Thursday thru Saturday with Dentist, The Battery Electric, Strange Eclipse, Kerbivore, Holiday, Lyons, Lowlight, Little Vicious, and The Jolly Daggers

Little Vicious at Bond St. Basement

Weekend Off

I don't know what happened on Friday. Several albums came out that I do want to talk about, but I just never got myself going. One cup of coffee doesn't do it for me. If I don't have that second cup, I'm useless for the rest of the day. Also, I'd done a photoshoot with Dentist the day before; and, I think, just wandering around in the searing heat all day did a number on me.

At any rate, even if I wasn't posting, it's not like I took the weekend off.

There was the aforementioned photoshoot with Dentist. I don't really have a lot of confidence with band promo shoots. The spur-of-the-moment, reactionary nature of live music photography seems to be more of a strength for me; but I'm pretty proud of the shots we got. I think I'm starting to learn how to photograph groups and -- come on -- Dentist are just a good-looking band.

Dentist at Asbury's Outpost artist hangout

Summer -- at least the month of July -- is about swim teams here at CDMHQ; and the cooldaughters had a summer camp swim meet scheduled for Thursday night. When that got washed out, CoolMom and I headed down to Porta Asbury Park to catch Dentist's evening set. This was my second time seeing them as a 3-piece, and it's really working for them.

Dentist at Porta AP with the Sony RX100IV

Then Friday. Daytime: blah. Dinner time: CoolMom killed it with a nice dinner of homemade chicken parm. That evening, I stopped in at Asbury Park Music Foundation to see -- for the first time in a while -- our denim-clad brothers in The Battery Electric. They were playing the release show for Roxbury, NJ's Strange Eclipse, and the alcohol-free set still got pretty wild with the young headliners hopping up to sing "Does He Love You" with the Battery boys.

The Battery Electric and Strange Eclipse at APMF with the RX100IV

For their part, Strange Eclipse, who look to be just a little older than CoolDaughter #1, were impressive. They turned in an extremely tight set of heavy blues / garage rock that had me forgetting they were teenagers. I headed home straight after, since the cooldaughters had a two-day swim meet with their club team starting the next day.

Strange Eclipse at APMF with the RX100IV

I thought I'd get some posts done during the excruciating boredom that is being a spectator at a big, club swim meet. But things were so mind-numbingly boring that I could barely move my fingers. Also, I may only have had one cup of coffee on Saturday.

Then, it was back from Princeton for a busy Saturday night. The Asbury Park Brewery was hosting an early show that featured Staten Island's Kerbivore, Neptune's Holiday, and local Asbury favorites, Lyons. Kerbivore came highly-recommended from our good buddy Sugarblast Al C of the Signal2Noise radio program, and their power-punk-pop (think GBV, Replacements, etc.) didn't disappoint. Holiday are a low-key trio that make some big sounds which always remind me of Neil Young or Built To Spill. And Lyons closed things out with their chimey post-punk.

Kerbivore at Asbury Park Brewery

Holiday at Asbury Park Brewery

Lyons at Asbury Park Brewery

I'm quickly warming to the brewery's tasting room as a venue. It's a little loud and echo-y, but it's nice to have another independent spot where you can see bands and enjoy some nice, local beers.

Quick hustle over to Bond St. Basement for Lowlight, Little Vicious, and The Jolly Daggers. It was a beautiful summer Saturday in Asbury, so that meant parking super far away and people watching as I walked to Bond. I started wondering where they keep the machine that spits out all these Jersey Shore cast-member clones that wander downtown Asbury in the summer.

Anyway...

The Bond St. show was a late one with Lowlight kicking things off at around 10:45. They were great as usual, and we even got a few moments of Renee without her hat. Little Vicious had people dancing and going apeshit with help from a guy named Dan who wailed on a block for just about the entire set. The Jolly Daggers hit at about 1:10 in total darkness, and were fun as always. I mean, they are led by Captain Fun, Ron Santee; and, on this night, they also featured a wig-clad Marguerite King of Little Vicious on lead guitar. I was toast afterwards and headed home.

Lowlight at Bond St. Basement

Little Vicious at Bond St. Basement

Jolly Daggers at Bond St. Basement

Back to Princeton Sunday morning for about 6 more hours of sitting around at the meet where, again, I got no blogging and very little editing done. I did have time to reflect, though, on what a cool few days I'd just had. CoolMom and I got a little pizza date on Thursday. I got to hang with some of my very best friends and see them play. I saw and got to know a a couple of new bands. I took a whole bunch of what I consider to be pretty cool pictures. The five or so minutes that the cooldaughters were actually in the water were exciting as always.

I really need to stop complaining so much.

Pics from this weekend are pretty much all edited and will be appearing in the Flickr galleries and / or on the Facebook page if they haven't already.

New Local Sounds from Seaside Caves, The Jolly Daggers, and Black Flamingos

The Jolly Daggers are just one of several recent Asbury Park releases.

Hey, Neighbor

It's been a strong couple of weeks for Asbury Park-based releases. In one of my famous Friday afternoon roundups, I wanted to call your attention to three things that have hit us recently.

Seaside Caves, "The Rage"

Seaside Caves put out one of my favorite EPs of 2014 when they released their self-titled debut at the end of last year. Since then, they've snagged opening slots for both Home for the Holidays and Home for the Summer with The Bouncing Souls; and Chunksaah Records gave Seaside Caves a physical release on vinyl.

Yesterday, the band released single "The Rage." It's another retro-inspired trip that unfurls in smears of gothic black and white over the course of its five minutes. "I wanna feel alive," sings bassist Todd Wacha as his buried vocals trail off under a wall of synths. Like all of Seaside Caves' previous work, "The Rage" makes me want to head for those shoeboxes in the closet so that I can sift through the creased and faded pictures from my high school days.

Check out "The Rage" below and come check Seaside Caves out live on Friday, November 13th, at Asbury Park Yacht Club. It's a free, CDM-presented show that also features our friends Overlake and Dead Stars.



The Jolly Daggers, Singles

The Jolly Daggers are Captain Fun Ron Santee of The Battery Electric, Robert Butkowski of Black Flamingos / Plato Zorba, Sweet Joey of Ba Babes, and Boris Thertus of super-human feats of athleticism. They've played a couple of local shows so far and promise more for the future. While we wait for that, though, the pirate crew have put out a series of singles recorded at Word of Mouth Studios in Long Branch and mastered by Derril Sellers. Studio bassist Brent Bergholm plays on each of the tracks.

There are the appropriately pirate-themed tracks of "Yo Ho" -- its opening smooch is pure Captain Fun -- and "Sailing the Black Seas." There are the more straight garage-y tracks like the soulful "See It All Through" and the rowdy "Who Killed the Postman." Each track offered up by the band has a lo-fi, retro feel anchored (ha! "anchored") by Robbie Butkowski's twangy and surf-tinged guitar.

This is music for swaying and rocking. This is music for hoisting up a tankard of rum with one arm while draping the other arm across the shoulders of your mate.

Check out everything that The Jolly Daggers have uploaded to Bandcamp (weirdly, all as individual singles) and stay on watch for their next local raid.



Black Flamingos, Black Flamingos EP

Last Friday, Black Flamingos released their self-titled, debut EP on Little Dickman Records. The instrumental surf trio of Robert Butkowski, Vincent Minervino, and Declan O'Connell bring a dark originality to a well-worn genre.

I really love this band. Every track features the familiar twang and reverb of surf rock; but they come from a different place. It's like some weird place where everyone drives vintage cars through the nighttime fog, but it's totally the future. Does that make sense?

Each of the five tracks is a winner. If I had to give special mention to any of them, I'd probably say "Okinawa" (which premiered right here) and "Shark Repellant;" but just listen to the record front to back and you won't be disappointed.

Black Flamingos are celebrating the release of the EP with a free show at Asbury Park Yacht Club next Friday, October 30th. Also on that bill are The Coffin Daggers and The Primitive Finks. Wear a costume.

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.