Man with A Horn

Posted on February 8, 2009 by JUKES.NET

‘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

Posted on January 30, 2009 by JUKES.NET

Little 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

Posted on January 17, 2009 by JUKES.NET

Esquire This 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

Back at the Basie

Posted on December 24, 2008 by JUKES.NET

BACK 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

Bonjovi and Bruce keep Hope alive

Posted on December 23, 2008 by JUKES.NET

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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Grapefruit Moon in the Lahontan Valley

Posted on December 19, 2008 by JUKES.NET

logo_lahontan_valley There are obvious signs of civilization out in the desert! Here’s something right from the beautiful Lahontan Valley in Nevada. Kirk Robertson did a review of GRAPEFRUIT MOON for the “Lahontan Valley News”:

While recently many folks have covered Waits’ music — ranging from the successful such as Holly Cole, to the ludicrous such as Scarlet Johansson — this is one of best salutes, enhanced not by the Jukes, but rather by Richard LaBamba Rosenberg’s big band settings, which are a real plus. (…)

He (Southside Johnny) has a years-on-the-road bar band voice — which while not quite a true junkyard razor-wire Waits-ian growl, does lend authenticity to the interpretations; and when Waits joins him for a duet on “Walk Away,” it sounds like the two of them have been trading lyrics in the back of some old-time, back-of-beyond, railroad bar for a long, long time.

Read the full review at: THE LAHONTAN VALLEY NEWS

There’s some fabulous bar joints up and down the dirt roads in Nevada – I’d always like to see the Jukes in such a setting. But imagining a Big-Band show at Cesars Palace, Las Vegas, NV that’s my favourite of the moment… anyone like to join me?

Southside Johnny's way with Waits

Posted on December 7, 2008 by JUKES.NET

As SOUTHSIDE JOHNNY AND THE ASBURY JUKES were just about to return to their November US tour schedule after spending more than a month on the road in Europe, two pieces came in via PHILLY.COM a week ago:

THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER’s Nick Cristiano offers a brief interview and write-up about GRAPEFRUIT MOON and Tom Waits in advance of the show at the Keswick Theatre:

“There’s this conception of him as just some whack ball who writes songs about people in the street – and that’s true to an extent,” Southside says. “But he’s also just a brilliant writer, and he’s got these wonderful melodies. . . . Because of his vocal style, people don’t hear that stuff. I hear it and I go, wow. I’m jealous.” Johnny told Nick Cristiano on the phone talking about Tom and the project with La Bamba’s Big Band…

The whole article is posted at: THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER

Jonathan Takiff of the PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS elaborated the topic a bit more in his talk to Southside Johnny. I’ll save you the bit about my favorite actress, John himself finds the appropriate words about her Tom Waits project.

But on another – seasonal – topic, not Big-Band Tom Waits, but Christmas songs, John told Jonathan Takiff:
I’m not going to start listening to all those songs now and have a whole month of hearing them. You can be sure if I got arrested and thrown in jail, they’d be playing that music as another form of torture. It used to be you didn’t hear or play Christmas music until two weeks before the holiday. I want it to be really Christmasy Christmas time first.

When I’m emperor, you won’t be able to listen to this stuff until Dec. 1. And if your Christmas lights are still up on the house at the end of January, you’ll be socked with a thousand-dollar-a-day fine. Those lights keep suggesting to me that we still have a miserable winter ahead, even though Christmas and the start of winter might be long past.

Thanks for the words John… yeah!

You can read the whole interview with Jonathan Takiff at the: PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS website.

Big Band Amps Up Evening Of Tom Waits

Posted on October 26, 2008 by JUKES.NET

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.

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Southside, La Bamba Salute Tom Waits

Posted on October 12, 2008 by JUKES.NET

THE ASBURY PARK PRESS, OCTOBER 12, 2008, BY KELLY-JANE COTTER – Southside Johnny Lyon needs to get home and do laundry before hitting the road for his European tour with the Asbury Jukes.

Nevertheless, he is spending a brisk, gusty morning on the Asbury Park boardwalk and showing infinite patience with a reporter and a photography team who aren’t sure what to do with him. Where would he feel most comfortable posing for pictures — in the hollowed-out Casino? In front of The Stone Pony? Is it too windy for him?

“You just tell me where to stand,” he says. “It’s up to you. You’re in charge.”

That’s not true. Genial though he is, John is definitely the leader of the pack. With his trademark sunglasses and his average-Joe attire, he is casual but commanding. He can go from small talk to serious talk at a minute’s notice, and what’s serious to Southside Johnny is, of course, his music.

His work with the Jukes continues apace. His dash through England, the Netherlands and Germany has became a tradition each autumn. European audiences are “so enthusiastic and delighted to see an American band with horns,” Lyon says, “and we get to show them that we’re still a lot of fun live. There’s this real cult of Jukes over there, so it’s fun.”

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No Johnny come lately

Posted on December 30, 2005 by JUKES.NET

THE ASBURY PARK PRESS – 12/30/05 – BY ED CONDRAN – CORRESPONDENT

Southside Johnny Lyon has been around the block

Ocean Grove is looking pretty good to Southside Johnny Lyon, who continues to rent a house in the hometown he left more than 30 years ago. “I’m back and I’m having a good time,” Lyon said. “I’m easy to spot. I’m the one gardening in my boxer shorts.”

What Lyon loves about living in Ocean Grove is that the seaside town and Methodist campground once known for its rigidity has been loosening up over recent years. “When I was a kid it was so stiff here,” Lyon said while calling from his home. “But now it’s gotten to be more and more bohemian. If it wasn’t I’m sure I would be hearing about gardening in my boxers.”

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