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Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes at the Keswick

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By Chris Cameron, For Time Out

Southside Johnny Lyon and his Asbury Jukes played a key role in the development of the Jersey Shore sound. During the late 1960s, Lyon and his friends, notably Bruce Springsteen and various members of The E Street Band, cut their teeth playing Asbury Park’s bar circuit.

While Springsteen and company honed their Jersey rock music, Lyon stuck to his musical roots, styling his sound from the blues musicians on Chicago’s South Side. Lyon never reached the commercial success of Springsteen, but he has been performing and recording ever since those early days. His latest release, “Pills and Ammo,” is a slight departure from his feel-good party sound that his fans have come to expect from him. It stems from anger over the ongoing economic woes.

Read the full story at: The Mercury

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Musicians Define The ‘Jersey Shore Sound’

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Alex Biese – on The Asbury Park Press’ Metromix – comes with a simple, but more than valid question today: “How would you define the “Jersey Shore sound”? It this extract of Alex’ article, I only focused on the two gentlemen I know the best…

THE ASBURY PARK PRESS – by ALEX BIESE -

The “Jersey Shore sound” — it’s a term that has been thrown around by musicians, fans, authors, politicians and critics for decades. Most people, however, have a hard time explaining what it means when pressed for a definition of the music made along the Garden State’s sandy coast and its adjacent regions.

Does it refer to the stadium-shaking rock ‘n’ roll of Bruce Springsteen? The blue-eyed bar-band soul of Southside Johnny Lyon and the Asbury Jukes? How about the New Brunswick-bred punk of the Bouncing Souls and The Gaslight Anthem? Is it all of these things, or none of them?

Southside Johnny Lyon: “I don’t know if there is one Jersey sound, but a defining characteristic is sincerity. The Jersey Shore was a tough place to make it way back then, and the only way you could get anywhere is by moving the audience with some heartfelt music.

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Greetings from Southside Johnny

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By Alex Biese, June 26, 2009

It wouldn’t be summer at the Shore without him

Between his annual Independence Day weekend appearances at The Stone Pony in Asbury Park and his crowd-pleasing New Year’s Eve shows at the Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank, Monmouth County’s own Southside Johnny Lyon has become something of a Shore institution over the years.

“Well, I’ve been in most of the Shore institutions so I guess I belong,” Lyon told Metromix Jersey Shore last year.

Lyon and his house-rocking band, the Asbury Jukes, will be sticking with tradition when they return to The Stone Pony on Thursday to kick off Fourth of July weekend early.

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For TV Band, Jet-Lag Is Part Of The Job

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The New York TimesYou can get a Juke out of New Jersey, but you can’t get New Jersey out of a Juke! It’s been proved again! The New York Times features Max Weinberg and the Tonight Show Band on it’s TV Feature:

When Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band performed at the Izod Center in the New Jersey Meadowlands on May 21, there was one musician conspicuously absent: Max Weinberg, the group’s drummer for more than three decades.

As Mr. Springsteen tore into his opening number, “Badlands,” Mr. Weinberg was on another stage 3,000 miles away, pounding his drum kit through a dress rehearsal of “The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien,” in advance of its debut last Monday on NBC.The following night Mr. Weinberg boarded a red eye for the East Coast so he could rejoin his E Street band mates, however temporarily, for the second show of that New Jersey stand, which fell on a rare night off from his new duties.

For Mr. Weinberg and the seven other East Coast musicians who have relocated to California along with Mr. O’Brien — including all the founding members of the Max Weinberg 7, the house band on Mr. O’Brien’s “Late Night” for 16 years — the turnover in hosts (and bands) on “Tonight” has proved to be both exhilarating and disruptive.

Visit the NYT to read the full article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/06/arts/television/06max.html?_r=1

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Bandiera Revisits His Orbison Program

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By ED CONDRAN • April 22, 2009 •

When Count Basie Theatre CEO Numa Saisselin approached guitarist/bandleader Bobby Bandiera about doing revue-style shows at the Red Bank venue three years ago, Bandiera was reluctant.

“Numa said, “Why don’t you do these tribute shows?’ ” Bandiera recalled while calling from his Atlantic Highlands home. ” “A friend does them in Canada. It’ll be fun.’ ”

The laid-back musician initially turned down the offer.

“I told Numa that I just wanted to focus on original material, but then I said that I would do it if I could pick the first artist for the show,” Bandiera said. “And he said, “Oh, no.’ But I told him to trust me.”

Roy Orbison was the first recording artist Bandiera decided to honor with his initial Jersey Shore Rock-n-Soul-Revue in 2006.

“It was a natural selection for me,” Bandiera said. “Over the years, I would pull out a Roy Orbison song while doing Jersey Shore dates and the response was always tremendous. . . . Why not do a show featuring all of Roy’s material?”

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Man with A Horn

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logo_dailyrecord‘LaBamba’ answers the call from Springsteen, Southside, Conan

By Ellen S. Wilkowe • Daily Record • February 8, 2009

His kids call him Dad, but to everyone else, Richie Rosenberg of Randolph is best known as LaBamba. Everyone except for his wife, that is.

“She calls me LB,” he said.

For the past 16 years, the man of one hat, one horn — a trombone — has found himself on the receiving end of Conan O’Brien’s jokes as a member of the show’s house band, the Max Weinberg 7.

“I don’t know idea why he picks on me,” Rosenberg said jokingly in a phone interview from — where else? — NBC in New York, where he tapes “Late Night With Conan O’Brien” almost daily from 2 to 8 p.m. “But from day one, there was always a camera on Max and on me.”

This year O’Brien will head west to take over “The Tonight Show,” and while an NBC spokesman would not reveal the band’s fate, Rosenberg said he will be going along — “a dream come true,” he said.

“I can only speak for myself and not the band,” Rosenberg said. “I just wish I didn’t have to leave this all behind.”

This, meaning New Jersey. “I’ll miss the Shore,” he said.

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Little Steven: From E-Street to Easy Street

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The Evening HeraldLittle Steven got interviewed by the EVENING HERALD, an Irish newspaper published in Dublin. While the motivation for the writeup has been the syndication of Steven’s UNDERGROUND GARAGE radio program on a Dublin station, he does give some reflections about his musical career pre-1999 and promotes his latest campaign.

The success of the show has prompted Steve to lobby for rock’n'roll to be accepted as a bone fide college degree course. To that end he’s fundraising for his High School Foundation project.

“We’ve been endorsed from inside the academic community which hasn’t happened before,” he reveals. “Rock’n'roll is still the last outcast. You can get curriculums on movie making or jazz but rock’n'roll has been late to the game. Bruce Springsteen, Martin Scorsese and Bono are my first three board members so it’s going to be extremely exciting.”

Although the interview doesn’t really focus on Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, Steve does give some insight into his – an that’s been probably more than true for Southside as well – personal situation in the 1990s…

“I had walked away from music,” he tells me. “I couldn’t relate any more. Grunge was happening. There was a good band or two there, Pearl Jam, Kurt Cobain. But I’m strictly a rootsy guy. If I don’t hear the roots in contemporary rock’n'roll it’s irrelevant to me. In the early ’90s, I’d produced four albums in a row including a Southside Johnny reunion record. There was no reason to make a great record anymore.

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Little Steven: What I've learned

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EsquireThis comes in from the ESQUIRE MAGAZINE. Little Steven had a sit-down with Ryan D’Agostino. Their “Interview” comes as a write-up of just the quotes – not the questions. I like that a lot!

This might have been the best piece, of the very few, by Steven of the last couple of month. Although there is not one single reference to John or the Jukes, it’s worth being posted here – so here’s an extract with some of my favourites:

The Super Bowl — they ask us every year, literally for twenty-five years. Since Born in the U.S.A. You can only do it once, I guess. You want to save some things.

Here’s the wonderful thing that Bruce Springsteen and David Chase are capable of: Those two guys have the remarkable talent of transporting you to their own time zone, to their own rhythm, and slowing things down. That’s an extraordinarily important talent these days, when everything is temporary and disposable and going by at a hundred miles an hour. In the old days, they would have been called wizards, because they control time.

Scandinavia is another planet. They get health care, education, there’s no homeless, they barely have a prison system. We joke about how they’re overtaxed, but it’s the same fucking 50 percent I’m paying.

Art is not a luxury.

To have impact in two minutes and thirty seconds — that’s very hard to do. It’s much easier to write Pink Floyd’s The Wall than it is to write “Louie Louie.”

Little Richard opens his mouth, and out comes liberation.

In Europe, everybody in the audience has the new record before they come to the show. Why? Because that’s the script of the stage production they’re about to see and participate in. They come, and they all sing every word of every song. They don’t move, they don’t go to the bathroom, they don’t order hot dogs.

You can read the whole “Interview” at: ESQUIRE MAGAZINE

Via: BACKSTREETS.COM

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Back at the Basie

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logo_backstreets.comBACK AT THE BASIE WITH BANDIERA, BONDS, BON JOVI, & MR. GRINCH – DEC. 22. 2008: Springsteen drops in to wish Red Bank crowd a Merry Christmas, Baby!

It’s all cold down along the beach… the wind’s whipping down the boardwalk… and it’s freezing in Red Bank, where Bruce showed up tonight to bring some extra warmth to the newly renovated Count Basie Theatre. Just as in 2006, with no area holiday shows of his own, Springsteen chose to join in the festivities at Bobby Bandiera’s Hope Concert.

On the bill with Bandiera’s Jersey Shore Rock-N-Soul Revue were Tim McLoone and the Shirleys, Brian Fallon, Nicole Atkins, Gary U.S. Bonds, Southside Johnny, and Jon Bon Jovi; Springsteen’s surprise appearance came at the end of the night, as he joined the house band and a few of the bill-toppers for a few Christmas songs, two classic covers, and one of his own.

The night’s format had crossover between artist’s sets: Gary U.S. Bonds (after notably performing Bruce’s “Action in the Street”) was joined by Southside Johnny for “This Little Girl” to segue into Southside’s set; Johnny was joined on his last song by Jon Bon Jovi for “This Time It’s For Real.” When it came to Bon Jovi’s last song, out came Springsteen to back him up on “Run Run Rudolph,” playing lead guitar and hollering backup on the final chorus.

“Happy holidays!” said Bruce, otherwise a man of few words tonight. (Leave the quotables to Southside: “I’d wish you a merry Christmas, but it would be out of character” and “I get so sentimental, I have to drink myself into oblivion.”) Springsteen opened his own set with a doubleshot of his holiday B-sides, “Merry Christmas, Baby” followed by “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.” Southside — “Mr. Grinch” — joined in on the latter, and LaBamba came downstage to take Clarence’s part, “you better be good for goodness’ sake.” (LaBamba and Mark Pender brought the horn section headcount to eight for Bruce’s set.)

After Bruce went it alone on “634-5789,” Bon Jovi came back out to split the vocals on “Tenth Avenue.” And a final encore, as Springsteen was joined by Southside, singing lead, and Bonds for a rousing “Havin’ a Party.” Weather outside: frightful. Inside: plenty hot.

Source: BACKSTREETS.COM

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Bonjovi and Bruce keep Hope alive

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RED BANK – There already was star power a-plenty on the stage of Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank Monday night, and then Jon Bon Jovi introduced Bruce Springsteen.

BY KELLY JANE COTTER – Music Writer – December 23, 2008

“It ain’t Santa Claus,” Bon Jovi said, announcing a special guest. “We got something better.” Like his fellow rockers at Monday’s Hope Concert, Springsteen took the stage in a low-key manner, providing guitar solos and backing vocals to Bobby Bandiera’s lead on “Run Rudolph Run.”

Springsteen soon took center stage, with back-to-back performances of “Merry Christmas, Baby” and his definitive version of “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town.” He directed the band and led the audience in cries of call-and-response. “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” soon followed, and all was merry and bright.

A finale of “Having a Party,” with Southside Johnny Lyon on lead, backed by Springsteen, Bandiera, Gary U.S. Bonds and the band, capped an evening that raised more than $250,000 for the Parker Family Health Center in Red Bank, as well as thousands of cans of donated food for the FoodBank of Monmouth/Ocean Counties.

This was the fourth Hope Concert, a tradition founded and organized by Bandiera, a longtime member of the local music scene who currently tours with Bon Jovi. Earlier in the night, Bon Jovi sang “Blue Christmas,” and then gave an optimistic wish for the new year and the new president, Barack Obama.

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