Thursday, June 28, 2012

Nightbeat 6-29

Friday – June 29


Commander Cody - of Lost Planet Airman fame - will play his hits on the Somers Point Beach 

The Commander Cody Band in a free concert at the Somers Point beach; Country Swing and Rockin’ Boogie Woogie piano - . Commander Cody’s biggest hits, including “Hot Rod Lincoln”,”Beat Me Daddy Eight to the Bar” and “Rockett 88”. 

For more information or last minute weather updates go to www.SomersPointBeachConcerts.com.

– Mighty Parrot Band, Tuckahoe Inn, Back Bay Café, Beesleys Point 7-11

– Budesa Brothers – Biai deck, Bay Ave., 7pm

- The Jacksons, Borgata
- John Oates Band, Borgata
- Celtic Thunder, Harrahs
- Mary J. Blige, Caelsars

Saturday – June 30

- Ben Singleton and the People’s Choice Tuckahoe Inn, Back Bay Café, Rt. 9 Beesleys Point, 6-10

- Dave Gustafson, Biai deck, Bay Ave. 7pm 

- Rick DeKarski on piano in the historic Tap Room at Atlantic City Country Club. Chef Ed Dagger’s reputation is renown.

- Crosby, Stills & Nash, Borgata
- Dom Irrera, Tropicana
- Celtic Thunder, Harrahs

Sunday – July 1

- Styx, Reo Speedwagon, Ted Nugent, Borgata
- Celtic Thunder, Harrah’s Resort July 1, July 4-8

Monday - July 2 –

- Celtic Thunder, Harrahs

Tuesday July 3 –

- Celtic Thunder, Harrahs
- Mary J. Blige, Caesars

Wednesday - July 4 –

- The Bob Campanell Band with Danny Eyer in free concert at Somers Point Beach: Jersey Shore Rock ‘n Roll Icon with his favorite lead guitarist

- Reggae with SMB Tuckahoe Inn, Back Bay Café, 6-10

- Celtic Thunder, Harrahs
- Mary J. Blige, Caesars

Thursday - July 5 –

- Mike Lunemann –  Every Thursday (6pm) on the patio at Atlantic City Country Club [ACCountryclub.com]  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy01esg4g5k&feature=related

- Rock of Ages w/  Tuckahoe Inn Back Bay Café, Beesleys Point
Celtic Thunder, Harrahs 

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Where the Bands are June 29 - July 5

Friday – June 29 The Commander Cody Band in a free concert at the Somers Point beach; Country Swing and Rockin’ Boogie Woogie piano. Commander Cody’s biggest hits, including “Hot Rod Lincoln”,”Beat Me Daddy Eight to the Bar” and “Rockett 88”. For more information or last minute weather updates go towww.SomersPointBeachConcerts.com. – Mighty Parrot Band, Tuckahoe Inn, Back Bay Café, Beesleys Point 7-11 – Budesa Brothers – Biai deck, Bay Ave., 7pm - The Jacksons, Borgata - John Oates Band, Borgata - Celtic Thunder, Harrahs - Mary J. Blige, Caelsars Saturday – June 30 - Ben Singleton and the People’s Choice Tuckahoe Inn, Back Bay Café, Rt. 9 Beesleys Point, 6-10. - Dave Gustafson, Biai deck, Bay Ave. 7pm - Rick DeKarski on piano in the historic Tap Room at Atlantic City Country Club. Chef Ed Dagger’s reputation is renown. - Crosby, Stills & Nash, Borgata - Dom Irrera, Tropicana - Celtic Thunder, Harrahs Sunday – July 1 - Styx, Reo Speedwagon, Ted Nugent, Borgata - Celtic Thunder, Harrah’s Resort July 1, July 4-8 Monday - July 2 – - Celtic Thunder, Harrahs Tuesday July 3 – - Celtic Thunder, Harrahs - Mary J. Blige, Caesars Wednesday - July 4 – - The Bob Campanell Band [bobcampanell.com ]with Danny Eyer [eyermusic.com] in free concert at Somers Point Beach: Jersey Shore Rock ‘n Roll Icon with his favorite lead guitarist - Reggae with SMB Tuckahoe Inn, Back Bay Café, Beesleys Point 6-10 - Celtic Thunder, Harrahs - Mary J. Blige, Caesars Thursday - July 5 – - Mike Lunemann – Every Thursday (6pm) on the patio at Atlantic City Country Club - Rock of Ages w/ Tuckahoe Inn Back Bay Café, Beesleys Point - Celtic Thunder, Harrahs

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

"Eddie & the Cruisers" 30 Years Later


“Eddie & the Cruisers” – 30 Years after Hollywood Came to the Jersey Shore


Tony Marts Reunion - this Saturday at the Ocean City Music Pier, features Billy Walton's great band, and they will play some of the songs from the movie. Billy is now lead guitarist with Southside Johnny, who was a consultant for the film.

It’s been thirty years since Hollywood came to the Jersey Shore to film “Eddie & the Cruisers,” but it’s still fondly remembered for documenting the times and the places that were very special to a lot of people.

Set in the 60’s and filmed on location on the Ocean City (NJ) beach and boardwalk and Somers Point Bay Avenue nightclubs, “Eddie & the Cruisers” tried to capture the early spirit of  rock & roll and did capture the basic landscape of another, bygone era, a landscape that for the most part, no longer exists.

Based on a novel by P.F. Kluge (Viking Press, 1980), the story of Eddie Wilson and his band The Parkway Cruisers is founded on fact, as Kluge spent some of his formative years at the Jersey Shore and taught high school in Vineland, as does the protagonist – Frank Ridgeway, aka “Wordman,” played by Tom Berringer in the movie.

Berringer portays a college student working the summer at the Jersey Shore as a day time clean up guy at Tony Marts. Berringer’s Ridgeway is pushing a broom around the tile floor, stools up on the bar, when in walks Eddie Wilson. There’s a sign just above the front doors that reads:“Through these doors walk the most beautiful girls in the world.”

Eddie, in his leather jacket, arm around his girl - the lead singer (Helen Schneider) and the rest of the band, says “Tell Tony Eddie & the Cruisers are here.”

If any band actually did that, Tony would have fired them before they ever played a note, because Anthony Marotta was treated with respect and didn’t take anything from anybody, especially some young punks in a band who wanted him to give them a job. Tony fired a band a week, “Get atta here you bums!” was often heard, but Tony wasn’t a character in the movie, though maybe he should have.

Berringer, as Frank Ridgeway the English major, writes a few songs, is taught how to play a few songs on the piano, and is recruited into the band. In Kluge’s book Berringer’s character takes Eddie and the band on a road trip to visit Walt Whitman’s home in Camden, where Eddie is profoundly moved by the dichotomy between the literary home of the poet and the surrounding ghetto. Berringer gives him a copy of Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass,” which becomes the title of a mysterious, radical recording that is lost when Eddie dies in a car crash - he drives his ’57 Chevy into the bay off the causeway bridge.

Both Kluge and Berringer went on to bigger and better things – Kluge a professor of literature and writer in residence at – College and Berringer a superstar with many popular credits (“Big Chill,”), as did other then unknown actors in the movie that became stars – Helen Schneider, Joe Pantoliano (See: Boardwalk Journal June 2012), Matthew Laurance and Ellen Barkin.

But the movie bombed, crashed at the box office, without any marketing it came and went without much notice.

Then, a few years later, the movie was released on HBO pay per view TV – in cable’s early years, and sales of the movie soundtrack suddenly shot up on the charts (like a bullet), with three of the songs hitting the pop charts as singles – “On the Darkside,” “Wild Summer Nights” and “Tender Years.”

The movie and the music had found a new, younger audience who were beyond the nostalgia and realized the music really was good. They recognized, hey, that’s the story their mom and dad experienced when they were teenagers and rock & roll was new and revolutionary.

The Beaver Brown Band, a real New Hampshire garage band led by John Cafferty, took their name from the Beaver Brown paint cans they sat on when jamming in the garage. They suddenly had three hit songs, record contract offers and got on the Chitlin’ Circuit, and the HBO revival of the almost forgotten movie also called for a followup, and suddenly there was money available for reviving the lead character even though they had killed him off in the original.



After a brief hint of big time success, Cafferty and Beaver Brown fell back into the bar circuit and I caught them playing an off night at a Cape May sports bar, where black sax man Wendell Newton was still holding his own. As Michael “Tunes” Antunes, Newton was a member of the Parkway Cruisers as well as the Beaver Brown band, but they killed him off in the film, dying of a drug overdose at a McArthur Blvd. motel. He’s replaced by Philadelphia sax and bagpiper, the late Rufus Harley.

“I ain’t dead,” Newton said to me. “That was just Hollywood.”

But mot of the “Eddie & the Cruisers” cast had moved on to bigger and better things and couldn’t be enticed back to do an Eddie II. Without Berringer or Schneider or Barkin in the lineup, the follow up “Eddie Lives,” wasn’t really that bad, it just lacked most of the same lead characters and Tony Marts was gone and out of the picture.

One scene that was left on the cutting room floor had Berringer/Ridgeway returning to Tony Marts years later and finding the place closed and boarded up – much like it actually was after the last night in late September 1982, a few months after the film was made.

Harris Berman, who had previously bought Bay Shores across the street, tore it down and built the Waterfront, also purchased Tony Marts and tore that down to build Egos, which was billed as the East Coast’s most lavish disco.

Capturing some of the streetscapes and landmarks that are now gone is one the best attributes of the original “Eddie & the Cruisers” movie, which includes scenes of the Ocean City beach and boardwalk, and Somers Point’s Bay Avenue. There’s a scene of the band practicing on the second floor roof which overlooks the bay, Dolfin Dock and the Clam Bar.



The indoor scenes of Tony Marts are pretty accurate as well, showing the college pennants on the walls and ceiling, the half dozen bars and the main stage as it was in its last years, against the far south wall.

While Kluge is non committed in naming any one band that inspired Eddie & the Parkway Cruisers, a number of groups come quickly to mind – Johnny Caswell & the Crystal Mansion,” who had a number of local hits, “Levon & the Hawks,” who spent the summer of ’65 at Tony Marts, and the Soul Survivors (“Expressway to Your Heart).

More to come on this. 

Were you there when they made "Eddie & the Cruisers"? 
Do you have any photos?

If so I'd like to hear from you.
Billkelly3@gmail.com 



Friday, June 15, 2012

Lionel Young at the Somers Point Beach




"On the Way to Memphis," the Lionel Young Band puts into the Somers Point (NJ) Beach for a free concert under the stars. 

Nancy and Carmen note: - "Bring a beach chair and a jacket." 

Don't miss Lionel Young appearing at the opening of the Somers Point Beach Concerts on Friday, June 15th @7PM!!

Violin meets the Blues. Winner of the 2008 International Blues Challenge (IBC) in MemphisTN for solo performer, Lionel Young has won numerous other awards including: The Young Artist Award -Pittsburgh Symphony, and Westword's Best of Denver 1989 for his band the Last Fair Deal. In 1992 he won a position with the Denver Chamber Orchestra and premiered a solo piece by William Hill.  

Lionel also won another award for Best Blues Band in  Westword's Best of Denver in 1996 and 1997 for his current incarnation -  The Lionel Young Band.  Releasing their first CD - As the Sun Goes Down - in December 1997, the disc has received excellent reviews regionally & nationally. Lionel has played in concerts with Count Basie, Stevie Wonder, Jimmy Paige/Robert Plant, James Taylor, Doc Severenson, Linda Ronstadt, Living Color, Billy Taylor, Woodie Herman, Stanley Turrentine, Homesick James, Homer Brown, Hamlet Bluiett, Chief Bae, and Johnny Long.  If world class and refined are keywords in your opinion – The Lionel Young Band has the Midas touch.

Lionel Young is a high energy performer with a bent for the blues. His LIONEL YOUNG BAND, winners of numerous awards for best in and around the Colorado region, have won the 2011 International Blues Challenge (IBC) band competition. 

Added to his victory at the 2008 IBC in the solo-duo catagory, that makes Lionel Young the first double champion in the history of the IBC.

Fans of the driven, classically trained Young, love his distinctive brand of blues on the electric violin. His show features not only Young originals but interpretations of blues classics by Willie Dixon, Leadbelly and Stevie Ray Vaughan, features the strength and passion of Young’s playing, as well as his smooth vocals and unique translations. The songs, which include his award-winning composition ” Brown Cloud Over Denver” and “Hey, O.J.,” a controversial little gem, alternately stir up social concerns and soothe the weary soul. It’s prime. It’s fun. It’s Lionel Young.

Born in RochesterNew York, Lionel Young began taking violin lessons at the age of six with Anastasia Jempelis at the Eastman School of Music. He was a member of the Pittsburgh Opera-Ballet Orchestra and the National Repertory Orchestra which commissioned him to play bluegrass and blues for their summer festival and on a tour of JapanTaiwan, and Korea during the 1988 Summer Olympic Music Festival.

Throughout his career, Mr. Young has won numerous awards including: The Young Artist Award (Pittsburgh Symphony); The Concerto Contest (Carnegie-Mellon); The Passamenic Award (Branchwood String Quartet); and the award for the Best Blues Band in Westword’s Best of Denver. He’s also won a position with The Denver Chamber Orchestra and premiered a solo piece by William Hill.