JOYdropper

Jonathan Badger – Aria 7

Brett Davis — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 03:21:51 +0000

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

jonathanbadger.com
facebook.com/jonathan.badger.music.page

Illustration: Kevin Durkin
thisisirrelevant.com
Animation: Eric Durkin
ericdurkin.com

Not-So Related Reading:

Bobby Blayze vs Pupu at the Brick City Sound Riot

Brett Davis — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 17:16:16 +0000

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!

Not-So Related Reading:

Delicate Steve “Sugar Splash” (Live at the Stanhope House, 4/22/11)

Brett Davis — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 04:20:28 +0000

Video by Eric Durkin

Not-So Related Reading:

Delicate Steve is a “Hydro-Electric Mothra Rising From The Ashes of An African Village Burned To The Ground By Post-Rock Minotaurs,” According To Chuck Klosterman

Brett Davis — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 01:17:25 +0000

“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…

THE CRITICS UNILATERALLY CONCUR: DELICATE STEVE IS A BAND WHO CREATES MUSIC

Newton, N.J. – Every 30 or 40 or 500 years, the DNA of culture itself emerges from the translucent blackness of the not-so-shallow underground. You hear a new band, and you think, “This is really something. This is like My Bloody Valentine, minus the guitars.” But then you think, “No, that’s not true. That’s not what this is like at all. Plus, there are lots of guitars here. I’m a goddamn idiot.” You want to walk away, but now it’s too late; now, you start to wonder what makes this music so deeply arresting. You wonder why you are dancing against your will, and you wonder why every other sound you’ve ever heard suddenly sounds like the insignificant prologue to a moment you’re experiencing in the present tense. You find yourself unable to perform the simplest of activities — a cigarette becomes impossible to light, a mewing kitten cannot be stroked, a liverish lover cannot be ignored. By the album’s third track, there is nothing left in your life; everything is gone, crushed into a beatific sonic wasteland you never want to escape. This, more than anything else imaginable, is the manifestation of artistic truth … a truer kind of truth … the only kind of truth that cannot lie, even with the cold steel of a .357 revolver jammed inside its wet mouth, truculently demanding a random falsehood.

Welcome to the work-a-day world of Delicate Steve.

Like a hydro-electric Mothra rising from the ashes of an African village burned to the ground by post-rock minotaurs, the music of Delicate Steve will literally make you the happiest person who has never lived. Discovered firsthand by Luaka Bop A & R man Wills Glasspiegel in the parking lot of a Newton, N.J., strip mall, Delicate Steve was signed to the label before anyone at Luaka Bop heard even a moment of their music – all he needed to experience was a random conversation about what they hoped to achieve as a musical five-piece.

“They were just sitting around in lawn chairs, dressed like 19th century criminals, casually saying the most remarkable things,” recalls Glasspiegel. “It was wild. It was obtuse. One fellow would say, `Oh, I like Led Zeppelin III, but it skews a little dumptruck.’ Then another would say, `The problem with those early Prince albums is that he spent too much time shopping.’ I really had no idea what they were talking about, but it all somehow made sense. `We’ll be a different kind of group,” they said. `We will introduce people to themselves. We’ll inoculate them from discourse.’ I was immediately intrigued. I asked them if they wanted to have dinner, so we walked to a Chinese restaurant that was right up the road. I suggested we all get different dishes and share everything family style. They agreed. But then they ordered five identical entrees! So we sat there and ate a mountain of General Tso’s chicken for three straight hours, talking about music and literature and box kites and dystopias. Twenty-four later, they were signed to Luaka and inside a studio.”

Those studio sessions led to Wondervisions, the indescribable 12-track instrumental debut that reconstructs influences as diverse as Yes, Vampire Weekend, The Fall, Ravi Shankur, 10 cc, The Orbital, Jann Hammer, the first half of OK Computer, the second act of The Wizard of Oz, and the final pages of Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom. Originally conceived as a radio-friendly concept album about the early life of D.B. Cooper, de facto Delicate Steve leader Steve Marion decided to tear away the lyrics and move everything in a more experimental direction. “We don’t need the middlebrow to dig our music,” says the soft-spoken Marion. “We write for the fringes – the very, very rich and the very, very poor. That’s the audience we relate to, and that’s who these songs are about.”

THE BAND AT A GLANCE:

Steve Marion, 23 (guitar): A polymath who plays over 40 instruments, Marion recorded his first “bedroom EP” on a four-track as a 12-year-old (“It was sort of a second-rate Slanted and Enchanted,” he scoffs today, “and more than a little derivative.”). Already a Jersey legendary for his worth-ethic and perfectionism (he once studied a single Jandek guitar riff for an entire summer), Marion’s the piston behind Delicate Steve, and — somewhat paradoxically – the group’s harshest critic. “I named the band Delicate Steve as a reminder that we’ve accomplished nothing,” he says flatly. “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.”

Steve’s goal is to create music that lasts “substantially longer than forever.”

Mickey Sanchez, 22 (keyboard): A freewheeling hoaxster (and Marion’s best friend from Hebrew school), Sanchez provides Delicate Steve with off-kilter music flourishes and a necessary dose of common sense. “Steve can be difficult to work with,” says Sanchez, “but I know how to handle that hoss. Sometimes he just needs to look into the mouth of the lion – and I’m the lion.” An avid horseback rider and pastry chef, Sanchez also intends to pursue a second-career as a city planner.

Mickey’s goal is to make people hate Bruce Springsteen.

Rob Scheuerman, 21 (guitar): Previously featured on axe in the teen-pop power-trio Yesterday’s Airport of Tomorrow, Scheuerman is probably better known as the alleged one-time paramour of Gossip Girl star Blake Lively (a rumor he sheepishly denies: “I was too tired to make it. She was too tired to fight about it.”). What he adds to the band musically is akin to what he adds personally: cobalt charisma and a hunger for flesh. “Do you remember that old song `I Know What Boys Like’ by the Waitresses,” he asks. “Well, let’s just say the scythe slices both ways.”

Rob’s goal is to seduce every female journalist he encounters.

Adam Pumilla, 23 (bass): No member of Delicate Steve has taken a more circuitous path than Pumilla. A three-sport athlete who rushed for 1400 yards as a veer option quarterback in high school, Pumilla received scholarship offers from several Big East football powers before opting for a career as a bassist – despite the fact that he’d never played the instrument in his life. “There was always something about the bass,” he says today. “Four strings, sublime heaviness, living inside the pocket, locking into the drums. It spoke to me in its own bass language, long before I ever possessed the object itself. I knew that bass guitar was something I could excel at. I am a bassist. I have a bassist’s blood.” After spending five exploratory years in rural Scotland (“I needed space to invent my bass style”), Pumilla returned to the U.S. and met Marion at Ed Westwick’s Halloween party. “I knew he was the man for this band from the moment I met him,” recalls Marion. “When he shook my hand to introduce himself, he didn’t even say his name. He just said, `Bass.’ Just that one word. Nothing else. He was a serious person.”

Adam has no defined goal.

Mike Duncan, 21 (percussion): Don’t let his boyish looks fool you – Duncan is no choirboy. Raised on a steady diet of Stewart Coupland, Neil Peart and economic desperation, Duncan views drumming as a way to turn his self-described “sociopathic inclinations” into something the world can appreciate. “I love to brawl,” he says. “I’ll fight anyone, for any reason. I’ll fight a dog for no reason. I’ve seen the inside of juvenile hall. I’ve tasted blood in my mouth. I’ve stepped on throats and I’ve thrown bottles at strangers. But that was all in the past. It’s still part of me, but – now – I use that intensity for good. I want to attack people with music the same way I used to attack them with my fists.”

Mike’s goal is the political liberation of Quebec.

A WARNING:

This is a press release, and press releases are supposed to be wholly positive. That’s the shared expectation, both from the writer and the reader. Typically, press releases hide a band’s true reality. But not this one. We need to be straight with you, potential rock writer: It’s hard to predict what will happen to Delicate Steve. Emotions run high in this band, and most of these songs are both too musical and too insane for the typically dim-witted American consumer. In all likelihood, even you won’t understand it, because you’re probably a fraud. This music doesn’t directly threaten the status quo, but it certainly makes the status quo nervous. It’s not on par with hearing the Velvet Underground in the summer of 1965, but it’s probably like hearing the Velvet Underground in the winter of 1966. Can Delicate Steve become the wordless New Jersey U2? Sure, maybe. But maybe not. There might be too much at stake (and too many people in the way). Still, one listen to Wondervisions will irrefutably prove the only thing you really need to know: Delicate Steve makes music. And in today’s awful world, that’s almost all that matters. Right?

Not-So Related Reading:

04.18.11 Algernon Cadwallader @ The New Brunswick Aquarium

Alyssa Rorke — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 05:34:52 +0000

The Aquarium is the New Brunswick haven for math rock, which has hosted shows featuring local bands like Neur, Sara, and Captive. Monday night, Algernon Cadwallader of Philadelphia was added to the mix.

Some Kind of Cadwallader

Even Cap’n Jazz can be heard playing between sets at Aquarium shows, and any fans of Cap’n Jazz can detect their heavy influence in Algernon Cadwallader’s music. Peter Helmis confirmed this in a Punknews interview, also citing Braid and the Beatles as influences.

The most unity I think I’ve ever seen at a basement show was during the first notes of “Some Kind of Cadwallader” when everyone threw themselves forward in a pyramid towards the microphone, their arms and fists stretched out in front of them.

Bandname also played as part of the Philly Away Team at this New Brunswick show, with a style coincidentally not much different to Algernon Cadwallader. Though they do have more of the punk affectation as opposed to the (for lack of a less ambiguous term) indie feel that Algernon brings to the table.

Neur, Aquarium regulars, banged out an awesome set to open the show. If they weren’t always the ”band that played first” then I think they’d be a little more appreciated by the New Brunswick underground community. Either that, or people really need to start showing up on time for shows because Neur is a real gem. Not only are the guitar riffs explosive, but they’ve got a fucking light show going on along with it. That is a way to play a show.

Neur

Coping from Chicago stopped by on their spring tour. Classified as ”Midwest Emo” on their Facebook page, Coping fit in nicely with indie/experimental/punk/math rock lineup. After this, they’ll be headed to New York and Boston, then back to Chicago on the 23rd. Cool dudes, cool tunes.

It’s amazing how quickly a basement can clear out after the last band’s done. It’s a shame a majority of the crowd had to miss some spoken word by Pedro Angel Serrano, who shared some “can’t make this shit up” stories with us.

I think the shows at the Aquarium bring some nuance to the scene. I always see fresh faces, and among the music played there are always a few acts that will tickle my eardrums. Some houses can get monotonous, but not this one. Go to more shows at the Aquarium. And go listen to Neur. NOW.

The Macaulay Culkin Show @ The Woods, New Brunswick

Brett Davis — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 18:29:09 +0000

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.

Not-So Related Reading:

Why Is That Weird Old Puppet Guy From The Cartoon Network In The Basement

Brett Davis — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 00:34:09 +0000

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.

Not-So Related Reading:

Chelsea Boy at Heart, Marc Bluestein

Mark Tauriello — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 02:43:32 +0000

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.

Above: Me and Lady Valtronic at the Hotel Chelsea.

Q: Tell me about your transition or relationship from hair stylist to artist?
A: I would actually prefer to photograph people full time. I don’t see an exact parrellel…but hair and make up help represent someone, giving them their own unique identity. So when I photograph a person, I like to capture the way they represent themselves thru my photos.

Q: Who has been the most influential artist in your life?
A: I think people in general have been influential to my life because I always love to learn about people, I think its amazing how people truly vary in essence and who they are as a person.It can be their personality, or just “something” about them.
The most influential artist artist would have be be Andy Warhol, but skip that, I will have to go with Nico. I enjoy the concepts behind Warhol, but in terms of a life philosophy, and how I view the world and people, that would fall into the category of Nico, who is both cynical and playful in an Ironic sense.

Marc’s mother, a 60s mod goddess always and forever.

-That makes sense, you have tattoos in reference to Warhol and Nico.
Q: What sort of people do you choose to photograph? Is it just any person, or do you hand pick your subject specifically?
A: tend to hand pick my subjects specifically. Normally it can vary from someone I know personally, or someone I met a handful of times…like this random kid that works at WaWa. The people I lean towards are people that I am attracted to in a subconcious state. Maybe I find something about them that intrigues me, and I can’t put my finger on it. Or if it’s someone I know personally, I think it’s the nature of the person, and the depth that I feel and come to know from knowing the person for so long. I strive to capture an image of something that I find to be a representation of who that person is to me, or the light that I see them in.

Q: You photograph a lot of your work at the Hotel Chelsea? What is the connection you have to that place, and how does it reflect in your work?
A: Well I am gonna quote Big Ol Eddie Biel from Grey Gardens, “It’s the only place in the world I feel like I can truly be my self”, I feel like when I am in that hotel, I am in a complete comfort zone where it seems like I have been there my whole entire life. There is some sort of connection I have when I walk thru that hotel, it makes me want to create when I am there. So many of the artists and people that have lived there, I feel that their energies have attched them selves to the furniture, the walls, the art. The background of the Chelsea in my images plays a significant role in relationships to the people in the image. That hotel for some reason makes people feel like they can let go.

Q: Your images are often highly saturated in color. Do you think they would take on the same feel in black and white? Also, how do you feel about black and white versus color, film verses digital? Most of your influences come from before the digital era.
A: Color is essential for my photos. The over saturation is on purpose. I am not a very vibrant person in terms of fashion, I have a classic toned down look. However, when I look at a photo, I am always attracted to very extreme colors. I like it to look unnatural. I kind of get my color “fix” thru my photos.

Q:If you could photograph one dead person, and one living person, who would you choose?
A: Dead, Nico. Living, David Bowie.

Marc captures my love of wallpaper shirts.

Q: Do you see your work more as fine art photography or documentary?
A: I have been asked this before, and this is a good question. I think of what I am photographing as art, and the subject is a documentation. I am going to make up my own label and call it “Documentation Art”. I love the idea of documentary, it’s wonderful. I love documenting events. However, I play with the colors and the people I photograph who I see as living art….it creates a family that can’t be set into one category.

Q: What do you plan on doing in the future? Any up coming exhibitions or series?
A: I want to branch out and do more work with video. I would love to have more exhibitions. I can’t give an exact answer to this…so really anything can be next. Being a mortician can be next.

Follow Marc and his blog!

03.04.11 Full of Fancy’s Last Show Ever

Alyssa Rorke — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 22:57:05 +0000

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.

They played a meaty and satisfying set even though no encore was planned. It was not much different from their last New Brunswick basement show they played not too long ago. I think the purely instrumental “Liquid Nature” makes for an awesome transition between songs, dragging out the set in the best way possible. There were so many smiles and warm embraces even before the show was over, when they finished with “Hot Tub” and “30 Days.”

There’s something about the way Erin sings so happily that I know I’m going to miss seeing them play live. As for Miranda, it seems oddly appropriate to go see her play in Black Wine in New Brunswick the night following this.

I was standing front and center and waving my X-marked fists to the drum beats of “Trophy” when I found myself in a pit of girls wearing blue wrist bands and realized how happy I was to share this with everyone- friends, other underage youngin’s like myself, New Jersey natives, out-of-staters, everybody.

The Marshmallows, who opened, also played their final show. Big Eyes were given no justice in the middle of this line-up, after which The Ribeye Brothers played for almost twice as long.

On to more important stuff: let’s talk about Screaming Females. This band never fails to restore any faith I ever lose in music. Experimental, punk, call them what you will, but this band fucking rules. Though I think whoever tagged them on last.fm as “i think i peed a little” has the right idea. Even Jarrett on drums shows looks of disbelief when Marissa starts to shred the gee-tar in the middle of an already mind-blowing song. I could feel my brain rattling back and forth in my head during “Sheep.” And the best part of it is, they’re not breaking up any time soon (that I know of, at least)! This is just what New Brunswick, and New Jersey all together, needs as we watch bands like Full of Fancy and The Measure [SA] play their final shows. So when Screaming Females played right before Full of Fancy did their last set ever at the Lanes, it was like they were reassuring us, “Don’t worry guys! The punk scene hasn’t died! YET!” And I’m totally okay with that.

02.25.2011 | The Cement of New Jersey Poetry

Amanda Deo — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 22:40:01 +0000

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.

AD: You currently live in Fort Lee, NJ. How has NJ treated you as a writer thus far? Has it given you inspiration? Has it been a burden?

JA: Barring two months in Paris when I was a high-school senior, I’ve lived in New Jersey since the day my mother gave birth to me at Christ Hospital in Jersey City. I cut my teeth on the state’s poetry scene, beginning in 1997. The members of the N.J. poetry community were the first to respond to my work. They encouraged me, befriended me and offered me forums to present my poetry. My first readings all occurred in New Jersey. If I hadn’t been part of the scene, I wouldn’t have met Brett Rutherford, who runs The Poet’s Press. He heard me read my work a few times and in 1999 asked me if I had considered a book or chapbook. I hadn’t yet thought in terms of a collection or even publication, but as a result of his request, I developed a full-length manuscript, The Plague Psalms, and submitted it. I saw him a few weeks later and asked him if he had read it. He said he had started it. I asked him what he thought. He replied, “I love it.” The first editions of The Plague Psalms were beautiful hand-bound books. Brett is a serious student of the art of bookmaking and invested a craftsman’s care and aesthetic sensibility into producing those volumes. I’ve seen second-hand editions selling online for $60, $75 and even upwards of $100. I don’t know who’s buying those books, but I wish I had a box of them. The Plague Psalms is still available as a standard commercial paperback. The Poet’s Press also published my second book, Father Silicon, which the Kansas City Star selected as one of 100 Noteworthy Books of 2006.

Would any of this have happened had I not been involved in the New Jersey scene? It’s never a good idea to say “never,” but I’d say it’s unlikely.

AD: Your first full length collection, The Plague Psalms, was released by The Poet’s Press in 2000. Your latest, Thrum, was put out in March 2010 by Poet’s Wear Prada. How would you say your writing has changed in the 10 years between these collections?

JA: Although my original ambition was to pursue the written word, I have a strong background in music. I’ve been a guitarist for nearly 40 years, written hundreds of songs and investigated many musical styles, not only American forms, but British, Celtic and even Indian traditions. The man who wrote the poems that comprise The Plague Psalms was someone who still thought of himself as a guitarist first and a poet second. Much of the language is informed by Anglo-American balladry. Many of the poems (e.g., the title poem, “Spanish Song of Mercy,” “Doxology,” “The Singer”) have an abundance of musical imagery.

As I developed as a poet, “writer” rather than “musician” achieved primacy, essentially because I determined that it was the route I was supposed to follow. Moreover, I’ve pursued poetry with far more passion and sense of purpose than I ever pursued music, which is a pretty good indication of what I was meant to do.

The work in The Plague Psalms was, at core, lyrical and conservative. The prevailing ethos, or so I’ve been told, was neo-Romantic. The poems deal with historical events (e.g., the Black Death and the Moorish conquest of Spain), my favorite literary character (the Phantom of the Opera), my Roman Catholic background, and, yes, music. Basically, they concerned anything that interested me. At the time, someone pointed out to me there was a medieval strain running through the work. It wasn’t intentional, nor was I even aware of it, but I can see it now. I imagine it was a consequence of all those years of listening to Martin Carthy and the Pentangle.

The poems in Father Silicon have a broader range than those in the first book. Father Silicon contains poems about Nico, 9/11, Julian of Norwich, the Hindu god Juggernaut and a fictional hustler named Billy. A recurring line in Wallace Stevens’ “Sea Surface Full of Clouds” inspired the book’s final poem, “Gabriel the Beachcomber.” I use a quote from his poem as an epigraph.

My interests still rule my work. Although I have written poems in memory of my mother and father, I tried to approach them from something other than the angle of pure memoir. The poem dedicated to my mother, “The Sea at Our Door,” is told from the point of view of a butterfly observing a beached dolphin dying on the shore (my mother loved butterflies; I’ve always been partial to dolphins). The influence was probably Latin American magic realism. My father, an engineer by training, had a series of patents. I wove them into the poem I wrote about him (Father Silicon refers to my father, although the poem in question is called “Anointing of the Sick”). I’m troubled by the contemporary obsession with poetry as blatant memoir or, worse, therapeutic salve. It betrays a dearth of imagination. I did a radio interview some years ago. The host asked me if everyone had a poet inside. My answer wasn’t curt at all, but my response was basically, No. If you ask if everyone has an inner poet, you have to ask if everyone has an inner novelist, an inner sculptor, an inner bassoon player.

In the ensuing years since The Plague Psalms, I’ve read more widely and expanded my writer’s palette and palate, which is the way it’s supposed to be. I exploit a greater range of forms and materials. I borrow techniques from other disciplines: the essay, dictionary, encyclopedia, short story, interview, press release, newspaper article, film, the visual arts. Even writings on architecture have been an influence. I wrote two pantoums that consist entirely of pre-existing material. One, “The Belles of Grey Gardens,” is made up of lines of dialogue from the documentary Grey Gardens. The other, “There Happens to Be a Very Good Reason Why I Missed Work Today,” comprises extracts from a list of bizarre and purportedly real reasons people have given for taking a day off; the list appeared in an article I found on MSN.com. I thought, I can’t let this go.

Thrum, out from Poets Wear Prada, a New Jersey-based press, is a collection of poems, prose poems and brief poetic essays about musical instruments, specifically chordophones, which are instruments whose sound is produced by the vibration of a string. The chapbook employs some of the aforementioned techniques, especially a blend of prose poem and essay (this hybrid has earned my serious attention over the past couple of years; I’ve written a few such pieces since the publication of Thrum). Thrum also has a concrete poem, an acrostic poem, a Fluxus-style instruction poem, a cut-up and something I call “a haiku essay.” The last is on the Japanese instrument the biwa. The poem sounds like prose when read aloud, but the entire piece is segmented into three-line stanzas, each of which has the haiku’s five-seven-five syllabic division. Because I wrote about a traditional Japanese instrument, I decided to adapt a traditional Japanese poetic form to address it. The Book of Imaginary Beings by Jorge Luis Borges influenced the structure of the collection, as well as some of the content. Anne Carson was another influence on the content. William Burroughs, of course, gave me the idea for the cut-up poem. Throughout Thrum I mention people like Davy Graham, John Fahey, John Cage, Yoko Ono, Leadbelly, Memphis Minnie, Charles Mingus, Ravi Shankar and even Marcel Duchamp.

For an example of how my approach has changed between 2000 and now, read “Al’Ud” in The Plague Psalms and “Oud” in Thrum. They’re both about the same subject, the Middle Eastern lute.

AD: How do you choose the poems for your collections? Do you write poems based on the initial idea for a collection, or notice a pattern in your writing that begins an idea for a collection?

JA: I conceived only Thrum as a collection, and it wasn’t even my idea. In 2006 I took an advanced workshop at The New School called “Crossing Genres,” which brought non-poetic forms (interview, definition, documentary, history) into the realm of poetry. I wrote a brief poetic essay on the guitar for the definition assignment. The teacher, Martine Bellen, and the class liked it. For the final class, we could choose whatever form we wanted. I chose the definition and wrote a short poetic essay on the oud. Martine said, “Why don’t you write a whole series on musical instruments?” That was the seed, and for the next three years, I worked on the sequence, read some of the pieces at readings and published half of them in journals. Early on, I told a poet friend, John J. Trause, about the series. He said I could probably get a book out of it, which had occurred to me, too. Great minds and all that. In spring 2009, Roxanne Hoffman, who runs Poets Wear Prada, said she’d like to consider the series for her press. I worked on it further and in September sent it to her. She wrote to me the next day to say she loved it and would be delighted to publish it. That was without a doubt the quickest acceptance I ever received. I thanked Martine on the acknowledgments page. Without her suggestion, there would be no Thrum. I personally think it’s my best work.

With The Plague Psalms and Father Silicon, I chose the poems based on what I perceived to be the book’s anchor poem. In the first, it was the title poem. In the second, it was “Anointing of the Sick.” I built the draft manuscripts around those anchor poems. Then I deleted some poems, added others and rearranged the order until I reached the final manuscript. Even when the books were at the galley stage, I made edits.

A volume of poetry is not just a random collection of individual poems. At least, it’s not supposed to be. There has to be a progression, an arc, if you will, an overall scheme. There has to be a beginning, middle and end.

AD: Your most recent chapbook, Thrum, fuses together poetry and the wonder of instruments that one must strum. How much do you feel music has an influence over your poetry?

JA: Poetry is the literary form that is closest to music. That’s one of its chief attractions for me. It originally was sung. Right now, I’m looking at the anthology Immortal Poems of the English Language, edited by Oscar Williams. Toward the front of the book, before Shakespeare, Milton, Donne, Blake, Poe, Whitman, Eliot, Dylan Thomas and all the others, are “O Western Wind,” “Lord Randal” and “The Wife of Usher’s Well.” They’re songs. I opened one reading in 2009 and one the following year with a recitation of “Corpus Christi Carol.”

Music influenced the language and rhythm of my earlier poems and provided imagery. It has since evolved into a specific subject. I noted earlier that I used to write songs. Some of my poems have been turned into art songs, but not by me. Frank Ezra Levy, a cellist and classical composer whose work is available on the Naxos label, wrote two wonderful song cycles based on my poems. Music is never that far away from my stanzas.

AD: You seem to do a lot of readings of your work in both New Jersey and New York. How important are they to you personally, and how do you think the tactic is received in our general locale?

JA: Public presentation is extremely important to me. If I’m engaged for a reading, I prepare a set list. I think about the opening and closing poems, the pacing, which poems work well together. I even prepare and rehearse my introductory comments, which become fixed for particular poems. I practice hand gestures and head movements. I basically regard a reading as a 15- to 20-minute theatrical presentation, which is not at all synonymous with performance poetry. I seldom read from the page, preferring to recite from memory. In November 2009, I took part in a tribute to Daniel Berrigan, whom I’ve admired since I was in high school. The next day, the organizer informed me that Father Berrigan was impressed with my ability to present my work from memory.

The page can become a straitjacket. When I do read from the page, I approach it as if I’m delivering a lecture. The page becomes a prop. For example, I use the page when I read “Anointing of the Sick” from Father Silicon because my father’s patent names are long and employ technical terminology, most of which I frankly don’t understand. I have most of the poetry itself memorized, but not the names of his patents. In this particular case, I present the poem like a scientific paper.

I currently devote a lot of time to the work in Thrum because it’s my most recent collection. My general rule of thumb has changed over the years when it comes to the contents of a reading. I now usually restrict myself to poems that have been published, either in my books or in journals, or are forthcoming.

To be completely candid, readings are a marketing vehicle. I sell the lion’s share of my books at readings. Even if you hope someday to make a lasting contribution to the canon, if you’ve published a book, you have a product to sell.

From my observation, too many poets fail as public readers. They stare at the page and basically read to it instead of their audience. They don’t know how to modulate their voices. They don’t inhabit the poem they’re reading. They don’t work to engage the audience. When you’re facing an audience, you have to imagine that the people in those seats are transmitting a tacit communication: “I’m here to listen to you. Make sure it’s worth my while.”

AD: Lastly, do you think New Jersey and its community of artists could be doing more for poetry?

JA: Let’s remember that the country’s largest poetry event, the Dodge Poetry Festival, takes place in New Jersey. There’s a monthly New Jersey Poetry Calendar. Pick up any issue. You’ll see listings for reading after reading after reading. The Dodge Foundation funds a program to send poets into New Jersey schools. I’m involved with a group called the North Jersey Literary Series that has been running monthly readings since the ‘90s. The Poet’s Press last year published an anthology of poets who have read in the series. There are poetry presses based in the state: Poets Wear Prada, Cavan Kerry, Marymark, We Press. The Poet’s Press was in New Jersey before Brett Rutherford relocated to Rhode Island. There are respected journals here: Raritan, The Literary Review, Journal of New Jersey Poets, Paterson Literary Review, Tiferet.

And let’s not forget the enormous contributions New Jersey has made to the poetry canon. Walt Whitman. Stephen Crane. William Carlos Williams. Robert Pinsky. C.K. Williams. Beats like Allen Ginsberg and Amiri Baraka.

New Jersey has an extraordinarily rich poetic lineage.

To find out more about Joel, please go to his website.

His collection, Thrum, is now available on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Thrum-Poems-Joel-Allegretti/dp/0984184449/

02.23.11 | Ripping into Danielle Lovallo’s Brain

Mark Tauriello — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 04:56:15 +0000

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.

Failing the Rorschach Test 60″x54″

Being a friend of Danielle’s for 4 years and sharing a studio space with her, I have become very familiar with her art and how she works, or shall I say, preforms. Danielle’s work treads the lines between abstract expressionistic paintings (because of her action painting style) and performance art. In her piece, Failing the Rorschach Test (My all time favorite piece of hers), Lovallo stuck her feet in a bucket of black pain, and danced all over a raw canvas that was laid out onto the floor until the song she was dancing to was finished.

Danielle explains, “I found the concept of failing an ink blot test hilarious, so if I created my own ink blot that was purely organic, there can never be a standard answer. The ink blot is now part of me, and nobody can ever accurately analyze my answer or tell me that I am right or wrong for saying what I think the ink blot looks like.”

Push (Where’s the curve I’m supposed to get ahead of?) 24″x26″

Recently, Danielle just finished a series titled Dehiscene which is a medical term for a wound that has been surgically sutured, but, due to malpractice it bursts open. The canvases have haphazardly sewn rips with what appears to be scar tissue peeking out.

After our billionth cup of coffee for the day, I asked Danielle some questions in regards to her series, Dehiscene.

Dehiscent II: Reflection on April 10″x8″

Q: So now I know the general concept of your latest series. Do these paintings represent you or anyone you know?
A: Two of them are about events in my life in the last year that had an effect on me, the other ones are about people that I know that were going through a lot of issues at the time….people who keep it together, and they don’t make a big deal about what is wrong with them. There is so much of this stuff inside them….that if you look at them the RIGHT way…you can see little moments when they break, or rip open a little bit, and you can see what’s there, underneath everything, which is unsettling and beautiful. I create juxtapositions of this.

Q: Can you tell me about the materials you used for the exposed scar tissue on and under the canvas? I find it kind of funny that you are using glittery things like pearls to create something that isn’t the slightest bit glamorous looking.
A: I used pearls, coarse molding paste, pummis gel, light modling paste, beeding, glitter, tar gel, glass, mirror tiles, paint, garnet gel, rhine stones, I think some more materials, but I lost track now. I chose “beautiful” things to create something grotesque.

Q: How did you create the layered rips in your pieces?
A: I used 2 canvases, one as a base to mount the “insides” and the other to serve as the surface of the piece. It’s a bitch to double stretch a canvas.
But I start with a scissor or knife, and rip it with my hands and finger nails…well lack of finger nails.

Q: The most ripped up painting in the series is the one that you said represents you, can you go further into that?
A: I felt the need to make these pieces, because if I was “ripping everyone else open” I might as well rip my self open. You can’t expect people to give them selves to you without giving something of your self back to them. This series is essentially about that, the things you don’t tell the co-workers, acquaintances, these are things you find out when someone calls you at 2 in the morning crying. Since this series, I have been a lot more open with my life, and a lot less restrained as a person and as an artist. These pieces are a complete departure from anything I have done.

Dehiscent I: Long Island Gray Melodi

Q: You have always done rips for as long as I’ve known you. So do the rips from your art pieces made in college hold the same meanings and concepts as the rips in your current works?
A: They gained a lot more meaning since college, and have more relevence to each piece as a whole. The pieces now are more about WHATS in the gauges instead of the areas around the gauges. My earlier pieces were more about losing things that you want to hold on to. It’s that frantic urge to piece things together and keep things from falling apart. Everything that is created, ultimately degenerates…it’s in a state of flux.

Her series was just recently shown in Asbury Park, New Jersey, making it her first solo exhibition, a big deal for every artist. You can see more examples of Danielle Lovallo’s work and see what she does next at www.daniellelovallo.com or add her on the facebook!

02.23.11 | The Workin of Eric & Kevin Durkin

Brett Davis — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 01:45:53 +0000

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.”

Not-So Related Reading:

02.19.2011 I UFO Abductee Experiences Exhibition

Mark Tauriello — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 18:21:31 +0000

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.

I am going to accept this dilemma as a positive, and view it as part of his art. If this is an act, then his life since the 80s when he finally decided to speak about his abductions has been one large performance piece. Looking at the paintings themselves knowing they are personal accounts of an abductee gives you a completely different outlook and approach. The exhibition kept making me think about the Close Encounters exhibition I reviewed a few weeks ago at the Arts Guild of New Jersey in Rahway, which also consisted of paintings of aliens and flying saucers, none of which were based on personal abduction stories. It is fascinating to see two separate artists using the same mediums to paint the same exact content, however, both artists’ points of view and relationships to the subject matter (UFOs/aliens) are completely unrelated to each other.

David Huggins answering questions.

Speaking to an “out of the closet” or shall I say “out of the spaceship” abductee was an experience like no other. Never in my life have I met an abductee, just the occasional “I saw a weird light formation in the sky” people. His sincerity about his experiences is almost chilling. I asked him several questions, and left the exhibition wishing I asked even more questions about the alien fashions, alien genders, what they do to the baby specimens, if he has shown the aliens his paintings, etc. However, this is what I was able to muster.

Q: Are all of the paintings based on a single alien abduction, or are these based on a series of abductions?

A: The paintings are based on the hundreds of abductions I have had. My first abduction happened when I was 8 years old and living in Georgia, since then the abductions have been happening frequently over the past 60 years of my life.

Q: Did the aliens follow you from Georgia where you were first abducted when you were eight years old?

A: Yes. I moved to New York when I was 19 so I could study art, and when I moved the abductions continued.

Q: Can you tell me about how you are abducted. Does a stereotypical saucer shoot out a beam that pulls you up into the ship? What are the abduction methods?

A: I am not beamed up. What happens is that an opening will form in the wall, a circular opening, and they come out and take me in. Then the hole closes.

Q: I am looking at this painting and you are standing naked in a room, surrounded by cubes. Can you tell me about what those cubes are?

A: Those are actually incubators, and inside of the incubators were live babies. When I first saw them I asked the alien, “Oh my god, who do these babies belong to?” and the alien said that they were all my babies.

Q: Wow, so it seems that they were abducting you to take your sperm and create human specimens.

A: That is exactly what they are doing.

Q: Now looking at this other painting here, I see the aliens putting a sharp needle like device up your nose, did you know what they were doing to you at the time?

A: I don’t know for sure, but I am pretty sure it’s their way of identifying a person.

Q: Do you feel haunted by these abductions? Is this something that you dread, something you embrace, something you fear, etc?

A: No, I am not haunted by these abductions at all. I don’t see it as anything bad.

Viewers, art gurus, and possible space aliens approached Huggins all night with abduction questions. Aside from the art pieces on the wall, the gallery space was decorated with light up flying saucers, alien heads, and even fog! Most exciting were some the outfits—avid alien fans dressed up in metallic space suits, one suit was even laced with LED lights—oh yes, and the free cocktails being served by the cute bartender.

02.15.11 | “New Jersey Nightlife Report” by Richard Lenley

Brett Davis — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 17:28:41 +0000

Hey there, boners and stoners! It’s your old pal Rich with another NJ nightlife report.

What a year 2010 was! The Cattlebar in Matawan put in a new mechanical bull, Joe’s Pub in Franklin Lakes updated their jukebox to some sort of digital thing (10x more Seger, that’s all that matters to moi), and there was the now legendary bar striptease by Dina from season 1 of Real Housewives. Also, it was a big year for yours truly as I finalized my 2nd divorce and I am now a bachelor again! So look out ladies, this lion’s ready to ROAR!

Now, it’s time for SNAPSHOTS:

Poor Louie Chacarelli didn’t know what he was in for when the Stampedes stampeded into the Redberry Barn in Randolph last Friday. Reports are coming in from all over Morris County that Louie and the unidentified beauty in candy apple red were spotted making dents in the stalls of the Redberry ladies room. Nicely done, Louie!

Reefer Jones made a surprise comeback at O’Brien’s Steakhouse along with some lovely ladies. Like always, Reef brought the “free love” spirit back with him. “Cigarettes” were smoked and even yours truly partook in the herb! Nice one, Reef!

And a final note, congrats to the newlyweds! Victor and Oxana tied the knot at the Sussex county courthouse and celebrated with a few cold ones afterwards at Wild Horses in Newton. It’s seems like the reality of marriage hit Victor in a post-barf nag session in the parking lot. By the way, Vic, the bartender found your balls in the garbage, you should probably come pick ‘em up. Just effin with ya, pal. We’re all really happy for you.

Well, that’s all for me. I’m thinkin’ about gettin’ some new ink, I’d love to hear your suggestions in the comments!

Not-So Related Reading:

02.04.11 | Delicate Steve’s Wondervisions Release Show at the Meatlocker

Brett Davis — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 16:44:17 +0000

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.

Not-So Related Reading:

02.07.2011 | The Lamp Man

Conor Meara — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 16:18:41 +0000

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:

Almost a year ago, in time for my girlfriend Tiffany’s birthday, I made her a lamp. Some of you may have seen it:

After that, and after having way too much time on my hands, I decided I wanted to produce a line of these “face lamps” (as I call them). Almost a year later, I have my first line of five. They are, (in the order they were made): “The Unsatisfied Customer“, “Get It (Get It?)“, “I Was a Teenage Frankenstein“, “For All the Suckers“, & “The Professor (Idiot)“.

I plan to sell these at flea markets or online or both, under the name Lamp Man. In the next few days, I will set up an Etsy account. If anyone is interested in buying one, please feel free to message me.

I am currently working on a second line of five, and I can’t tell you when those will be out. Probably not for awhile. Thank you for looking at my tangs and I hope you enjoy.

-LAMP MAN (Mike)

Lamp Man on Facebook

01.22.11 | Drawing Party at 407 Mulberry

Mark Tauriello — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 04:45:15 +0000

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.

Sketches ranged from abstracted figures, body parts, group collaborations and even some collage pieces. There was even a winged penis! Everyone was encouraged to draw anything and post it on the walls. By the end of the night, drawings completely took over the entire wall and then some.

The place was packed by the end of the night with friendly folks. I even walked away with a few new friends!

Yours truly with new friends, Mr.ROCKANDROLL!! and Kalarika Huszar

01.21.11 | J.B. Kline Band, Lambertville NJ

Conor Meara — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 20:02:33 +0000

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’ve taken a few lessons from him — the first time i told him i wanted one was on a whim, as the shop was closing. he responded, pointing to his chest, “…what, from me?” and after finding out what kind of experience i had, he asked how i wanted to play guitar. the first honest thing i thought to say to him was “like Van Morrison used to sing… um… sorta Steve Cropper? Robbie Robertson?”… a line i think he respected enough that he’s since remembered my name and always said hello with a smile. and while the lessons came and went and helped a ton, i don’t think i’d ever even heard him sing. and here he was leading a band of excellent musicians, with people cheering him on. i’d never seen him perform until this show. the fun that he was having, the ease & familiarity he had with his guitar and the melodies… it was all reminiscent of something my tone-deaf former-athlete father recognized when i first started falling in love with playing bass; “music is something you’ll have forever, and can play till you die.” not to say Mr. Kline is anywhere near his deathbed, but he’s certainly not as young as most of the local musicians i go out of my way to see. regardless, he’s been blessed with a voice that’s youthful despite the wealth experience and wisdom he’s accumulated over the years. i don’t think he smokes cigarettes.

J.B. plays all over Lambertville and New Hope pretty regularly (and has been for a while) – acoustic, accompanied, or backed by a full band. the show i caught was downstairs from his shop, just past the stairs up to the store, at the back of the first floor coffee shop. my girlfriend got us a couple pieces of banana bread & two big-ass coffees and we made our way into the gallery, to be immediately surrounded by aging flower-children dancing all about. not quite my scene, but a more than welcoming one. so i put my arm around her and smiled through two sets of songs — ballads, quicker blues and R&B originals, and rousing renditions of songs like Archie Bell & the Drells’ “Tighten Up,” the rockabilly standard “Red Hot” and “Route 66.” Besides Jeff, lead vocals were shared with keyboardist Ed Wall, and the incredibly talented harmonica player Steve Guyger. bassist Kevin Joy was subtly joyful — stoically rooted in the back playing a pretty cool G&L semi-hollow Telecaster-shaped bass, and drummer Bobby Boom Boom got an absolutely ridiculous and awesome solo for almost 3 straight minutes of their 6 minute “Tighten Up”.

Whether you happen to find yourself in the small “city” of Lambertville, right across the (pedestrian accessible!) bridge from New Hope, PA, or are the type willing to drive out of your way to find the perfect new guitar — one with a lot of history, personality & that you’ll want/need to pick a fight with — definitely drop by the shop.

J.B. Kline
J.B. Kline’s New & Vintage Musical Instruments & Supplies
J.B. Kline & Son Gallery
Riverdog Recording Studio

01.30.11 — 03.04.11 | Close Encounters

Mark Tauriello — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 21:26:49 +0000

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.

Brooklyn based painter Liz Brown exhibited large oil paintings of space ship interior and flying saucers on stretched canvas. Brown’s colorful paintings are both playful and witty while lovingly capturing the sci-fi cheesiness that we all love.

The next artist (who blew me away) was Brian Scott Campbell! His work consisted of slightly abstracted charcoal drawings of uncanny utopian landscapes, angular architectural complexes and distorted spaces with references to cult films and passages from J. G. Ballard novels. Using geometric forms, modernist concepts, and film references Campbell creates environments fit for a science fiction story.

One of the most intriguing pieces from this entire show is the 6 foot tall life-size robot titled, “1.530R The Robot” by multimedia artist Keary Rosen, who looks into the technological past and future for his art inspirations. Most peculiar about “1.530R The Robot” is that he is both menacing in scale, but friendly in expression. “The Robot” is not just a sculpture, but an installation as well. In the past, Rosen has set up a “theatre”, using antique theatre chairs, while projecting films onto the robot’s chest using a 1950′s 16mm film projector and a 1960′s reel-to-reel tape player. “The Robot” also has a Sears styled family portrait, and is described as being both “a family member and a servant”.

As a lover of science fiction and futuristic aesthetics, this had to have been one of the best art exhibitions I have seen since The Incomplete at the Chelsea Museum some years ago. In my opinion science fiction is the most visually stimulating genres, so it’s not wonder it has been making itself prominent in art. Rachael Faillace does a wonderful job curating a show that plays on the relationships between the forward-thinking force of science-fiction and fine art.

For more information + exhibition hours visit the Arts Guild site at www.rahwayartsguild.org

FEATURED ARTISTS:
MADELEINE BLISS
LIZ BROWN
DEREK BUCKNER
BRIAN SCOTT CAMPBELL
ERNEST CONCEPCION
JASON LEINWAND
KEARY ROSEN
DIANE WHITEBAY

01.22.11 | Full of Fancy’s Last New Brunswick Basement Show

Alyssa Rorke — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 01:43:12 +0000

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.

Then Sparkle Shit went on and did their thing, the same old bit. That was up until they broke out with an explosive Le Tigre cover led by Nneka, whose voice was barely drowned out by the rest of the girls huddled in front screaming the lyrics of Deceptacon.

The size of the crowd seemed to triple by the time Full of Fancy came on, and instead of the normal Peanuts character dance, it was like the room was filled with jumping beans. What’s in those forties you kids are drinkin’ anyway?

Trophy and 30 Days were among other songs played in the set that, no matter what, did not seem long enough. We managed to squeeze a few encore songs out of them, including Polly-O String Theory and a cover.

I got a chance to talk to Miranda Taylor a little bit after the show (keeping my fangirl syndrome under control of course).

Q: Why is this the end of Full of Fancy?

A: We all have other bands and the last record was the one that felt right to end with.

Q: What can we expect from you and the other members of FoF after your final show in March?

(This is when a friend of Miranda’s forgiveably interrupted my interview and made a point to tell me how important she is, which she denied. So humble.)

A: Brian has Night Birds, Erin is in Sun Puddles, and I’m in Black Wine. Evan also has some projects going on.

Q: How do you feel about where the New Brunswick music scene is going?

A: I love it. It makes me happy. Mattress and Sparkle Shit are two bands that I really like.

As someone who’s relatively new to the scene, it was great to talk to a seasoned veteran.

So, even though this was the last night they would be heard in a New Brunswick basement, the spirit of FoF lives on through their new bands. Remember what I said a while ago? About the new generations of bands? That’s what’s happening! And it’s so great!! And I’m fangirl-ing again. Let’s end this post before I get any worse.

01.21.11 | Period Girls and Kate Sweeney, get thee to a nunnery

Angel Marino — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 17:00:07 +0000

\m/ from Kate Sweeney on Vimeo.

I figured I’d point y’all to the moving pictures that sucked a good 30 minutes of my life away:

Period Girls – Wolf the Sisterhood from Kate Sweeney on Vimeo.

I’m pretty psyched on Period Girls. End of story. Wait, no, chapter two, because I think that whole “10 to 15 years later we recount the vivid memories of our youths and extrapolte that into sounds” thing is happening. Listen to them and tell me you’re not remembering that sun-drenched day you were 13 and it was 199_ and you were rocking out to your favorite ______ compact motherfucking disc after staying up until midnight for 120 minutes of bleary eyed Sonic Youth, Minutemen, The Cure, Dinosaur Jr and whatever the hell else crack Matt Pinhead was slinging.

Seriously though, check out Kate’s videos. If anyone knows why she stopped filming, threaten to break her leg if she doesn’t start again.

Klans and Collectives: I believe that Newark is the future…

Angel Marino — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 15:00:37 +0000

Maybe it’s all that Zuckerberg money being pumped into the water over there, crying quarters out of yr eyeballs and all, but I’ve got a good feeling about Newark, so I’m just gonna go ahead an call it now before the influx of white mid-western hipnards begins. Listen, I just want to be be able to cluck my tongue and say, “I told you so!” Call it the old yenta that I secretly am, but for months now I’ve been preaching the virtues of musicians, artists and other creative malcontents setting up shop in Newark. Why?

It’s easy. You can get to Newark from anywhere. Do you have a train station in your town? Congratulations, you are 5 bucks and one or two rides away. New Jersey has a little problem called “suburban sprawl.” In the months that we’ve started this website, I’ve encountered enough cool shit to fill eight BK’s, and yet hardly anyone knows about it. Who’s got the time or the energy to find out what’s going on in Trenton or Leonia? Well, Conor does.

Mearas aside, space is cheap and big in Newark. This girl I used to shtup has a loft for something in the ballpark of $500. Say wha….? Word. Finally, nobody gives a shit over there. You can finally start your electronic mutant baby band.

So consider myself shat when I saw this little diddle on my Book of Face: “Anarchy in NJ.”

Granted, Cerebral Ballzy’s a little meh, but they sound like Bad Brains (solos and sneers and all) which I’m very o.k. with, so whatever you can go away now, I’m o.k. with it now. Everything’s o.k. now, cuz it’s time for Newark to bring it all together courtesy of some broad minded Newarkians, like the self-styled NJ Street Klan. Intrigued? Me fucking too:

Anarchy in NJ from Tokz A. Gabriel on Vimeo.

This is the launch of something new, and according to zie Street Klan:

Some fucking idiot gave us an ALL AGE venue in Newark, In reality, this could be a living hell for anyone over the age of 22 with a job who takes life serious, simply because of the level of not giving a fuck & immaturity that will be present in the building. that will make the show more fun in our opinion. To the kids that can finally come, i would have you ask mommy for a ride to the train station or venue NOW! Because all the faggot ‘i want to be cool dudes’ & Hypebeast & Bloggers are going to invade this space, & it’s nothing more annoying than people at a show or party thats not there because they love the music & live for that shit; They’re there because they want to be “cool” & have their picture taken. All these people are pedophiles & they just want to fuck us.

Also, they have free booze from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. Yeah, I know, me too.

If this isn’t enough for you, on the same god damned day we have the beginnings of Marissa and LNY’s NJ Doodle Collective, also in Newark on Mulberry.

Take a look at some of the artists coming down to represent for the Doodlers:

▲ARTISTS///
*Kristina Centaur
*Ariana Barat
*Perry Shall

http://www.flickr.com/photos/crucialheadache/

*Marissa Paternoster

http://forgottengrin.blogspot.com/

*Jamie Bruno
*Alexander Conner

http://surnameconner.blogspot.com/

*Tim sullivan

http://www.tsoup.com/

*Delia kovac

http://www.deliakovac.blogspot.com/

*LNY

http://lnylnylny.com/

*Jen Park

http://www.jensohnpark.com/

*Klarika Huszar

http://helloklara.wordpress.com/

*Jackie Du

http://jackiedu.blogspot.com/

*Sara Lautman

http://slaut.tumblr.com/

LNY tells me there’s no name for this yet, but the drawings begin at 8 p.m. and there’s gonna be “bands and a DJ, all BYOB and free.” A man after mine own heart.

So there you go, sheeple. Bands that sound nice, art that looks cool, booze to warm you up. Fill up all yr senses, all in Newark, happening at the same fucking time. Take yr pick.

Oh and also, we can all go to QXT’s afterwards and diddle some goths or somethin’.

Bloggohypebeast, signing off.

This happened at NJ Skateshop, and some other places too, but mostly at NJ Skateshop

Angel Marino — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 14:00:21 +0000

The IPath footwear skate team toured through the Northeast, and managed to grace the NJ Skateshop with their silly-sounding — and occassionally fake — names (I’m looking at you, “Jaws“). I’m guessing this happened in Sayerville, cuz where the fuck do you skate in the yuphole that is Hoboken.

This also happened a while ago as evidenced by the lack of white god tears littering the ground, but it recently graced my eyes, so now it can grace yours:

O.K., that’s it. Go make naps, go make sammich, then go visit NJ Skateshop at one of their many (three) locations.

Not-So Related Reading:

1.15.11 | Byrds of Paradise, Dry Feet, Sparkle Shit and Mountain Dude

Angel Marino — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 17:00:18 +0000

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 missed pretty much all of Dry Feet, who are way too tight-sounding considering the aura of weed smoke that emanates from Perry and co. I was too busy sipping my tall can of Miller High Life and talking to this kid about Fidel Castro’s puppet regime from beyond the graaaaavvveee. They filled in for Weed Hounds, which I was pretty psyched about seeing, but there was some kind of mysterious force that prevented them from coming out that night. (Ghosts. It was ghosts.)

Byrds of Paradise, who have a new LP out on Don Giovanni, have a sound that’s way too big for the basement, or at least Meat Town’s basement. I recorded them, and they were so loud that the audio clips the entire time, quite the feat considering the mic’s supposed to condense these ornery sounds. So no vids for you, Byrds. Sorry, Kenny.

Below are some songs from Sparkle Shit and Mountain Dude’s sets. Both were a lot of fun, loose as always. I’m pretty sure Sparkle Shit girls go upstairs and wake up Lillyan before every set: “Psssst. Hey! We gotta plaaaayyyy…”

Love the Riot Girl vibes on this one.

This post is over. Go away.

1.20.11 | COMIC My cat is kind of a jerk

Mark Sedita — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 16:30:26 +0000

01.15.11 | An Evening at Meat Town

Alyssa Rorke — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 15:00:20 +0000

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.

Meat town is one of those places youll find people dancing like Peanuts characters, especially when Mountain Dude plays. Picture the sea of flannel shirts and coats, which certainly beats out bare sweaty backs slipping and slapping on each other in the crowd in the summertime, i.e., Ted Leo. Also, can we agree that every one of their sets should be ended with Wolfman? Nothing tickled me more than hearing the cheerful voice of a girl behind me say “Wow this band is really good!” in response to the closing song.

And if it’s any consolation to Byrds of Paradise, I don’t think you sound, look like, or give off any possible vibe of Taking Back Sunday despite what that (heckler?) guy might have implied by yelling out the tired, emo band’s name. Exciting news for BoP though: they will be performing at the Don Giovanni Records Showcase on Saturday, February 12 at Brooklyn’s Music Hall of Williamsburg with Lemuria, Screaming Females, Shellshag, and Laura Stevenson and the Cans.

One band may fade away, while another will go from a gig you see once in a basement to a pull-your-hands-out-of-your-pockets-to-clap-for-them kind of band. That’s what I like about Meat Town. And there’s always new generations of bands being born, planting little seedlings for the next ones.

Huge Pupils, from Leonia NJ

Conor Meara — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 20:14:24 +0000

I met them at the now-defunct Basement Gallery in Ewing, NJ, and immediately — from a distance — thought they were infiltrating hipsters. although i was initially wary, i had been booking bands for a couple of shows at the spot & after being told that they were “really fucking good” i was more than willing to at least meet & greet… say hello, catch a vibe… be friendly, y’know? it’s unfortunate that my traumatizing time in and out of Brooklyn (see: Le Rug) bore a prejudice that could have severely harmed the friendship about to be forged. regardless, we talked. and they were nice. “cool,” even…

Turns out they’re from New Jersey (thank gawd) and in a band based in Leonia (north north north) with no other members. “Huge Pupils” features only Sean, on drums, who also sings (shouts/screams/yelps/vocalizes) and Brian, playing bass out of a huge fucking amp. the next time i saw them, it was live… there at the Basement Gallery. everybody seemed to enjoy rocking the fuck out, i was really impressed, and i was happy to walk away that night with some sort of demo in the form of a CD-R, taped in a makeshift pouch, itself taped on to an 8 1/2 x 11 piece of paper that said HUGE PUPILS, with take-my-number tabs cut out of the bottom that read, alternating, either “Brian” or “Sean.” no phone number.

I got to see them again at The Loft in New Brunswick, where I was sitting in on bass for Dark Surfers & the Yawns. when we heard that a band dropped out, we asked Brian and Sean if they’d be willing to borrow and thrash on our instruments. they did, and it was hugely fucking rad.

Apparently Brian got back from Spain on Friday. they both came out to support the JOYdropper launch party, and it was the first time i’d seen either of ‘em in a while. the Basement Gallery bit the dust as do most things too-good-to-be-true… the last time i saw them was at a show they put together in the basement of a church in Ridgewood — the video above is their set… be sure to check it out. Alien Father played too, in between two midnight-to-9am recording sessions in New York… and though we were beyond tired, we had a great fucking time. They’ll be recording new stuff soon and we’ll be putting on a show as soon as possible somewhere, sometime, and i’m already excited. now’s the part where ya click some links… & watch out for all that ice out there, would ya?:

Huge Pupils on Facebook
Huge Pupils on Bandcamp

JOYdropper official launch party…

Conor Meara — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 18:11:26 +0000

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

The Best Poet From New Jersey

Amanda Deo — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 18:37:54 +0000

Yes, the title of this post is indeed a loaded one. However, if you have ever had the chance to hear Joe Weil read poetry, it would all make sense. On Thursday, January 6th, I had the pleasure of listening to Joe once more in Montclair, NJ at the Montclair Library. “Whenever I come to New Jersey,” Weil said, “I get nostalgic for friends.” Weil was planted and grew tall in a working class family out of Elizabeth, NJ. He begins his reading talking about the sadism of first grade and the nuns who told him he wouldn’t come to greatness. “They used to call it word blindness,” he states, and of course now we call it dyslexia. He was also left handed which many years ago came with negative connotations, like buying those extra few pairs of left-handed scissors was just asking too much. Weil writes about this experience in his poem, “In First Grade,” where he pens:

Johnny Gazumba was forced to help me with my penmanship/ which, according to Sister George, was seven circles of hell/ lower than chicken scratch/ Everyone (the nuns and cafeteria ladies) said he’d be a presit one day./ Twenty years later, he overdosed on smack but/ for all I know, his penmanship was still intact…

40+ years later, Weil reads with such fluency and passion, you’d think he would have been a nerdy kid with a dictionary.

Before Joe’s mother died of cancer he walked around their place in Elizabeth with her, with her little body clinging to his arm, and ensured her that the doctors would fit her with a new jaw and she’d go back to Ireland. He was lying, of course. But it was “a lie told out of love,” Weil conveys, “a good [kind of] lie.” Weil goes on to state that much of our culture is a lie, “it’s too cheerful.” And I believe him.

I was given the opportunity to ask Joe a few questions and here are his answers:

Q: You have your own Wikipedia entry. That certainly means something these days. How does that make you feel?
A: The Wikipedia page was initially set up by former students. I knew nothing about Wikipedia at the time. It was what they called a “stub” and people have since added to it. I like the picture on it (makes me look somewhat thin.) Seeing your life on a page is sort of comic. I know all the years I spent working a grave yard shift in a factory. I know how “unfamous” I am. It’s comic in that I feel detached from the “Joe Weil” on Wikipedia. He shares a lot in common with me except he’s thinner, and accomplished. The “life” on paper has all the facts of the lived life, but none of its central nervous system. Thank God.

Q: A lot of what you stand for is that blue collar background you experienced growing up in Elizabeth. How has your perception of the world changed now that you are an academic?
A: My perception of the world is still very much the same. I see adjuncts doing what amounts to slave labor, and the shop steward in me feels guilty. I watch my country dismantle labor and outsource what’s left, destroy unions, and create the largest discrepancy between the very rich and the poor since the 19th century. I see middle class people struggle. My dad was able to buy a house and raise four kids as a machinist in the 1960′s. As for me, that does not seem possible. We replaced skilled labor jobs with low paying white collar work that has little security or future. So I am grateful to be working. I love to teach. I can not get used to working only two days a week, not counting my grading, and holding office hours, so I go into campus every day during the semesters. I am grateful to have a job. As a working class person, you don’t believe a man or woman should be judged by their work because you have experienced people looking down on you for getting dirty, for being a semi-skilled, for being non-professional. A person is not his job, and there are things I learned as a tool grinder that I believe help me as a professor just as much as the poetry I have read. I am a hands-on teacher. I remember all the men and women I knew who worked so hard and who received no respect for it. I remember my father working double shifts trying to pay the mortgage. If I forget them, then I would feel I had become morally bankrupt and unworthy of being a poet or professor.

Q: You have done a lot of things for poetry in New Jersey. Do you feel like writers, poets, etc. could be doing more in New Jersey to help promote the craft? Do you miss us (NJ) at all?
A: I believe far more could be done. When I first started reading poetry in public, there were a lot of readings in bars, in cafes, in lofts. These have disappeared. Slam has filled the niche left empty by a more eclectic, less binary poetry scene. Slam came out of the spoken word scene I knew which was thriving in the mid-80′s. All ages and types of poets went to such readings. They were events.. Marc Smith created the slam from this motley mix of styles and characters. but it is highly rigged now: a certain style of reading, even certain hand gestures. I see hundreds come out for slam, but here’s the difference: many of these poets don’t read poetry, or only read the top slammers. We don’t have enough serious readers of poetry. The poetry scene seems divided into traditional readings, and slam artists and neither is wild about supporting the other since both scenes define themselves as being the alternative. Slam is highly organized, and ageist. The poetry scene that gave birth to slam was not ageist. Def Jam with its television demographics, and emphasis on a certain type of good looking, stereo type of young “spoken” word poet caused this to happen. Back in the day, a person who was sixty read with kids in their teens and each respected the other. That’s how it should be. Poetry was like a wedding reception with all ages, and types. I see poets at regular readings and hardly anyone is under forty. I see poets at slams and no one is over forty. This is bad for poetry. Ghettos, in terms of cliques, are bad– age ghettos as well. Then there are the MFA readings, but no grad students show up at bars or cafes to read — they only show up for the big shots they are trying to impress or at official university readings. They think they are better than others — never a good thing for the arts. Academics too often go out of their way to be boring, and slam artists sell a product that has no shelf-life except to confine poetry to issues and attitudes copped from imitations of Def Jam. The spoken word scene I rose up in had a much wider variety of styles and ages and the poets actually read other poets… I don’t know how we break down the ghettos. Human beings like cliques. Many of the more serious poets are more in favor of workshops and publishing than readings. The lit mags ought to be getting their magazines out at readings, but this is not the case. Maria Gillan and Laura Boss do this superbly well, but the others, many of whom are snobs, have funded mags that don’t need to be sold. No one is fusing these disparate scenes. It could be done. The Dodge festival attempts it, but there is no magazine tent there for literary mags and there should be. The open readings should also be run by experienced hosts, and with one feature to do a ten minute gig to set the tone. They should not be shoe-horned in, and the big shots insulated from the no-names. That goes against the spirit of poetry as I envision it.

Q: Is there anything about writers in NJ that you feel makes us special?
A: New Jersey has the densest population of people per square mile in the country, and a wild variety of different ethnic groups, classes, and languages. Its South Jersey poets have a tradition of good nature poetry, as do the sky lands. And there isn’t a spot in Jersey less than two hours removed from Philly, New York, or, at the very tip, Baltimore. Its location makes it ideal for a variety of poetics, or it should. I’d like to see readings that combined languages. I’d like to see the full breath of poetry from the Chinese/ Indian populations in Central Jersey as well as other Asian groups, as well as Spanish, Italian, and so on. It could be done. Jersey has diverse geographic areas as well. It’s a crossroads state. All stories and poems begin at the crossroads. Again, the problem is the human tendency to form cliques that are afraid of the stranger in their midst. I spent most of my life alone. I welcome the stranger. I am an eclectic. I hate cliques.

Q: How important is the Dodge Poetry Festival to you and for you?
A: The Dodge poetry festival has been of tremendous importance to me. Two forces in New Jersey showed kindness toward me when I was a factory worker: Maria Mazziotti Gillan who opened poetry to a lot of people who may have been otherwise excluded, and Dodge, which featured me in the poets among us back in 1992 when I was without even a chap book. Both Dodge and Maria gave me my first teaching gigs. What can I say? That made it possible for me to be a poet.

Q: You are also a musician and you really seem to understand the syncopation between poetry and music or words and music. Can you explain this connection a little further for me?
A: Many poets hate the word “entertainer” but the moment you step in front of an audience, you are in the bardic realm, which means you must be present, and you are now in a relationship with more than just the book you’re reading from. The reading, the performance, the ceremony of the reading is also a text of sorts — an act of language and presence you and the audience create together. So being a musician, I think in terms of presence — which is the truest form of performing. My job is to help the audience and myself conduct a meaningful ceremony, a rite of communion. I must bring my talent, my experience and my sense of welcome to the reading, and they also must bring their best game to the festivities: attention and true presence. Whenever possible I like to create ebb and flow of mood during a reading. Doing a song can give a useful change up, building a dramatic art between smaller, more intimate, and longer narrative poems also add variety. I don’t mind being an entertainer. The last thing I want to do is bore an audience. Maybe there is someone out there who has never been to a poetry reading. If so, I have a responsibility to draw them in. I do not patronize or talk down to aun audience. I want them to know I’m glad to be there. I want them to feel the same.

Q: How do you feel the internet has changed the way writers get noticed or publish?
A: Poetry is something almost everyone writes at one time or another, but most people do not read. The internet has allowed people to get past the gatekeepers, those who have power to say what deserves to be seen and read and what doesn’t. This might lead to a lot of bad poetry being put on an even basis with good work, but why not? It also means very good poets who don’t fit the aesthetic fashion of the moment still get a shot. People will find their level as surely as water seeks its level. Many gatekeepers are more about politics than true quality anyway. Poetry’s market is small. A book that sells five thousand copies is a poetry best seller. This means the poet is not going to make a killing off his or her writing, so the main purpose becomes the creating of very good work for a small audience who are truly dedicated. I used to post new poems regularly on Myspace. I got 800 hits a week at one point. No way I’d have that many eyes on poem in a lit mag, but then I had editors asking me for these poems they saw on Myspace, so all the internet offers is another venue… and what’s wrong with that?

Writers, please go see Joe Weil in action when you can. There is so much to be learned from Joe’s written word and performance. It’s awe-inspiring.

1.14.2011 | Part Three: Writing this now

William Weekley — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 18:15:29 +0000

We’re serializing William Weekley’s book thinger, for the next couple of weeks, probably every Tuesday and Thursday. You can read the first part over here.

Be aware, he has an aversion for writing normal sentences, or making paragraphs. Make of that what you…will.

(then), I am beginning to discover that it goes on and on so much deeper than anything complacently surface-like. you could just imagine those song-sung suburban woes of boredom and apathy. out there someewhere is a whole country—HELL—a whole fucking generation full of desolate children who grew up into the void. a walking youthcult you can find at any coffee shop or clothing store super-center vapid and tilled right from good old American soil. maybe this is a curse, our curse.

at some point in our sad cultural meandering we trampled the graves of the jealous Old Gods. our mere existence boiling anger in their decayed form. a string of hexes spat forth casting us all into the darkest circles of mediocrity and all of this had no effect on my driving. I thought the LSD had yet to travel the long winding systems of veins and neuro-synapses but at that moment it shot ahead full throttle to the brain hitting me in the driver’s seat under the amber glow of a new Brunswick street light. i thought about how poetic it felt handing the three torn pieces of paper out like some psychedelic conductor punching tickets before the train leaves the station.

it made my move (and separation) Official, sending each of us away from home. It became painfully obvious how much harder this was going to be. i planned for a very straight-forward exit with little to no emotion shown, maybe as an act of protest against their forcing me to leave like this.

DAPHNE LEFT US outside her apartment and PETER and I ended up drinking on the porch. PETER sitting there with his typical swaying on the beat of conversational rhythm, the more intensely he shifted his posture backwards and forwards the more engaged he was in whatever topic was being thrown around. I watched him sway with the tide, jutting his neck out and making overly elaborate hand talk then slumping back slack shouldered with head hanging neutrality. voices grew louder as we drank. I had no idea what anyone was meaning, my mind still fixated on the jump-ship evacuation I was about to make, a full 3,000 miles. ~~XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX~~

We entered thru the back of DAPHNE’s apartment, catching a glimpse of her passed out corpse-like with ~~XXXXY~~ immediately sent me to a place of anger, jealousy and then empathy. it was nothing special, DAPHNE and i had just known each other for a long time.

*************************

Read part one here.

Will, or “Wil” as he prefers to be called, is a writer/graphic designer/artist dude from Iselin, New Jersey, the land of 1,000 Indian food restaurants, dinky suburbs, and the Metropark, which can help take you very far away from Iselin. Will did that once, and this tale chronicles some of that, and other stuff. Get in touch with him. You can get him to make graphics and other weird-o stuff, that is if you can get him to wake up.