HORSEFEATHERS!
Music News and Views from the Jersey Shore
by DR. ZOOMTHIS JUST IN: After almost 25 years, drummer Derek O'Brien will once again share the stage with Mike Ness! In case you don't already know, Derek was a member of Social Distortion, played on the album Mommy's Little Monster and can be seen in the cult documentary film Another State of Mind. Due to unforeseen circumstances, Dino Guerrero was unable to continue on drums and Derek stepped in to cover the duties. Derek will join Mike and his band for their two-night stand at the Pony on Friday and Saturday!The Count Basie Theater restoration benefit Wednesday was a "classic"
event. Bruce and the E Street Band performed Born To Run and
Darkness on the Edge of Town, both in their entirety! The 1,500
donations made for this intimate show were worth every penny ...
George Clinton's mothership landed in Asbury Thursday with more than
four hours of love from the Pony stage (see the photo below). Jenny Craig's
Tae-Bo students worked the floor all night with lots of VIPs ducking
the flailing bodies! Parliament/Funkadelic is still an amazing
experience ... John Eddie will host the first ever full-on Stone Pony
staff reunion gathering on Sat., May 31. This event is open to all and we'd love to see
employees from the Pony's entire 35 years of existence. T.R. (Tom Robbins),
former Pony manager, was already muttering at the back bar that
"this is going to be sick." So pass it on and RSVP to: [email protected]
Photo by CHRIS PAULREFLECTIONS BY LISA LOWELL
Asbury Park is so much more than just a '60s carousel memory. It's a
place and time where pinball and skill cranes, the mau-mau mystery
ride and taffy apples morphed into saxophones, bell bottoms and
psychedelic soul. Unlikely heroes donned strange hats and shook the
stages night after night at an age when I was lucky to get in.
Greasers morphed into hippies, fiber glass mufflers morphed into
guitars, and a one way tri-laned strip called "The Circuit" throbbed
with flirtation. Adonises from Cherry Hill to Rahway mystically
appeared to have a gander at this carnival place called Asbury. With
the varietal unrest wrought by the '60s and '70s the pot was smoked,
but also stirred. Blacks, whites, gays, rich kids, poor kids and
hippie girls like me in baby doll dresses of dotted Swiss with mod
boots found a way out of small towns like Long Branch and tumbled
headlong into the music spawned there. This music both echoed the
past, and created the future of rock and roll. I gratefully come to
pay tribute to this place, and hope you kids are still making out
under the boardwalk, and need to be reminded of a time, when the air
was redolent with hope and a change was about to come. Me? I haven't
forgotten a thing, except my own lyrics...- Lisa Lowell on Asbury Park, 2008
