FOREIGNER Plays The Wellmont Theatre August 26th – On Sale Friday!

For Immediate Release: Tuesday, April 20th 2010

FOREIGNER

AUGUST 26th 2010 8PM

The Wellmont Theatre

5 Seymour Street, Montclair NJ

TICKETS ON SALE FRIDAY, APRIL 23rd at 12PM

Ticket Prices: $70.00, $55.00 & $40.00

Tickets on sale via tickets.com, wellmonttheatre.com, charge by phone 877-WELLMNT,  or at The Wellmont Theatre Box Office

All dates, acts, show times and ticket prices are subject to change without notice

FOREIGNER  AUGUST 26th 2010 8PM

The Wellmont Theatre5 Seymour Street, Montclair NJ TICKETS ON SALE FRIDAY, APRIL 23rd at 12PMTicket Prices: $70.00, $55.00 & $40.00Tickets on sale via tickets.com, wellmonttheatre.com, charge by phone 877-WELLMNT,  or at The Wellmont Theatre Box Office All dates, acts, show times and ticket prices are subject to change without notice

San Jose Taiko Drummers

Press release from The Community Theatre in Morristown

Saturday, May 1, 2010 at 8 pm $27-42

Experience the explosive sound and energy of these Japanese drum masters as they fuse Japanese, Latin, Brazilian and African rhythms with a breathtaking mix of innovative choreography, lighting and staging that will dazzle both children and adults.

http://www.mayoarts.org/online.htm

Fact:

The Velvet Underground gave their first performance as a band at Summit High School in Summit, New Jersey.

On The Record: Artists celebrate Record Store Day with exclusive releases

If, like us, your musical education came from relentlessly digging through the racks of your favorite local independent record store, then join the celebration of Record Store Day on Saturday, April 17.

Record Store Day recognizes independent music retailers in a world of big-box competition.

Indepdenent shops across the country on Saturday will host in-store performances, offer giveaways and stock limited-edition releases exclusively for Record Store Day.

Dozens of artists, many of whom owe at least part of their careers to indie record stores, are doing their part by offering rare or previously unreleased material on CD and vinyl. R.E.M. is releasing a limited edition of its very first EP, Chronic Town, on 12-inch blue vinyl. And the Rolling Stones are serving up a hand-numbered, 7-inch single featuring “Plundered My Soul,” and unreleased track from the “Exile on Main Street” sessions. (That classic Stones album will be reissued on May 18 with 10 previously unreleased tracks.)

Ani DiFranco, the Beastie Boys, Bruce Springsteen, Devo, the Hold Steady, are among the other artists releasing or reissuing exclusive material on Record Store Day.

For a full list of participating retailers, in-store appearances and Record Store Day releases, click here:

www.recordstoreday.com

And, please post comments letting us know what cool stuff you find tomorrow. Enjoy the hunt.

- Tim Zatzariny Jr.

Once again…Faith or Fear! The New Jersey band’s rebirth

By Tim Zatzariny Jr.

The loss of bassist  and founding member Clarence “C.J.” Jenkins III, who collapsed and died of a heart attack during a gig last fall, seemed to end Faith or Fear’s long-awaited comeback soon after it began.

But, after a short break to regroup followng the death of friend and bandmate Jenkins, the surviving members of the South Jersey-based thrash-metal band decided to forge ahead, playing a handful of gigs with former member Bob Perna filling in on bass.

On Saturday, Faith or Fear will play its first hometown gig in Vineland in 20 years, with new bassist Matt “Rogo” Rogozinski.

Faith or Fear will headline a five-band bill at Hangar 84.

“We’ve had a few practices, and Matt already has the entire set down,” says Bombeke. “He has been a longtime fan – there wasn’t much for him to learn.”

Rogozinki, a Seattle musician, recently moved back to New Jersey. He audtioned for Faith or Fear after getting a call from Bombeke.

Bombeke said Rogozinski showed a “complete knowledge” of the band’s material, and clicked immediately with the rest of Faith or Fear.

Rogozinski said he’s been a Faith or Fear fan since the band’s late ’80s heyday, and that Jenkins was one of his musical influences early on.

Rogozinski joins Bombeke, singer Tim Blackman and drummer Ed Schwegel in the latest version of a band that, despite its many setbacks, refuses to quit.

“I think it’s the best version of Faith or Fear yet,” Bombeke said. “Matt brings an enthusiasm and energy  that seems to be rubbing off on the band. I can’t wait to get up on stage.”

In the late 1980s, Faith or Fear rose from rehearsing in a chicken coop in Vineland to signing a record deal and going on a national tour where they crossed paths with another  then up-and-coming thrash band, Metallica.

But after releasing one album, “Punishment Area,” in 1989, two original members left Faith or Fear, and the band didn’t put out another record for two decades.

Last year, a re-formed Faith or Fear released “Instruments of Death,” (Lost and Found Records) a collection of 14 songs originally recorded during various points in the band’s career from 1985 to 1991.

Faith or Fear, with Anvil Bitch, Vicious Circle, Facepin and Dirge of Methusula,
will perform Saturday, March 27 at Hangar 84, 20 S. Sixth Street, Vineland. Doors open at 8 p.m.  All ages/21+ to drink. Tickets are $10, and are available at the door or online at http://www.myspace.com/hangar84.

Susan Tedeschi, 10/10 @ 8 pm in Morristown @ The Community Theatre at Mayo Center for the Performing Arts

Pieter Van Hattem

On stage her powerhouse vocals burst forth only to be matched in intensity by her fiery guitar solos. Her songs make you want to dance, testify, or if nothing else, get out of her way. Off stage, she seems humble and unassuming. Her voice is quiet and dare I say it, sweet.

To some, this might seem like a contradiction. Some might think that a middle class, suburban white girl singing the blues like she’s got the grit from a South Chicago dive bar in her lungs would also be a contradiction. But the Massachusetts native is just doing what comes naturally.

“My mom said I sang in the crib before I ever spoke,” said Tedeschi. “I have been singing my whole life.”

Although she has been singing her whole life, Tedeschi says that it was blues music that set her soul on fire. She already graduated from Berklee College of Music by the time she found her calling.

“I was turned on to a Magic Sam record “West Side Soul” and it ruined me. All of the sudden I was turned on to all these blues artists. It really hit me. It seemed like something I could do. I could visualize it,” said Tedeschi. “T-Bone Walker, Gatemouth Brown, Otis Rush, Freddy King, Johnny Guitar Watson All of these people changed my outlook on music. I just wanted to be like one of those Chicago guys, just sing really great and have a great guitar style.”

It was the energy level of the music, the chords, and the way they sang that captured her attention. And there was something else that this New Englander related to.

“I loved Gospel music and it was the closest thing that I had heard to Gospel music — also, because it told a story. I was raised on Bob Dylan and The Beatles, so I am used to hearing a story. But I wanted to hear soul with energy. So when I heard them I was blown away. I knew that’s what I wanted to do,” she said.

(Morristown, NJ) – Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter guitarist Susan Tedeschi performs her unique blend of blues, rock, folk and soul at The Community Theatre at Mayo Center for the Performing Arts on Saturday, October 10, 2009. Opening Act is Kristina Train. Tickets are $32-52.

Tickets at 973-539-8008 or mayoarts.org

Interview with Yo La Tengo’s Ira Kaplan

Rolling Stone calls Hoboken’s Yo La Tengo “one of the all-time great American garage bands” The band, comprised of lead singer and guitarist Ira Kaplan, his wife, drummer Georgia Hubley and bassist James McNew, released a new album this week, “Popular Songs.” It is their 12th studio album.

JMI talks with Kaplan about the band’s growth through the years.

Q: Let’s talk about the evolution of your music. It really seems like each album builds on the one before it and you keep going, branching out further and further while keeping aspects that worked well for you previously. Is there a place that you have in mind that you’re going to?

A: It’s quite the opposite…When we recorded the record “Fakebook,” the band essentially didn’t exist. It was just Georgia and I for the first, I don’t know, six or seven years of the band’s existence. We had a very volatile lineup. But in 1991 James McNew joined the band and really from then on the stability gave us the ability to do exactly what you said, just to keep building on the past. I think we probably did that to a certain extent prior to him joining. But the band for me really began when James joined and what we’ve done increasingly in probably like the last decade is, we just get together and play and see what happens.

Q: You play in a variety of styles, from dance music to fuzzed-out, gritty guitars. Is there anything that you’ve thought about—a kind of music that’s popped into your head—that you didn’t indulge in because it was too far a field or wouldn’t fit on a Yo La Tengo record?

A: Not really. Sometimes I think we have to find what we think is the right outlet for certain things…For instance, there was a song [on the album “I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass,”] “Mr. Tough” and  maybe a lesser extent, “Sometimes I Don’t Get You.” They were probably a little more soul oriented than previous records and I think it took us a little bit of time to accept the notion of sharing things that we do in private with other people. We’ve also, over the last few years, done a number of film soundtracks and one of the things that’s very appealing about doing that is you’re working with a director who is kind of steering the ship. They can ask you to do certain things that you might not necessarily think of doing on your own.

Q: You’ve talked about how the band has evolved. Has your relationship to music or the feelings you get from it changed over the years?

A: Nobody wants to have a strict definition of “this is what the band does and this is what the band doesn’t do.” Everyone changes as people and we want the group to reflect the changes in our own lives… It doesn’t necessarily change it for the better or change it for the worse, but it certainly changes it and similarly, as one gets older all sorts of things happen to change the role music has in your life and the way you hear it.

Q: What I was thinking of when I asked that was James Taylor. Throughout the 70s, he wrote one way—based on emotion—and then somewhere in the 80s he had to make a switch. To keep it interesting for himself, he started writing songs more intellectually. He would think about what he’d like to see in the song and write it that way, as opposed to writing from the pure emotion of youth. Is there a watershed moment like that in your career?

A: I think there was a big one. As I said, we get together and just play and see what happens…But one of our favorite artists, Jad Fair, from the band Half Japanese, asked us to be his band for a recording and we agreed and then he said, “Do you want to rehearse or do you want to just start recording and see what happens?” We said, “We’ll do what you would you do normally. He said, “I’d just get together and play and see what happens.” So we decided to do that and we had a great time doing it.  We were really excited by the results and could hear that it was different from things we had done before and I think inspired by that session. That really kind of motivated us to write our own songs that way, too, and just kind of sort of try to pluck the kernel of the song out of the air and then work on it later. The first record we made primarily that way was “Electr-O-Pura” in 1995.

Jazz Bassist Ben Allison, Sunday, Oct. 11, 2009, 4 p.m. @ William Paterson University

The Jazz Room Series at William Paterson University

Ben Allison, Bassist

Sunday, October 11, 2009, 4 p.m.

- Sittin’ In Meet-the-Artist Session at 3 p.m., Shea 101

- Concert at 4 p.m., Shea Center

Admission: $15 standard; $12 senior citizens and members of the William Paterson community, $8 students

Shea Center for Performing Arts at William Paterson University

300 Pompton Road, Wayne, New Jersey

973.720.2371/www.wpunj.edu

Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes, Sept. 18, 8 pm @ The Community Theatre at Mayo Center for the Performing Arts

(Morristown, NJ) – Celebrate the end of summer with New Jersey’s own
Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, Friday, September 18, 2009 at 8
pm at The Community Theatre at Mayo Center for the Performing Arts.
Tickets are $47 ($72 for Golden Circle seats).

There’s one thing I’ve always wanted to do,” Southside Johnny confesses,
“and that is to sing.” And he has been doing just that for over a third
of a century. In a business where success is defined as getting a second
single; and longevity measured in nano-seconds; just surviving for
thirty plus years is a rare accomplishment. But Johnny and the Jukes
have not just survived…they have flourished. Twenty-eight albums;
thousands of live performances around the globe; a legion of dedicated
and enthusiastic fans; dozens of classic songs; they are still going
strong.

To Johnny, it’s just what he does. “I grew up on music. We listened to
Billie Holiday, T-Bone Walker, Muddy Waters and Big Joe Turner. My
parents loved music, the louder the better.” Born and raised on the
Jersey Shore, Southside’s fascination for the club scene started early.
“My father played in bands for years, and my mother actually went into
labor with me at some seedy New Jersey club. I guess some things were
just meant to be.” Singing and playing in a number of blues and R&B
bands at what is now the legendary Upstage Club, often joined by pals
Bruce Springsteen, “Miami Steve” Van Zandt, and Garry Tallent, Johnny
worked at making “meant to be” into “is”. It wasn’t easy. “We played for
years on the shore, but it wasn’t until Bruce hit with “Born to Run”
that these A&R guys would drive to Asbury Park to see what was
happening.”

Southside (a nickname picked up because of his bent toward the blues
sounds of the Southside of Chicago) and his band, eventually called the
Asbury Jukes, worked on their growing reputation as a dynamic live band
through the late 60′s and early 70′s. “We built a big band, a home for
lots of musicians, horns and all: sure we called it Southside Johnny and
the Asbury Jukes, but it was really just a bunch of guys getting crazy
on stage.” Then, in 1975, they signed with CBS/Epic Records and released
the critically acclaimed I DON’T WANT TO GO HOME –and a legend was
begun. What followed was three decades of recording and touring and
solidifying a place in rock ‘n roll history…a period of ups and downs,
dozens of great songs, and storied live performances. “I’ll stack my
group against any group out there. We enjoy playing, and the audience
enjoys having a good time. Music is a shared emotion. We distill it down
to that.” When you distill Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, you
come down to great music and good times. It’s been thus for thirty+
years…and counting.

Tickets for all events can be purchased online at (www.mayoarts.org), at
The Community Theatre box office, located at 100 South Street in
Morristown, NJ or by calling 973-539-8008.  Box office hours are Monday
through Friday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

The Community Theatre at Mayo Center for the Performing Arts, a
501(c)(3) nonprofit performing arts organization, presents a wide range
of programs that entertain, enrich and educate the diverse population of
the region and enhance the economic vitality of Northern New Jersey. The
2009-2010 season is made possible in part by a grant from the Geraldine
R. Dodge Foundation and funds from the New Jersey State Council on the
Arts/Department of State. The Community Theatre at Mayo Center for the
Performing Arts has been designated a Major Presenting Organization by
the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.

Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes
Friday, September 18, 2009 at 8 pm
Golden Circle: $72/ Premium: $47/ A: $47/ B:$47/ C: $47

THE COMMUNITY THEATRE
at MAYO CENTER for the PERFORMING ARTS
100 South St., Morristown, NJ 07960
box office (973) 539-8008
online: www.mayoarts.org

Brian Fitzpatrick and the Band of Brothers at The Rattlesnake Ranch on Friday, Aug. 21 @ 9 pm

Brian Fitzpatrick and the Band of Brothers at The Rattlesnake Ranch

559 E Main St
Denville, NJ
Phone:
(973) 586-3800