CORONA CONCERTS ARE A VIRAL SENSATION (IN A GOOD WAY)

Published in The Coaster (Asbury Park, NJ), April 2, 2020 

“Seattle just banned all live music performances for 30 days!” read a widely disseminated meme that made the social media rounds a few weeks back. “This cancels over 1246 gigs, affecting 320 working musicians…with a total income loss of almost $426.75!”

It’s funny because it’s true, more or less — but with the COVID-19 public health emergency having subsequently slammed into the Garden State like a killer frost, it’s a bit less funny for all those who toil in the fields of what up until very recently stood as this area’s major cash crop: the bar/ restaurant/ theater/ nightclub circuit.

When the region’s music scene shuttered almost overnight, music makers from all stylistic corners of the local soundscape took to the wi-fi “airwaves” to serve up home-cooked concert creations for their fans — a sonic smorgasbord that ranged from “saloon singer” supreme Pat Guadagno, to classic crooner Chris Pinnella, to kidrock romper Yosi Levin, to dancefloor DJ Mick Hale. But it was a longtime patroness of the arts by the name of Ellen Berman who took it as a cue to do something unprecedented, for the scores of creative individuals who have historically counted on eking out a spartan but steady existence making music. Beginning on March 18 and scheduled to continue every night at 9 pm for the duration of the public venue shutdown, a cast of singers from our neck of New Jersey (and the big world beyond) connects with their fanbase via Facebook, in an ambitious endeavor entitled Ellen Berman’s Viral Video Productions presents Corona Classic Concerts.

Appearing in that inaugural mini-concert — and taking a major role in the planning and production of the series — was a familiar presence on the Shore soundscape: Arlan Feiles, the singer/ songwriter/ producer/ multi-instrumentalist and activist whose intensely personal-yet-universal compositions have graced a catalog of acclaimed indie albums, stages of every conceivable size, high-profile film soundtracks, and collaborative projects with the likes of vocal veteran JT Bowen.

“Ellen is one of New Jersey’s great music fans,” observes Feiles in a call from his Matawan home. “I first met her at a holiday show at the Stone Pony, where she bought 40 of my CDs to give out as Christmas gifts!”

“She hired me to help put together this live stream project, with the idea that the musicians get paid for their work…I thought I’d line up a few guys; get a few shows going for a few weeks…but within three days we got a huge response, a healthy schedule, where we’re employing over 40 artists. So far it’s just been overwhelmingly incredible!”

Featured artists have thus far included such Jersey Shore perennials as Emily Grove, Tara Dente and Cranston Dean, as well as nationwide acts like the LA-based Canyoneers, Nashville (by way of her native Neptune City) sensation Nicole Atkins, and Joan Osborne (best known for the hit “One of Us”).

As Feiles emphasizes, “This is a curated schedule of artists who have been paid to perform…they all get 200 to 300 dollars, which is a drop in the bucket for someone like Nicole Atkins, but which goes a long way for someone whose livelihood depends on music-related activity. They can pay it forward, do what they want…but the important thing is that Ellen and I want to see these musicians get paid for their art.”

“They get to produce their segments as they see fit…but we ask them to please let us see where you are,” adds the music programmer in reference to the videos that have presented a quirky and engaging look at these “captive” creatives in their home environment. “And the at-home format has allowed us to get April Smith, who was such a big part of the scene before she retired from performing about ten years ago (the singer is scheduled to perform on Monday, April 13).”

Feiles, who performed his own virtual set on Wednesday night, returns for additional 9 pm schedulings on April 8 and 15 — while other upcoming Corona Classics spotlight such fellow Shore faves as Rick Barry (Sunday, April 5), Quincy Mumford (Monday, April 6), Dentist (Friday, April 10), and Rachel Ana Dobken (Friday, April 17), as well as NJ-to-NOLA transplant Allie Moss (Thursday, April 16).

The response to the nightly series has been such that Berman and Feiles organized a separate slate of virtual “Happy Hour” concerts, scheduled for 5 pm on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. The series that kicked off on March 27 continues into another weirdly quiet weekend with Ocean Township’s own Frank Lombardi featured on Friday, April 3. Gayle Skidmore and John Anaya, respectively of the Netherlands and Scotland, round out the Saturday/ Sunday scene — while Asbury fans will not want to miss a solo appearance by Swagmatics frontwoman Deseree Spinks on Sunday, April 11 (there’s also talk of an 11 pm late-nite series).     

THE MOD-ERATES ARE THE REVOLUTIONARIES IN THIS PARTY

Chris Collins, Mick “London” Hale, and Bobby “Werner” Strete perform as MOD FUN, Friday the 13^th at Asbury Park Yacht Club.

Published in The Coaster (Asbury Park, NJ) and The Link (Long Branch, NJ), March 12, 2020

 “They say that turbulent times are good for the arts,” says guitarist and vocalist Mick London, by way of explaining a level of activity that brings his long-running rock band Mod Fun back to the local stage this Friday, March 13. “And what does it say that we’ve stayed together a lot longer this time around, than when we were first on the scene?”

One of the most attention-compelling original combos to emerge out of New Jersey in the early to mid-1980s, Mod Fun caught the cutting edge of a rock renaissance that centered around such creative hives as Hoboken, New Brunswick, and our own Shore points; fortified by such legendary outposts as The Dirt Club in Bloomfield (site of the band’s inaugural gig), City Gardens, Maxwell’s, Court Tavern, the Fast Lane and the Brighton Bar; supported by a robust indie press and the pioneers of college/ alternative radio (oh, and The Uncle Floyd Show). While most of those cultural outlets are the stuff of late-boomer nostalgia these days, the trio of London, drummer Chris Collins and bassist Bobby “Werner” Strete remains on call; ready to assemble like Avengers or some jukebox Justice League, whenever turbulent times demand the peculiar diplomacy of the band’s supercharged postpunk powerpop.

Hosted within the satisfyingly stripped-down setting of the Asbury Park Yacht Club on the famous boards, the Friday night fracas finds the Fun playing its first Asbury Park gig in a full decade, having last appeared at the “old” Asbury Lanes in 2010 as part of a “Modsbury Park” bill in support of their to-date most recent recording, the full-length album Futurepresent.

Bolstered by a widely viewed video for “Give” (a clip filmed against the backdrop of such now-vanished landmarks like the Baronet Theatre and the aborted Esperanza condo project), the album cemented the band’s bond with Asbury Park, even as charter member Strete relocated to the Cincinnati area. For the core trio whose career was inspired by the “Mod” era revivalism of Paul Weller’s `1970s band The Jam — and whose early focus on northern NJ and NYC led to and high-profile sets up and down the eastern seaboard — it was a “homecoming” rooted in a 2004 show at The Saint; a reunion that marked the 20th anniversary of the band’s hard-driving debut single, “I Am With You.”

Even as he’s kept one foot planted in the garage-land realm of guitars and amps, however, “Mick London” is better known to current city residents as DJ Mick Hale, the dance-music specialist who presides over “Tempted Tuesdays,” Tea Dances and Pink Proms throughout the calendar year. Having enlivened the normally drab foothills of the working-week hump via his long-running Tuesday night gig at Georgie’s Bar, Hale prepares to augment his weekly residency at “the gay Cheers” of north Asbury with a summer-season stint at the poolside lounge of The Asbury Hotel, as well as an anticipated return to Convention Hall’s Beach Bar and other outlets of the partystarting pulsebeat.

That “double life” of the Anglophile aficionado of classic Brit bands like The Who and The Kinks, and the expert purveyor of R&B/dancefloor favorites, is reconciled to some extent by Hale’s ongoing involvement with another well-established endeavor: the electronica group Crocodile Shop, a dormant-not-dead entity (founded in 1987, and also harnessing the talents of Strete) about which the busy music maker says, “our keyboard player (v.Markus) sent me five new tracks last year…we finished one, and I keep having the idea of reviving Croc Shop as a recording project.”

There’s another element still to the     musical makeup of Mr. Mick Hale — a factor little-known to the scene at large, but hardly anything of an embarrassment to the Wanamassa resident — and that’s his 15-year career with the U.S. Postal Service, about which more momentarily.  

NJ REP’S ‘PROMOTION’: THIS TIME IT’S PERSONNEL

Shore area natives John Caliendo and Sophia Parola are pictured in rehearsal for THE PROMOTION, the play that makes its world premiere in Long Branch this weekend. (photos by Andrea Phox Photography)

Published in The Coaster (Asbury Park, NJ) and The Link (Long Branch, NJ), March 5, 2020

“I tried to take on as many hot-button issues as I could with this play,” confesses playwright Joe Giovannetti. “You could say I put a lot of powder into the powderkeg!”

The play in question is The Promotion, a “comedy about surviving in the dog-eat-dog world of business” that will very shortly become the latest in a long line of shows to make its world premiere at New Jersey Repertory Company in Long Branch. The hot topics include race, gender, traditional social hierarchies, sexual tension, and the relentless reality-show competitiveness of modern life — in other words, just another day at the office break room for some — all of it framed in a way that’s “funnier than not funny…it’s a dark comedy, but the treatment of the content is serious.”

Speaking from his Chicago home, the writer-technician-designer-actor-director and sometime filmmaker insists that, while it’s set inside an insurance sales office, the play is not necessarily based on his own past job experience in a “pretty soft-edged” agency. Rather, it’s inspired by “any place where competition rules, and where people try to hack the system to get an edge…it’s a thing that’s baked into our culture, but it’s super-corrosive to treat every interaction as a competition.”

In the show that goes up in previews beginning tonight, March 5, a pair of co-workers named Trish (Sophia Parola) and Josh (John Caliendo) are insurance agents who exist on more or less equal footing in the company power structure — until an opportunity presents itself that both of them want, but only one of them can have. The subsequent jockeying for favor finds both the black woman and the white man exploring the outer limits of just how far they’d go to claim that sought-after prize.

As one of many NJ Rep offerings developed through the National New Play Network, The Promotion has been workshopped for audiences at DC’s Kennedy Center, as well as in Atlanta and Giovannetti’s home base of Chicago. That said, the official fully staged debut boasts an engagingly local angle in the casting of the leads, both new to the Long Branch stage. The young stage and screen veteran Caliendo is a native of Point Pleasant, while Manalapan-bred Sophia Parola is an alumna of both Monmouth University and Brookdale Community College, where she first caught the acting bug under the direction of the school’s longtime drama prof John Bukovec.

The two lead actors are joined by Chantal Jean-Pierre (as Lois, a senior colleague described by Giovannetti as a “voice of God” and “Greek chorus”), and by Broadway veteran Phillip Clark (as Mr. Buchanan, a businessman whose arrival impacts the office equilibrium from the outside). The cast of fresh faces is under the expert guidance of prolific director Evan Bergman, whose critically acclaimed projects for the Rep company now number upwards of a dozen (we’ve lost count).

While jokingly referring to his first-time alliance with Bergman as a “shotgun marriage,” the playwright credits the time that he spent working closely with his director in Atlanta for helping The Promotion get in shape for its premiere.

“Seeing this play being read for audiences three times in three different cities has been really helpful,” Giovannetti maintains. “I’m a white man who’s written a play with two black woman characters, and I appreciate talking to people about what I might have gotten right, or what might be off base.”

“The actors also bring generationally different perspectives to their characters,” the playwright says of the story in which the authority figures — the ones who wield the ultimate decision on that prize — are never seen. “The play does end in a fairly resolved way…just maybe not the way that you might have expected!”  

SMITHEREENS, CRENSHAW ARE MORE THAN A MEMORY

Jim Babjak, Dennis Diken, Marshall Crenshaw, and Mike Mesaros bring the Smithereens songbook to the stage of the Pollak Theatre on March 7.   (photo by Neil Seiffer)

Published in The Coaster (Asbury Park, NJ) and The Link (Long Branch, NJ), February 27, 2020

 The Asbury Park Paramount was packed with people and studded with celebs from all walks of public life this past October 27, as The Smithereens found themselves inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame — an honor that placed the “Garage-rock State” institution not only in the company of music makers from Bruce to Basie, but also among a veritable “honor (pork)roll” of leaders in the fields of science, statecraft, the humanities, and athletic accomplishment. Following an introduction by E Streeter Garry Tallent (who acknowledged becoming aware of the band via TV’s Uncle Floyd Show), the surviving ‘reens paid tribute to Pat DiNizio, the vocalist and principal songwriter who passed away in 2017; thanked a litany of friends, family members, managers, producers, club owners, DJs, rock mags — and, in the case of drummer Dennis Diken, cited a “holy place” known as the record department at Two Guys.

The reference to that long-gone but still-cherished discount retailer was simply one more supremely Jersey moment on the timeline, for an internationally celebrated group whose relationship to their forever-home state can be said to be of the “perfect-together” persuasion. For Diken, guitarist Jim Babjak, and bassist Mike Mesaros (all of whom grew up in Carteret) — as well as for proudly proclaimed “Scotch Plainsman” DiNizio (who wore hometown hats ranging from neighborhood garbageman, to candidate for U.S. Senate), the mutual love affair had a favorite trysting place in and around Asbury Park.

“Asbury, and the Shore have always been special to us…going back to 1980,” says Diken, himself an in-demand player (and occasional WFMU disc jockey) whose skills on the skins have been sought by the likes of Tallent, Ben E. King, and ex-Kink Dave Davies. “Lance Larson let us have the opening slot for his band Lord Gunner, for a couple of months…so there we were, just starting out, and with a residency at The Stone Pony!”

The band would return numerous times to the Pony hitching post, all during a nearly 40-year run that would see them navigate the ups and downs of the record-industry rollercoaster, get into rotation on MTV (as well as “alternative” radio outlets like the late lamented WHTG-FM), and make additional local stops at stages like The Fast Lane, where The Smithereens would first share a bill with their spiritual kin and contemporary, Marshall Crenshaw.

It was at the Wonder Bar that Babjak, Diken and Mesaros would play one of their last gigs with DiNizio in July 2017; the frontman by that point having lost the ability to wield a guitar after a protracted struggle with injury-related health issues. For the singer (whose local connection was such that he would come to be named to the Asbury Angels memorial hall of fame), it was no obstacle to delivering a set of those signature songs — “Blood and Roses,” “Behind the Wall of Sleep,” “Only a Memory,” “In a Lonely Place,” “Blues Before and After” — moody, mature, magnificent songs that staked out the crossroads of alternative/punk energy and the ambitious “teenage symphonies” of such heroes as Brian Wilson and The Beatles. And, because it was a Smithereens set, there were covers of everything from the Fab Four’s “Yesterday” and the 60s staple “Gloria,” to the pre-Elvis chestnut “Milk Cow Blues,” and the classic theme from TV’s “Batman” (this last in tribute to the late Adam West).

“Pat always gave it a thousand percent…he admired, we all admired, those showbiz people who were real troupers,” says Diken — with the legendary expert authority on popular culture adding, “we believe that you perform til you drop…and I always loved Dick Shawn!” (a reference to the 1960s-70s comic actor who literally died on stage).

“As far as being more mature sounding than other bands, I guess it just related back to the fact that we liked to read books, take in movies, and just experience life,” the drummer observes. “We appreciated being able to go to places like Scandinavia, where we played pretty early on, in 1984….and a place like The Stone Pony helped us to step out of our little North Jersey womb.”

Another crucial step outside the cradle came courtesy of the dearly departed Greenwich Village landmark Kenny’s Castaways, where the frequently featured Smithereens became the last band to play in 2012 — and where “we cut our teeth; met people in the industry, and found a spiritual godfather” in the owner, Pat Kenny.

For Di Nizio’s bandmates, then, there was never any question that the road would wind on — and on March 7, that road will lead once more down-the-Shore, when The Smithereens are joined by guest vocalist-guitarist Crenshaw for a Pollak Theatre concert on the Monmouth University campus.         

A ‘FAT SATURDAY’ MARDI GRAS ROLLS ON IN ASBURY PARK

Published in The Coaster (Asbury Park, NJ) and The Link (Long Branch, NJ), February 20, 2020

 “People love the idea of Mardi Gras in Asbury Park,” says Cindy Wolfson Ciullo — and, as the impresaria behind the area’s most “something-for-everyone” observance of Fat Tuesday, the owner of Asbury Park’s Backward Glances has almost singlehandedly spearheaded a hyper-local happening that fits right in with such “seagrass-roots” annual events as the original Zombie Walk, the Asbury Park Promenade of Mermaids (returning on July 11), and September’s AP Porchfest.

This Saturday, February 22, the Asbury Park Mardi Gras celebration returns to the downtown business blocks for a fifth annual slate of activities and entertainments, with the vendor of vintage clothing and nostalgic gifts (located on the lower level of the Shoppes at the Arcade mini-mall, 658 Cookman Avenue) serving as anchor site for the event that began as a promotion for the Downtown Merchants Guild in 2016 — and which survived the disbanding of that organization to take on a vivid life of its own.

As Wolfson Ciullo tells it, “My love of New Orleans inspired me to bring the party to New Jersey…we have many people who attend the (Masquerade Ball) every year, and the daytime events are a great way to show what the downtown has to offer.”

The “Fat Saturday” festivities kick off at noon with the King Cake Baby Hunt, an all-ages scavenger safari inspired by the Mardi Gras tradition of baking baby figurines or other symbolic trinkets into “king” cakes, the Carnival pastries that have historically commemorated the Magi’s presentation of gifts to the baby Jesus.

In this case, the babies are hidden inside various neighboring businesses around the Cookman Avenue corridor — with all who take part in the five-hour hunt invited to stop by Backward Glances to pick up a list of the scavenger sites (there’s no charge to participate in the event).

As Cindy explains, hunters should “visit the shops and find each baby…each one is holding a secret word. Write all the words on your entry blank, then return to the start and get a mini king cake as a reward.” In addition, all scavengers are encouraged to hang on to their lists for dropping off back at the Backward Glances base camp by 5 pm, since “a random entry will be chosen to win great prizes.”

At 2 pm the fun gets down on all fours, as the 2020 edition of the Mardi Paws Pet Parade invites proudly strutting pets and human handlers to dress up in festive regalia for a promenade that proceeds from out front of the Shoppes, continuing along Cookman Avenue, then returning to be judged in the costume contest for which prizes will be awarded in multiple categories.

Pet Parade participants can register in advance for a discounted $5 via Eventbrite.com, or sign up for a $7 fee on-site by 1 pm Saturday. All registration proceeds will help fund the good works of the Oakhurst-based nonprofit Wag On Inn Rescue, with additional information available by calling Paws Pet Boutique at Shoppes at the Arcade, 732-449-5000.

From there the good ship Mardi Gras finds Happy Hour harbor in a delightfully unusual port of call, as Taka (660 Cookman Avenue at Bond Street) offers revelers a selection of “Mardi Gras inspired cocktails and festive food with a Japanese flair” between the hours of 3 to 7 pm. It’s an aperitif to the evening’s centerpiece and main event, when Scott Stamper’s Main Street mainstay The Saint plays host once again to a musically minded Masquerade Ball.

Headlining the hullabaloo — as they’ve done each year since its inception — are The VooDudes, the Highland Park-based specialists in Big Easy bontemps roullez who are familiar from countless summer-stage appearances in Long Branch, Asbury, Red Bank and other shakin’ Shore points. Fronted for more than 25 years by guitars-and-drums brothers Gary and Dave Ambrosy (as well by vocalist, harmonicat and washboard-vest virtuoso Andy B, pictured), the globe-trotting and glove-tight quintet is charged once more with dialing up the cajun-spice heat on a midwinter’s night, there in downtown AP’s boxcar berthplace of rock and roll.         

A ‘VALENTINES IN OVERTIME’ WEEKEND STARTS HERE AND NOW

Published in The Coaster (Asbury Park, NJ) and The Link (Long Branch, NJ), February 13, 2020

 It’s Valentine’s Day, and all around the romantically walkable beaches of our fair Shore, thoughts turn to candy kisses and cardboard Cupids; the sweet swirl of the sauvignon, and the scent of Sunoco station roses; the prix fixe menus, and the pure peer pressure of participating in a “romantic” ritual designed to make the unattached feel like…

Sorry folks, that’s Anti-Valentine’s talk — and that’s the purview of music promoter Megan O’Shea, whose Anti-Valentine’s Day Songwriting Contest hosted its third annual competition this past Wednesday at the Asbury Hotel. But beginning tonight, February 13 — and continuing on through a four-day “Valentine’s Overtime” interlude of concert events and variety vaudevilles — it is all about the Love.

Here on the first V-Day of the Roaring Twenties, what better way to kick off the festivities than with a Valentine’s Day Eve Massacre, set to take place tonight in the basement of downtown Asbury Park’s Bond Street Complex. Going up at 8 pm, the FREE subterranean spelunk showcases the intriguingly moody pop electronica of Blaise, along with Bronco 2, The Skinny Dickies, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, and the nextbigthing known as kqhyt kqhyt.

Meanwhile over at the oceanside Langosta Lounge, a special Thursday night Galentine’s Day free-for-all highlights the new-ish New Attitude, a supergroup of singers (Postmodern Jukebox vocalist Brielle Von Hugel, Virginia Cavaliere of Six Appeal, and Shore stage sensation Bre Cade) who team up to channel “badass lady icons” like Chaka, Aretha, Whitney, and Adele with full band in tow.

Valentine’s night itself finds impresario, humanitarian, restaurateur, entrepreneur and eternal entertainer Tim McLoone assembling his band The Shirleys for a specially themed show at Tim’s eponymous Supper Club on the Asbury boards — and February 14 wouldn’t be complete without the contribution of the aptly appellation’d DJ Tyler Valentine, commandeering Asbury Lanes for an “Emo vs. R&B” dancefloor showdown that’s FREE of charge.

Frequenters of the Jenn Hampton-era Lanes know Angie Pontani as the undisputed superstar of the region’s New Burlesque scene, with the Jersey-born mistress of classic striptease/ bump ‘n grind dance emerging as impresaria of her own touring Burlesque-A-Pades performance troupe. More than just a leering cousin to old-time vaudeville (or a slightly less pierced version of hipster sideshow revivalism), the burlesque/boy-lesque dancers, comics and specialty performers of Angie’s company are on display Saturiday night, February 15, on the big stage of House of Independents, when Angie joins The Maine Attraction, Ben Franklin, emcee Murray Hill and other guests for a Burlesque-A-Pades in Loveland encore event.

When we last interviewed Southside Johnny Lyon, it was in his now-traditional role as master of ceremony for Asbury Park’s Independence Day interlude — a role that the Jukes generalissimo balances each year with his “Mr. New Year’s Eve” gig at Red Bank’s Count Basie stage. On Saturday night, Johnny returns once more to his Stone Pony spawning grounds for the “third time’s a charm” in another calendar-guy context: as blues-belting Cupid for a special Valentine’s weekend show. Meanwhile back at Mr. McLoone’s, Asbury’s own songbook sensation Chris Pinnella is joined by a 12 piece orchestra, performing “re-imagined versions of songs by The Beatles, Jeff Buckley, The Who, The Righteous Brothers, Elvis, Billy Joel, Elton John and more.”  

THE BIG GIG GOES UP, AS THE LAKEHOUSE BEAT BUS ROLLS ON

Published in The Coaster (Asbury Park, NJ) and The Link (Long Branch, NJ), February 6, 2020

Photos by Jeff Crespi (Beat Bus photo by Tom Chesek)

 “We are all created creative,” says Ben Marino. “It’s just a matter of pulling that part of ourselves out.”

By that metric, the young veteran drummer might seem to have clued in to one of the most perfect situations in all of “creation” — a job as a music director at Asbury Park’s Lakehouse Music Academy.

It’s there inside the busy complex overlooking Wesley Lake that the Bloomfield, NJ resident helps oversee a slate of instructional programs designed to pull that passionate purveyor of music out from students that range in age from six months, to (currently) 75 years young.

While at first glance the LHMA mission might seem similar to numerous “School of Rock” programs from sea to shining sea, this is Asbury Park — and here in the music-mad little city that makes a gloriously big noise, it’s simply not enough to adhere to a strictly by-the-numbers classic-rock canon. And, while other instructors might prompt their students to essentially play dress-up in the boots of Janis, Jimi or Jim, the Lakehouse team takes a different tack, in which the student performer is encouraged to build something all their own, on the foundations of those innovators from pop history.

In the words of Lakehouse founder/owner (plus in-demand producer, engineer, songwriter and session musician) Jon Leidersdorff (pictured), the curriculum centers around “teaching kids to write and evolve as a creative person…and apply those skillsets you get from being creative.”

Beginning at 5 pm on Friday, February 7 — and continuing through two more music-packed mornings, afternoons and nights — the program and the people who power it take center-lanes stage at Asbury Lanes, as the reborn bowl-a-rama plays host for the second consecutive year to the student showcase event known as The Big Gig.

The culmination of the academy’s Fall 2019 semester, the weekend-long affair is one of three such showcases presented throughout the year; a modern-day vaudeville that brings more than 60 different bands — each representing a specific LHMA class in one of four age categories (Cadet, Get Started, Core, Adult Night Session) — to the stage that’s spotlighted a dazzling array of local, national, and international talent.

Picking up from previous Big Gig weekends at venues like House of Independents and the Wonder Bar, the triple-header event is completely free of charge to attend, and open to all members of the public. In other words, one need not be a family member of a participating student to appreciate the level of talent on display — in fact, it’s not hyperbole to suggest that music fans can expect to get an early look at acts that will soon be graduating to “grownup gigs” on many of the area’s most stellar stages.

“One of our Core program bands, a group called Mannequin Arm, opened for Southside Johnny at the Count Basie Theatre on New Year’s Eve,” says Marino of one the academy’s latest success stories. “They started all the way back in our Lakehouse Littles program, and graduated to other levels.”

Indeed, a glance at the roster of Moto Records, the in-house label operated by Lakehouse, displays several acts that should be familiar to regular followers of the Asbury-centric music scene — acts like Sonic Blume, Ella Ross, and one of the newest breakout performers, Lauren Gill (who will be headlining a Stone Pony matinee show on the afternoon of Sunday, February 16).

JAMIESON’S SELECT: A JERSEY JESTER HOLDS COURT AT THE BRIGHTON BAR

Published in The Coaster (Asbury Park, NJ) and The Link (Long Branch, NJ), January 23, 2020

 It’s the kind of matchup of vaudeville and venue that makes perfect sense and fits like a warm winter glove; a cold night’s comfort that still manages to raise a delightfully hellacious noise.

For a run of nearly five years, the Bradley Beach-based music promoter Ben Puglisi’s DAA Entertainment has established bi-monthly base camp, at a like-minded local-scene landmark that’s specialized in the care, feeding, and nurture of homegrown “heavy” music, in all of its metal/ punk/ noise and just generally offbeat manifestations.

The ringmaster for those revels is Don Jamieson, the veteran purveyor of “slobservational” standup and “prank” humor who’s best known on the national/ international as longtime co-host (with Eddie Trunk and Jim Florentine) of the VH-1 series That Metal Show, as well as the SportsNet NY program Beer Money, and enough multi-platform plaudits to have earned standing as a King of Most Media (or at least a recognition as “TV’s Don Jamieson”).

The venue for that brand of vaudeville is none other than the Brighton Bar in the West End section of Long Branch, a place whose proudly proclaimed pedigree as The Home of Original Music on the Jersey Shore saw it sounding its keynote as a neighborhood “frosted mug”/ package goods joint with a postage-stamp hitching post stage, gaining regional cred through various changes of ownership (and the steadfast presence of longtime booker/ bandleader Jacko Monahan) — then, under the stewardship of punk musician turned barkeep (and “cool teacher” at the local HS) Greg Macolino,   soldiering on through an era when live music clubs were shuttering by the bucketload, and when even the storied Stone Pony was vacant (or, briefly,“Vinyl”).

Then there’s that Wall of Fame, a groovy grotto of reverent contemplation that attests to the little bar’s ability to attract a generation of acts from the fabled 1970s golden age of punk rock (The Dictators, The Dickies, The Damned, The Vibrators, and members of The Sex Pistols, Ramones, Dead Boys, X, The Stranglers, New York Dolls), as well as the decades beyond (Fountains of Wayne, Nashville Pussy, Ween). It’s been a place that’s welcomed everyone from Howlin’ Wolf guitarist Hubert Sumlin to that wand’ring-minstrel-in-search-of-a-gig named Bruce Springsteen; a sonic laboratory and spawning ground for stars to be (Monster Magnet, Godspeed) and a happy harbor for a thousand-and-one local/regional acts that flared ever so brightly and all too briefly (Laughing Soupdish, Secret Syde, Dirge…and yes, J’zzing was a thing). The kind of place where you’d find yourself at the next barstool with one of your rock idols from middle school days; an experience that you’d pay VIP Golden Ticket Ambassador Pope levels to attain in a more corporate concert context.

“That’s because there’s nowhere to hide at the Brighton!” laughs Jamieson in a call from his Monmouth County home. “There’s no star dressing room; the bands are right there with the fans, and it’s a loose relaxed vibe all around.”

“It’s a great place, with a great stage, and great sound,” says the man who’s “seen the world” via multiple tours with Armed Forces Entertainment, and enjoyed a gig as regular opening act for Andrew Dice Clay. “if we can use my name to promote bands, give ‘em a place to play, that’s what it’s all about.”

On Friday night, January 24, it’s all about four Jersey-fresh bands who are “all going to be heavy, but different;” a dance card (selected by Jamieson in cahoots with DAA) that spotlights Ocean County combo Wild Chariot (seen previously at the Brighton during last month’s Brothers Union Holiday Show), as well as prog-metal paragons (and fellow OC guys) Throne of Exile, teenaged titans The Age of Ore, and the power trio known as “Apparition. Apparitions. ”All this, plus the highly visible DJ Claude Rains, for a twelve-dollar ticket.

“As a fan myself, I appreciate a club that keeps things on schedule,” says Jamieson of his preferred local haunts. “Get ‘em in, have fun, and get ‘em home at a reasonable time.”

“The Brighton Bar is our CBGB,” adds the emcee in reference to the legendary Bowery club. “I lived in New York around the time that CBs closed, along with Don Hill’s, Roseland, Continental…but places like the Brighton and The Saint have stood the test of time…Jersey really does have a thriving rock scene.”