I've Been Quiet But Busy: Folked Up, Record Plants, Fruit & Flowers, Sweet Spirit, Michael VM, The Vansaders, and More

Sweet Spirit at Johnny Brenda's

What Have I Been Up To?

There was a time, back in the early days of CoolDad Music, when I would write recaps and reviews of just about every show I attended, no matter how large or how small. As I've become a veteran, jaded blogger, I've done less of that. I'm not complaining here because it's 100% my own choice to do all of this, but it's a fair bit of work to put together a post about even a small show if I want to include pictures and all that kinda stuff. Sometimes, I just get lazy.

I still attend a shit-ton of shows, though. Here's a round-up of what I've been up to in the last week or so.

Let's Get Folked Up!, Watermark, Asbury Park, NJ

On Wednesday, May 16th, I attended the inaugural Let's Get Folked Up "writers' round" presented by Chris Brown and Megan O'Shea in conjunction with Nashville recording artist Jo Smith. In addition to Smith and Brown, the line-up for this first show in a proposed series included J.T. Makoviecki of Jackson Pines, Renee Maskin of Lowlight, and Matty Carlock.

Jo Smith

Chris Brown et al

Artists took turns sharing songs and stories over the course of two sets before finishing up with a group performance of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah." It was a pretty laid-back evening in a beautiful space with waves crashing just outside the windows behind the stage. I'm hearing that the next installment will happen in July; and, if last week was any indication, it's definitely something worth checking out.

Thursday with the Dickmans, Independent Record Pressing, Bordentown, NJ / The Outpost, Asbury Park, NJ

On Thursday morning, Chris Dickman and I headed over to Bordentown where Randy Now has organized a tour of the new Independent Record Pressing plant which sits just a few minutes away from the Man Cave. We got a walkthrough of the production floor and saw vintage and new vinyl presses pumping out titles from bands like Radiohead, Queens Of The Stone Age, The Menzingers, and Snail Mail. It was pretty damn cool, especially to know that it's happening right in our backyard.

Fruit & Flowers

That evening, Chris & Amy managed to get me into a party that surf, skate, swim lifestyle brand Volcom were throwing at Asbury Park's Outpost. Fruit & Flowers, long a favorite of ours around here, were providing the musical entertainment. I, amazingly, hadn't seen the Brooklyn band since Austin; and it was nice to see that they could still blow me away. Earlier this week, Fruit & Flowers left for their first-ever tour of the UK.

Sweet Spirit / The 1910 Chainsaw Company, Johnny Brenda's, Philadelphia, PA

I already wrote briefly here about what a tough day Friday was. As the day wore on, I made the last-minute decision to head down to Philly to catch Sweet Spirit at Johnny Brenda's.

Sweet Spirit is a project featuring Sabrina Ellis and Andrew Cashen of A Giant Dog along with Josh Merry, Jake Knight, Jon Fichter, and Danny Lion. Where A Giant Dog are glam punk, Sweet Spirit are more soulful, more poppy. Ellis, though, is probably the most charismatic presence in live music right now. It doesn't matter which band she's fronting. And, I hate to put this kind of thing on artists who don't know me from a hole in the ground; but Ellis and Cashen have "been there" for me at times when I really needed it. Catching them at this show was really a no-brainer for me, and they didn't disappoint.

Sweet Spirit

I only brought the point & shoot and spent most of the set enjoying myself rather than shooting. Openers The 1910 Chainsaw Company were a nice surprise. To me, they sounded like what you might get if you crossed Pavement and The Beach Boys.

The 1910 Chainsaw Company

Side note: Philly is like 30 miles further from me than Brooklyn, but the drive on Friday was about 30 minutes shorter each way than my usual trips up to Brooklyn. I'll be heading down there more often.

Michael VM / Metal Mountains, Mercury Lounge, New York, NY

After taking Saturday night off from shows in order to spend some time with the family, it was back to it on Sunday for an early show at Mercury Lounge. Our good buddy Michael VM made the trip up from North Carolina with his family to celebrate last year's release, the happiest man on earth. I reviewed the album right around its original release, and it finds Michael in a quieter more contemplative place following his marriage, his move from NYC to NC, and the loss of his mother. He played live with a band that included several members of his former band, The Everymen, as well as his father, Ray. The songs translated well to a live setting and were as moving as they are on the record.

Michael VM

Duo Metal Mountains opened. Helen Rush (vocals / guitar) and Pat Gubler (guitar) delivered, maybe, the mellowest, most low-key set I've ever seen. Metal Mountains' Facebook bio reads simply, "Quiet in the noise..." and that's pretty spot-on.

Metal Mountains

Pastrami from Katz's after the show.

Kali Masi / The Vansaders / Have A Good Season, The Saint, Asbury Park, NJ

On Monday, I headed over to The Saint to catch The Vansaders, Have A Good Season, and Chicago post-hardcore / emo-ish band Kali Masi. Emily was working the door. Scotch LaRock showed up. Alex. Billy. Neil. It wasn't a huge crowd, but there were lots of familiar, friendly faces.

Have A Good Season do the 90s fuzzy guitar indie thing (Dinosaur Jr., Built To Spill) really well, and it's always cool when I catch one of their sets. I was saying to someone over the weekend that I've never seen The Vansaders turn in a bad set, and last night was no different. Just big gut punches of punk-inspired anthems. Kali Masi played to the small Monday night crowd as if they were working a packed room, which is always good to see.

Have A Good Season

The Vansaders

Kali Masi

Things ended relatively early -- always a bonus after a busy few days.

So, even though it's been quiet here at the site, I've been pretty busy. I've got a few interesting things lined up this week that I'll share with you before the coolfamily and I head down to Savannah for the long weekend.

Interview: Chris Brown and Megan O'Shea Talk About Getting Folked Up at The Watermark on 5/16

Nashville to Asbury

On Wednesday, May 16th, Let's Get Folked Up! comes to The Watermark in Asbury Park. The brainchild of Chris Brown, Nashville's Jo Smith, and Megan O'Shea, the evening will be a "songwriters in the round"-style concert featuring Brown, Smith, and a host of some of the best singer / songwriters in the Asbury music scene. If things go well here, and I'm sure they will, there's the potential for Let's Get Folked Up! to become a recurring series that brings together artists from Asbury, Nashville, and beyond to share songs and stories and maybe even interact with the audience.

Before we get ahead of ourselves, though, let's talk about May 16th. I sat down at The Annex in Asbury Park last week with Chris and Meg to get the lowdown on the inaugural Folking.

Tell me a little bit about Let's Get Folked Up.

Meg: Chris and our friend Jo Smith from Nashville pulled me into it a few months ago with the idea of creating a bridge for Nashville artists to bring them here and get them involved in our music scene. And we're really excited about it.

We have an amazing line-up. Jo Smith isn't around here too often, and I'm so excited for her to get involved in our music scene and meet everybody, make friends, and expose her music to everyone here.

Who, in addition to Jo, is on the line-up for the inaugural session?

Chris: Matty Carlock, J.T. Makoviecki from Jackson Pines, Renee Maskin from Lowlight, and myself.

And what's the format?

Chris: Songwriters in the round. When Jo and I met in December playing a show, we got to talking. We were just going to try and trade off and help each other out with shows. But Jo loved the songwriters in the round idea because it's huge in Nashville. And I think it's a great concept. It's a listening room-style thing. There are stories. There are narratives. It evokes "Storytellers" or "Unplugged" from back in the day when we were kids. It's such a cool thing for artists to communicate together.

I knew that Jo knew Meg, so I reached out to Meg and said, "Maybe we can all brainstorm this and turn it into a recurring series."

Is everyone onstage all at once?

Chris: Yep. Someone will do an opening set. Then the rest of the acts will join. There will be a collaborative song at the end (that we haven't figured out yet).

So is it a planned set or more improvisational?

Meg: A little bit of improv, I think. We're gonna just let the artists kind of roll with it and see what stories they come up with, what songs they're in the mood to play.

How did you hook up with Jo?

Chris: She was booked to play at Anchor's Bend for a Christmas show that my dad and I were playing. We just got to chatting. She's super-sweet and super-talented, and she was eager to get into this scene more. Jo is an established artist, and she just wants to see if we can bring more Nashville artists to Asbury; and, maybe in the future, bring some Asbury artists down there.

Nashville is a huge music city in the way that Austin is a huge music city, and I think it would be cool to have that bridge to Asbury.

How did you end up at Watermark?

Chris: I played something similar there in, shit, 2011? It was Emily Grove, myself, Michael Dante Summonte, my buddy Andrew Holtz, and Michael Brett. It was the first time I ever met Emily, Michael, and Michael. Andrew and I were best friends from high school, college roommates.

I remember looking back at the photos from that show, and the room was so elegant. I had talked to [Watermark owner] Russell [Lewis] back then about how they never designed it for music, but acoustic music sounds so good in there. It bounces off the windows. Just the aesthetic of it with the ocean behind you and everything…

I reached out to Russell about it. They're usually closed on Wednesdays anyway, and he said sure. We thought it would be a fun, elegant, last hurrah before summer when this place gets crazy again. 

You've talked about potentially making this a series. Would it be resident at the Watermark or do you think you'd move it around?

Meg: We talked about maybe bouncing from venue to venue. There's so much here. It would be silly not to take advantage of it.

Chris: Places like The Anchor's Bend, Danny Clinch's Gallery, even House of Independents could be really cool. There are so many different rooms with their own cool aesthetic.

In a general sense, is it important to you to bring outside acts into Asbury to inject some fresh sounds into the scene?

Chris: I think so. The music scene in Asbury is very diverse, and it could only benefit from becoming more diverse. All of a sudden, you expose an artist from Nashville to this scene and people think, "Hey. I can do a country number." It doesn't have to be a punk rock town or an indie rock town or a folk singer town. Even with people recently being frustrated by the lack of hip-hop or R&B categories at the awards… ...I say why not? Music is the universal language.

Do you have plans for any future installments or is it just wait and see at this point?

Chris: Kind of tentative at this point. Maybe not June, but maybe July to give more time for planning. We do want to see how this one goes. But we've already had a solid outpouring of interest from people who want to participate. I'm already thinking of different line-ups in my head of people we could bring together. Even putting the most polar opposite personalities on the stage could be fun! Maybe the singer for a punk band with some soft-spoken, folky artist.

I'm really interested in the whole dynamic of having everyone on stage at once, playing off of one another, taking it wherever it goes…

Chris: Even the cues you take from whatever song an artist might choose without any prompting. I'd love to see it evolve into something where maybe even the audience gets involved.

Anything else you'd like to add?

Meg: It's going to be a great night. We have such an amazing scene around here, and I'm just really looking forward to pushing our artists further and seeing what they do when they're put on a stage together.

Chris will be playing. Meg will be emceeing?

Chris: Yep.

Meg: Yeah. I'm excited. Each and every one of the participants, I know pretty well; and I've seen all of them do amazing things in the years that I've known them. It's going to be fun.

Let's Get Folked Up! takes place on Wednesday, May 16th, at Asbury Park's Watermark on the boardwalk. It features Jo Smith, Chris Brown, Matty Carlock, Renee Maskin, and J.T. Makoviecki. Doors are at 6pm, and $10 gets you inside.

Video Premiere: Chris Brown's "Serve 'Em All"

Everyone's Had Too Much Fun...

Were you there? Did you hoist a glass and sing along during the shoot for Chris Brown's "Serve 'Em All" on that Monday night at Bond Street Bar? Well, if you were, and you told somebody you were doing something else that night, you're busted.

Brown premiered the clip for his barroom singalong at this year's Asbury Park Music in Film Festival over the weekend; and, today, we have the online debut. The video was shot and edited by Chris Spiegel of Blur Revision Media Design and exudes the love and camaraderie that permeate a good chunk of the Asbury scene. The song isn't just a tribute to four walls. It's an ode to friendship,  a sense of family, and togetherness in the tradition of great drinking (nobody says it has to be alcohol) / hanging out songs throughout the ages.

Check out the video below, and raise a glass of the beverage of your choice to Chris Brown, a genuine guy who represents a side of Asbury Park that will kick and fight to stay alive even as change sweeps over the city.

Chris Brown Video Shoot, TONIGHT, 2/22, 7PM, Down at the Bond St. Bar

Chris Brown performing at the Bond St. Bar Block Party back in November.

"Serve 'Em All"

One of Asbury Park's favorite singers / songwriters / bartenders (He and the bar where he works have got the Asbury Music Awards to prove it.), Chris Brown, will be shooting a video this evening -- Monday, February 22nd -- at Asbury's Bond St. Bar. The video is for Brown's ode to the place, "Serve 'Em All." Brown is asking that friends, family, and regulars stop in at Bond St. from 7-10 tonight to "do what you do" while Blur Revision Media Design's Chris Spiegel documents the shenanigans for inclusion in the music video.

You can pack the place out until it reaches capacity and partake of the cash bar; but, for the duration of the shoot, you won't be able to avail yourself of the Bond St. Bar's kitchen offerings. You'll just have to wait for another time to enjoy one of Asbury Park's best and most affordable burgers.

So if you'd like to be in what is sure to be a very Asbury music video, head down to Bond St. bar at 7pm. When it's all done and they start ushering you out the door, remember: You don't have to go home, but I guess you can sleep in your car.

RSVP to the video shoot right here.

#GFY

More NJ Tiny Desk Contest Submissions: Chris Brown, J.T. Makoviecki, We're Ghosts Now, where is my spaceship, Dentist

Deadline Submissions

Last week, I shared with you a few of the submissions from New Jersey artists for the 2016 Tiny Desk Contest. Since then, the deadline of February 2nd has passed; and I've come across a few more. I even helped make one.

Good luck to everybody, and thanks so much to Dentist for trusting me to help make theirs.

Here are the latest.

Chris Brown (Asbury Park), "Son"



J.T. Makoviecki (Jackson), "Knees, Eyes, Hands"



We're Ghosts Now (Freehold), "On the Road"



where is my spaceship (Hackensack), "those drugs"



Dentist (Asbury Park), "You Say"

Holiday Gift From Chris Brown

Chris Brown performing at this year's Bond St. Bar Block Party.

"Serve 'Em All"

Asbury Park's favorite folk-singing bartender (and he's got the 2015 Asbury Music Award to prove it), Chris Brown, has a holiday gift for all of us. In the spirit of Home for the Holidays, Chris is making available for free download his ode to his place of employ and one of the world's best local watering holes, Asbury Park's Bond St. Bar.

"Serve 'Em All" is full of the fellowship and GFY attitude of that little spot. Hold your glasses high and sway along to the chorus as you listen to the song below. Feel free to download it when you're done. It will be available for free through this week's 9th annual Bouncing Souls' Home for the Holidays. Chris Brown takes part in the festivities when he plays on Monday afternoon at Russo Music. He'll be playing the Home for the Holidays Raffle Drawing Party with Dave Hause, Jared Hart, and Augusta Koch.

The Jolly Daggers Played Happy Mondays w/ Chris Brown, Psychiatric Metaphors, and The Off White

Yo Ho Ho

It was a staycation Happy Monday for me last night as I wasn't going to miss The Jolly Daggers for a second time. The Pirate-themed quartet of Ron Santee, Robbie Butkowski, Boris Thertus, and Sweet Joey were playing their second official show with help from folk-punk troubadour Chris Brown and psych rockers Psychiatric Metaphors and The Off White.

While the Daggers did have one song with a "Yo ho ho" in it, the pirate theme applied mostly to their outfits. The rest of the set was some surf and rockabilly-inspired garage rock that had the late crowd moving in the uncharacteristically warm Wonder Bar.

Both Psychiatric Metaphors and The Off White blew the place away with a squall of wonderfully messy noise, while Chris Brown gave us acoustic selections from his catalog as well as renditions of "Happy Birthday" and "In My Life" for a woman named Nikki who was celebrating her sixth annual 21st birthday.

Check out photo highlights from all the sets below and head to Flickr for even more pics.

H4TH2014, Night 1

Emily Bornemann joined Smalltalk at the H4TH2014 After Party at Asbury Lanes.

Interesting Evening

CoolDaughter #1's bud has a Boxing Day birthday. That can't be the greatest day to have a birthday; but I give her parents credit for managing to make yesterday special. CD1 spent the day with her, and then the rest of us headed over to their house for early drinks and pizza.

"When's your next show?" someone asked me.

"In about 2 and a half hours," I said.

"You're nuts," someone else advised me.

I was a little tired, but it's a big weekend in Asbury Park, and my OCD won't let me miss anything. We said our goodbyes and headed home. I made my way down to the Wonder Bar for Asbury Unplugged, figuring that I'd spend the evening there until it was time for the Home for the Holidays after-party at Asbury Lanes. I'd slept on getting any Souls' tickets, you see; so I was thinking that I was pretty much SOL for any shows. Sad.

Colton Kayser

Doug Zambon

Chris Brown had just finished his set by the time I got to The Wonder Bar, and Doug Zambon had just started. Colton Kayser and Jay Monday followed that with a pair of great sets. Then, a Boxing Day miracle happened. Chris (Santa) Brown told me he had an extra +1 for the show at The Pony and that I could have it!

We got inside The Stone Pony just as BANE finished their set, and we ran into Scotch and Bouncing Souls SuperFan Timmy LaRock just inside the door. Tim was pumped for The Souls who came out and did a full pre-2000 set. It didn't necessarily cover all of his favorites, but he was on track for a good night.

The crowd was absolutely nuts, random circle pits forming like little whirlpools throughout the audience. It was pretty hairy.

I fought my way over to the other end of the venue and managed to get up to the side of the stage. Gentleman Jim Norton was there. We said our hellos. He asked about the LaRocks and disappeared into the crowd. A few songs later, he was back, this time with little Tim in tow. We hoisted him over the barricade into the VIP area and people cleared a path for him. He got to watch the rest of the main set with his hands on the stage.

"Jim! Jim! I've never been this close before!" He was beaming, and so was everyone who saw him.

Really cool.

He'd had enough by the time the encores were starting, so we reconvened with his dad.

When the show was over, the LaRocks and I walked to the parking lot. They went to their car, Timmy looking forward to some Gatorade and waking up to work on his new Lego sets; and I headed to The Lanes.

Dark Blue

Philly's Dark Blue went on at around 12, I guess. They played in, basically, absolute darkness. I couldn't see them, but I liked what I heard -- late 80s, dark, post-punky.

I stuck around to check out Smalltalk. Emily Bornemann of Dentist was filling in for Tara Jones, who's on a short maternity leave. They sounded great. Emily did a fantastic job on vocals and jimmy-jangling the tambourine. They finished up at around 2.

Smalltalk

It ended up being a fantastic night: Friends and family at home, friends at all the shows, the look on young Tim's face. I can't wait for tonight. I'm not sure what it will bring (still no Souls' tix), but CoolMom and I have a sitter. Whatever happens (late Cayetana set at The Lanes, definitely), we'll do it together and have a blast.

Chris Brown, Anchor, 2014

Album Review

Grow up. I say it to my (admittedly, still pretty young) kids when I think they're not acting their age. I say it to myself sometimes. You've heard it off and on, probably, since you were a kid. What does it mean, though? What is growing up?

On his latest LP, Anchor, Asbury Park's Chris Brown attempts to get at what it means to grow up, I think. The album consists of nine songs about the people, the experiences, and the place that have been Brown's personal anchors, giving him the stability to grow up himself.

The record opens with the upbeat acoustic guitar of "16." "I'm jaded, it seems, the more my youth gets gone," sings Brown. The song is a call to bring some of our teenage idealism and conviction into our adult lives. It includes shouted, sing along, pop punk-style vocals from Howie Cohen and Zachary West (Ghost House / Athletics), Zach Moyle (Lost In Society), and Brown's dad Charlie -- a cast that helps out on several tracks.

"16" works as kind of a companion piece to "When We Were Kids." There are "Whoa oh"s from the gang as Brown imagines a world where people bring a "when we were kids singing punk rock songs" enthusiasm to politics and activism. Even "Take Me Home," with its wailing harmonica, handclaps and foot stomps, has Brown declaring, "I don't know about you, but I'm a kid at heart."

Several songs on Anchor touch on the growing pains experienced by Brown's hometown of Asbury Park and draw some parallels with Brown's own journey. On the title track, Brown sings of years when "I lost my way and broke my heart." "I'm still believin'. As long as I'm breathin', I'm never leavin'," he sings. He found his "Anchor," presumably in his wife and his city. While the lyrics to "Anchor" can be read simply as Brown's singing to his wife about the support they give each other, I initially heard the song as Brown's singing to the city of Asbury Park.

"When The Lights Went Out," which opens with Pete Steinkopf's (who produced 8 of 9 tracks and plays throughout the record) electric guitar, directly addresses Asbury's up and down history. "I'm amazed that she's even survived, no thanks to the crooks on Main St."

"This Here Guitar" is a straightforward, finger-picked thank you to Brown's father Charlie for teaching him a love of music as well as a thank you for the gift of being able "to be just like him." "Sailn' With Jerry" (produced by Pirate Peter Boiko) details the morning after an evening "with our feet in the sand and drinks [of the spiced rum variety] in our hands" and the probably bad decision to get together and do it all over again.

Together, the songs on Anchor have the feel of a night in some seaside bar -- either outdoors or with some wide-open windows. You can smell the salt wafting in on the breeze. You can hear the waves crashing outside, glasses clinking, people singing along.

So what does this all say about growing up? Don't forget the passion and idealism you had as a kid. Channel it and do something constructive as an adult. Find a home. Home could be a place or the people in your life, whatever it is that keeps you grounded. Maintain good relationships -- family, friends, yourself. It's not that hard, really, when you stop and think about it. I'm not sure why it takes us all so long to figure it all out.

Chris Brown will be celebrating the release of Anchor on July 11th at The Anchor's Bend in Asbury Park along with his band Last Night's Disasters, EdTang and The Chops, and Matthew Charles. It's FREE.

Asbury Park's Chris Brown Is Crowdfunding His New LP

Anchor

Asbury Park folk-punk singer / songwriter Chris Brown recorded his latest record, Anchor, with Pete Steinkopf of The Bouncing Souls. Now, Brown is reaching out to fans old, new, and yet to be converted via Indiegogo to fund the record's release. According to his campaign website, Anchor tells the story of Brown's relationship with Asbury Park, the city where he was born, raised, and now lives.

Judging from the guest appearances, Anchor will be very Asbury-centric. Brown got help from Steinkopf as well as Zack Moyle of Lost In Society, Zach West and Howie Cohen of Ghost House / Athletics, and his father, Charlie Brown.

Head over to Brown's Indiegogo page for the details; and if you'd like to try before you buy, you can catch Chris Brown when he plays as part of a loaded (and FREE, as always) Happy Mondays bill along with Small Town Scoundrels, The Brigantines, and Eastbourne on May 12th.