Asbury all-stars convene to celebrate city’s music history at New Harmonies concert

Posted on March 14, 2011 by Network

Published: Monday, March 14, 2011, 3:25 AM – by Jay Lustig / The Star-Ledger

It was called a curated concert, and it certainly had an educational component, with historical readings between sets of music.

But Sunday’s New Harmonies concert at the Paramount Theatre in Asbury Park ended the way any concert attempting to honor Asbury Park music should end: with a stage full of musicians taking part in a freewheeling jam session. Every attempt to educate should feel so good.

There was Southside Johnny, barking out classic rock and blues lyrics and wailing on harmonica. There was his longtime musical partner Bobby Bandiera, trading stinging riffs with Asbury guitar heroes Sonny Kenn and Billy Hector, among others…

Read the whole article at: NJ.com

Southside Johnny returns with hard-rocking album, ‘Pills and Ammo’

Posted on June 14, 2010 by Network

Southside Johnny is getting in touch with his inner Mick Jagger.

“Pills and Ammo,” the new album he is releasing with his longtime band the Asbury Jukes, is a collection of lean, Rolling Stones-oriented rock ‘n’ roll — arguably the hardest-rocking set the band has released in its 35 years of recording. On a beautiful mid-May afternoon, I talked, by phone, with the 61-year-old Shore rock legend and Ocean Grove resident about the album, his career and his upcoming shows.

Continue reading →

Big Band Amps Up Evening Of Tom Waits

Posted on October 26, 2008 by Network

By Jay Lustig, The Star-Ledger Sunday October 26, 2008, 9:16 PM

NEW YORK — There has never been a Southside Johnny concert like the evening of Tom Waits songs he presented at the Nokia Theatre on Friday. There has never been a Waits show like it, either.

On his September album “Grapefruit Moon,” John “Southside Johnny” Lyon recorded 12 Waits compositions, with backing by a big band led by Richie “LaBamba” Rosenberg. Many big band members, as well as LaBamba himself, are or have been members of Southside Johnny’s usual backing group, the Asbury Jukes.

On “Grapefruit Moon,” Southside Johnny and LaBamba thoroughly reinterpreted Waits’ songs rather than presenting faithful covers of them. Capitalizing on the size and power of the big band (and its large horn section in particular), they made songs like “Down, Down, Down,” “Please Call Me Baby” and “Yesterday Is Here” swing and swagger in ways the originals didn’t.

Continue reading →

Southside Uncensored

Posted on June 6, 2007 by Network

Southside Johnny Interview by Jay Lustig – The Star-Ledger

Q. So are you in Ocean Grove now?

Yes I’m in Ocean Grove, back in the old hometown.

Q. How long have you been back there?

A year and a half.

Q. How do you like being there?

I love it, it’s great. Everyone leaves me alone. I guess they’ve learned over the years.

Q. Does you spend any time hanging out at the Shore clubs?

I don’t go to clubs that much anymore. When Bruce does his charity things at the Pony of course I go over there and make my little appearance. I have gone to see a couple of bands here and there, but I don’t go out that much. I’ve spend my entire adult life in clubs, so it’s not really something I want to do.

Q. So, obviously, I want to focus on the boxed set. Is that something you’ve wanted to do for a while — just clean out the closet, and get that stuff out there? Continue reading →

Bobby Bandiera – A Tribute To Pop Harmony

Posted on August 5, 2005 by Network

THE NEW JERSEY STAR LEDGER – Monday, August 08, 2005 – BY JAY LUSTIG – Star-Ledger Staff

At some recent shows by veteran Jersey rock band Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes, longtime guitarist-vocalist Bobby Bandiera has been replaced by former Joan Jett & the Blackhearts member Ricky Byrd. Meanwhile, Bandiera was spotted playing with the Bon Jovi band at the Live 8 concert in Philadelphia on July 2, and backing Jon Bon Jovi at an acoustic benefit in Amagansett, N.Y., on July 6.

What’s going on?

Southside Johnny provided some answers last week, posting on his Web site (www.southsidejohnny.org) that Bandiera is still a Juke, but has been asked — along with another Juke, keyboardist Jeff Kazee — to join Bon Jovi’s touring band. Bon Jovi releases a new album Sept. 20, and will presumably be on the road for much of the fall. Byrd will sub at Jukes shows Bandiera can’t make.

Continue reading →

Remembrance of artists past

Posted on February 28, 2005 by Network

THE NEW JERSEY STAR LEDGER – BY JAY LUSTIG – Star-Ledger Staff – MONDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2005

SHORE GROUP PAYS TRIBUTE TO ROY ORBISON

“I gotta follow that?” asked John “Southside Johnny” Lyon with a look of mock-horror on his face, as he took the stage at Red Bank’s Count Basie Theatre, Friday night.

He was exaggerating for comic effect, but still, he faced a daunting task. It was the first show by the newly formed Jersey Shore Rock and Soul Revue, and Bobby Bandiera, the Revue’s leader, had just finished singing a version of Roy Orbison’s 1961 hit “Crying” that Orbison himself would have been proud of. Audience members responded with a standing ovation, and some were still standing as Southside Johnny walked out.

Continue reading →

Shore Rockers bring Tribute to Red Bank

Posted on February 24, 2005 by Network

THE NEW JERSEY STAR LEDGER – BY JAY LUSTIG – FEBRUARY 24, 2005

Lots of rock vocalists admire Roy Orbison, but few try to imitate him. It’s just too daunting a task. One of the exceptions is Bobby Bandiera, who has often covered Orbison’s soaring, almost operatic songs, and written tunes with a strong Orbison flavor.

Bandiera, a longtime member of Southside Johnny’s Asbury Jukes who also leads his own Bobby Bandiera Band, will front the newly formed Jersey Shore Rock & Soul Revue in a sold-out Orbison tribute concert, tomorrow night at Red Bank’s Count Basie Theatre. Plans call for this new group, dominated by current and former Jukes, to continue to present occasional tribute concerts at the Basie in the future. Potential subjects include Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra and The Everly Brothers.

Count Basie Theatre CEO Numa Saisselin came up with the idea for the project, but Bandiera suggested starting with Orbison.

Continue reading →

The Big Three Backing Bobby Bandiera

Posted on March 20, 2003 by Network

THE NEW JERSEY STAR LEDGER – BY JAY LUSTIG – THURSDAY, MARCH 20, 2003

The big three of Jersey Shore rock ‘n’ roll — Bruce Springsteen, Jon Bon Jovi and Southside Johnny — will perform in a benefit concert at Red Bank’s Count Basie Theatre on April 29. The beneficiary of the show, titled “The Hope Concert,” will be a musician who has backed them all many times in the past: Bobby Bandiera. The guitarist needs the money to cover medical expenses for his son, Robert Bandiera Jr.

Bobby Bandiera and Gary U.S. Bonds will also perform at the event, and Big Joe Henry of the Trenton-based radio station New Jersey 101.5 FM and Tim McLoone of the Shore-based charity band Holiday Express will co-host. Tickets, priced at $100, $250 and $300, go on sale tomorrow at 9:30 a.m. at the Count Basie box office, 99 Monmouth St., and through the box office’s phone line, (732) 842-9000. There will be a four-ticket limit per person.

Continue reading →

They didn’t want to go home…

Posted on March 5, 2001 by Network

THE NEW JERSEY STAR LEDGER – BY JAY LUSTIG – MARCH 06, 2001

JUKESTOCK celebrates Southside Johnny and his band from the Shore

It wasn’t the biggest or most glamorous gig Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes have ever played. If you took away one crucial element, in fact, the band’s Saturday night set at the Tinton Falls Holiday Inn could have been seen as embarrassing, in a how-the-mighty-have-fallen kind of way.

Here’s the crucial element: The band’s set was part of a three-day celebration of all things Jukes that attracted fans from as far away as Australia and Switzerland. Three hundred devotees, paying $140 each, were treated not only to the intimate, high-energy, nearly three-hour show in the hotel’s ballroom, but autograph and picture-posing sessions with the band Saturday morning, and separate sets throughout the weekend by bands led by Jukes members Mark Pender, Bobby Bandiera, Richie “La Bamba” Rosenberg and Jeff Kazee. Memorabilia on display included the band’s first promotional T-shirt, from 1975; hand-written lyrics to one of their signature songs, “I Don’t Want To Go Home,” and the key to the city of Asbury Park, which they received in 1978.

Continue reading →

Little Big Man

Posted on October 17, 1999 by Network

THE NEW JERSEY STAR LEDGER – BY JAY LUSTIG – OCTOBER 17, 1999

Steven Van Zandt sees mobster Silvio Dante, the character he plays on the HBO series “The Sopranos,” as a Renaissance man who happens to operate outside of the law. “He’s one of (Mob boss) Tony Soprano’s best friends and closest confidants,” say Van Zandt, a k a Little Steven. “He’s everything from an ambassador to the outside world to a hitman. He does all the jobs inside that family that are required of him.”

Take the evil out of the equation, and you’re left with something like Van Zandt’s role in the New Jersey rock scene over the last 30 years. Simply put, he’s done it all.

Continue reading →