A Perfect Mess

...I am officially addicted. It happens on occasion. I get myself an album that I can't get out of my speakers, my headphones, or my head in general. It's been a while. Then I was sent a copy of The Shifters new album, In It! And it happened again. My addiction kicked in full force, and I can't stop listening. Or dancing. A couple months back, I did an interview with Steve Jackson of the Pietasters, and he mentioned the music scene in the Washington DC area. He mentioned The Shifters specifically. Always willing to take the word of a my blog subjects and an admired musician, I began my quest to get more familiar with these guys. I found some YouTube videos and while I was highly impressed with how tight this band is live, it was not until I got this album that I realized just exactly what level of amazing I was dealing with here. To call myself a music snob is probably an understatement, and I am not easily impressed by anyone for any reason. Studio album or liv...

...Steve Jackson and I...it's a duet! I don't know where these booze cruises have been all my life, but I hate that I just finally started embarking on them this summer. It's beer. It's ska. It's dancing. It's amazing views of New York City from the East River as the sun sets. It's great people. It's a great show on a damn boat! Let me start off by saying we just barely made the boat at all. Traffic into Manhattan from North Jersey is a nightmare on a Friday. Add in some construction around the Lincoln Tunnel, and we have a recipe for anxiety. A booze cruise is not like a regular show in that you can meander into the venue whenever you get there. You need to be there, on the boat, by a certain time or the boat leaves...and you are standing on the dock waving it goodbye. Last time I did this, I took the Holland and barely made it. This time I figured the Lincoln would be another option. We should have taken the advice of the drunk guys in the bar i...

I just saw a notification that Tony Sly of No Use For A Name has passed away. I love NUFAN. I have been a fan since my early 20's when a friend loaned me their album More Betterness...which I think I still have somewhere (don't loan me CD's you think I might like...). It was in the CD player of my Volkswagen for an easy three months before I took it out. I think that was only to bring it in the house, where I played it again. Developing my voice as well as my mind in those years, I used to BELT out Life Size Mirror, Let It Slide, and Chasing Rainbows the most. The songs were amazing. They had lyrics I related to in my post teen angst, pre-find myself mid 20's when I didn't know who the hell I was or where the fuck I was going any day of the week. I still love them. Still sing at high volume when the songs come up in my iPod shuffle in traffic. The more the news of Tony's passing gets around, the more stories I am hearing about who he was as a person, off the...

I still remember trying to learn the words to Dub 56 by the Toasters  in my younger days. The chat version where Coolie Ranx is fast talking his way through the horns and steady drums and bass line. Aside from the fact that I loved the song and all my ridiculous dancing that went with it, it fascinated me that someone could sing that fast. A budding vocalist myself, I would use it as a tool to try and improve my diction and vocal versatility. Trying to mimic what he did. The whole time, I had absolutely no idea what in the hell he was saying... But I loved it. It moved me. It was the song that helped to light that fire that would be my love of ska. Fast forward a decade or so to my much more evolved love of ska music and a broader understanding for exactly how much of a talent Mr. Ranx is. His work with the Toasters kick-started him into the New York City ska scene that holds him high as a pioneer among fans like myself. After the Toasters, he went on to co-s...

I think I have gone into quite a bit of detail over the course of this series about how much of a Slackers fan I am. They are my happy music, my sad music, my dance music. I can sing you Redlight, The Question, and Self Medication from beginning to end without stopping. My seven year old son is a Slackers fan thanks to my constant soundtrack of their music in my home, and has demanded that as soon as they do any kind of all ages show, that he be in the audience. When I began writing this series a couple months ago, they were a target for me to get an interview from. Seeing as they are one of the most hardworking bands in this scene I sought to dig into, this proved a little more difficult than I had thought. I was able to chat briefly with a few of the guys on the booze cruise a few weeks back (I wrote about it  here ) but boats and booze and music with one of my favorite bands don't make me the most charismatic music journalist. They make me a dancing giddy girl. ...

King Django's legendary Stubborn Records celebrates it's 20th Anniversary with shows and goodies and releases...oh my! Here is the official press release... ~AJH ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- New Brunswick, NJ - based Stubborn Records has been celebrating its 20 th  Anniversary year  with a series of new releases and concerts, bringing New York’s longest-running ska, rocksteady and reggae party, “Version City” to NJ for the first time.  The eclectic and festive party will hit the Crossroads in Garwood on Thursday, August 30 th  for founder King Django’s Birthday Bash.  Partygoers will enjoy live music all night with old-school rhythm’n’blues, Jamaica ska, rocksteady and reggae from King Django Band, a solo acoustic set by Obi Fernandez (of hard-touring ska band “Westbound Train”), country-swing-ragtime-rhythm’ n’blues from Bad Luck Dice , the “rocksteady and roll” sounds of Pennsylvan...

...so to answer the question from my previous blog, it IS indeed possible to dance on a boat. Even when that boat is a rockin' due to the very flashy thunderstorm happening over the East River that we happened to be floating around in. Not that it mattered. This was not some ordinary booze-cruise. This was The Slackers. I'm a Slackers fan. A big one. They are beyond a doubt one of my favorite bands. Ever. Period. I could probably sing you Redlight and Self-Medication from beginning to end without missing a word. They are in my constant iPod rotation, along with the rest of their releases. Vic Ruggiero is one of my most admired artists, both with The Slackers, and in his other collaborations and solo projects. Once this event was on my radar, I was going to get there. No matter what. It's been a rough few months for me for a myriad of reasons. I have not been out too much...and I needed it...but I was more excited for this show than I can remember being for much of a...