & fuck & fuck & party in such a huge percentage of the residences in town that at 3am on a weekday you can walk down the beer-can-and-piss covered street to witness three or more physical fights in progress — or about to begin if they don’t get to hugging it out — between drunk STD & Four Loko infused bros, guidos, and various other Polo wearing idiots.  fortunately for the rest of us, a small percentage of any large crappy situation will be worth making friends with… doing something worth listening to, offering something to the community that is productive, entertaining, and kind-spirited… holding new points to view that stray from the (American) university standard of drowning yourself in cheap malt liquor, Natty Ice beer pong, blunts, Adderall, cocaine, and a communications degree (“hey! there’s no parents here! we can totally vape inside!”)  anyway… thank you, Sally Burtnick.

Hey all… today is Dale J. Gordon‘s birthday!  a pre-gamey celebration was held on Saturday (i’m sorry if you missed it… it’s ok…) with his band DEMO performing + a whole bunch of other crazy shit happening…

I showed up at around 10pm to McGuinn’s Place, a small publick house on Brunswick Pike in that area of strip-malls and parking lots with residential cross-streets that’ll quickly lead you to the wider Lawrence Township, or Ewing, or to 206N & straight to Princeton, or 1S to quickly go straight into Trenton. they’ve got one of those circular bars (weird), a menu that hovers around $7 for anything [recommended: pretzel bites with spicy cheese], booths, pool tables, condom machines in the bathrooms, a stage & a decent sound system + a porch outside so you can take your drink outside while you freeze your ass off smoking cigs outside (because cigs are delicious – and worth it).

The art of bass, most of the time, is to hold everything together without really being noticed — if an untrained, uninterested, musically naïve ear notices the bass, odds are that the bassist has just fucked up.

Now, i don’t mean to limit any ideas of the scope and variety of bassists and bass tones and bass techniques that exist in the breadth of music since rock’n'roll’s 1950s breakthrough… through every branch of genre, every turn of a decade… a bassist can be effective without being boring, and any star bass “prodigy” generally IS boring; writing boring songs that are (not just lyrically) meaningless because they’ve spent more time held up in their bedroom wanking away on 5 or 5+ string basses rather than living real life and having any interesting social experiences.  technique vs. attitude.  i’m trying to make generalizations, somewhat properly grounded, to talk about how exactly Mister Snake manages to utilize two bass guitars more effectively than a lot of bands with a single guitarist, or two guitarists, or a guitar and a keyboard, or whatever line-up you’ve got.  I’m still working this out in my own head, so bear with me…

It was a constant flow of beer and champagne at The Loft, new and improved, in New Brunswick on December 31st, where everyone arrived in their best clothes and dancing shoes to ring in the new year.

It’s amazing what a few coats of paint, some lights, and a new stage can do. In just a couple months The Loft went from a home of hardcore to the place to be, and it certainly was a hub for the holiday, a veritable who’s who — a virtual punk rock country club, if you will.

It was a quiet night at Meat Town USA on New Year’s Day- as quiet as a  punk show could get, at least.

Time spent leading up to the four bands’ sets included swapping stories from the night before and the basking in the aroma of cigarettes on beer radiating off everyone’s breath and clothing.

SS CYGNI started things off, and each following band seemed to complement one another. The local folks of Green Paper proceeded with Darryl Palumbo-esque vocals and jazzy keyboard electronics, keeping the mood.

Estrogen Highs of New Haven, Connecticut took the stage with one of those “too good to be hearing in a basement” sounds, most notably “I Am Tradition” which can be heard on thier MySpace page.

Local and not-so-local bands of the punk rock persuasion brought some cheer to the college town of New Brunswick during finals week for all those co-eds in addition to the several other people who filled the tight space of The Aquarium Tuesday night.

The dudes of Neur opened up the night with a sound that was not expected to be heard in a basement. The progressive four-piece first hooked the crowd with pangs of the guitar which turned into some crazy solos, similar to the sounds of freestyling by Rx Bandits who do the same with guitars as well as drums between songs during shows. The bassist looks just like Ace Enders, except a version that doesn’t sing sad songs and play acoustic guitar, instead shreds bass. Neur played songs from their Untitled EP but there was a consensus among the crowd that “Gold Thimble” was played most impressively. Actually living at The Aquarium, we can expect to see more of Neur in the future, more specifically on February 5th when they play with Dot Square, Grass is Green, Dirty Dishes, and Connor Brain.