Premiere: Live In-Studio Performance of "Dark City Lights" by Bulletproof Belv and Matty Carlock

"Dark City Lights"

Last year, Asbury Park's Bulletproof Belv (aka, James Anderson) released 11:11 Wishful Thinking. That collection gave us single "Dark City Lights" featuring Matty Carlock. The song paints a picture of both the daily struggles and the carefree nightlife of living in the city. It's, ultimately, a message of perseverance in the face of everything that life can throw at you. Today, we're sharing a new video for the duo's live, in-studio performance of "Dark City Lights." This take transforms the song into a moving piano ballad.

I sat down at Abury Park's Cafe Volan for a chat with Belv and Carlock. We had a wide-ranging discussion over coffee about each artist's background and what led them to collaborate on a single. Matty was preparing to head out on a short Canadian tour, and both he and Belv are readying new albums. Carlock's Jailbirds, featuring guest appearances from Jared Hart, Danny Clinch, and Jesse Malin, is due early next year; while Bulletproof Belv has already given us "Every Night" from his upcoming end-of-year release. Another collaboration, "F Being Friends," is also in the works.

Check out the live version of "Dark City Lights" right here. After that, read on for my interview with the duo below.

Belv and Carlock will be joining The Cold Seas ft. Drew The Recluse and Sonic Blume at Asbury Park Yacht Club on November 16th as part of the Makin Waves Hunger Benefit for Food for Thought.



Just to start off, you've both done so many different things. Matty, you were a hardcore frontman and have evolved into a singer / songwriter. Belv, you've released a lot of music and had some pretty big-time collaborations. But, going back, what made you want to do music?

Matty Carlock: My parents raised me in a Springsteen religious household. I grew up around Backstreets and Born To Run and the whole cheesy Asbury Park, Red Bank thing. My mom used to follow Springsteen's tours. My dad even looks like Springsteen.

I just grew up always with a guitar. It was a blessing to be around that at 5 or 6. My grandpa would play piano in the house. My older cousin got me into hardcore. He showed me Shai Hulud and bands like that. So I got exposed to Springsteen and hardcore at the same time.

Bulletproof Belv: I was raised in the church. My mom made us do choir. I think, in my own eyes, I was the lead singer in the choir. I just found a love of music since then — Michael Jackson, a lot of R&B — the love of music was always there. It was instilled in me since I was a child. I always wanted to be an entertainer. Every event, Thanksgiving or whatever, I always had to do something to get everyone to watch me. I knew what I wanted to be since I was a child.

So, you were the center of attention at family events?

BB: Well, I thought I was.

How did this collaboration come about?

MC: Through my hardcore travels I linked up, when I was younger, with my friend Joe None of Second To None and Shattered Realm. He tapped my band and brought us out on the road. Belv had been on a Shattered Realm song, and we knew of him for a long time without knowing him.

I was always interested in hip-hop, like an Eminem kid. I've always wanted to try that. I always made beats. Joe would always talk about "My friend James, my friend James." I had this beat pack with all these hooks that I did, and I reached out to people including Belv. The one beat that ended up being "Dark City Lights" just locked in.

BB: Like he said, we met through Joe None. I went to college. Got kicked out. My mom was like, "You gotta get a job. You can't just sit around the house." I hooked up with Joe at a job. We had the same kind of lifestyle outside of work. He mentioned this friend he had, and I told him to email me.

At the time, a lot of tragic stuff happened in my life; and we didn't get to work together. Like six months to a year later, Matty reached out again about the beat. I told him to send it right over. Then, I think, we were both at the same place mentally and spiritually; and this song was just our way of letting it out.

MC: Now that I think about it, I was upstate following a really bad break-up. I went to the Poconos to record the Jailbirds album which is coming out now. It was like a folk / Americana / rock album. That style of music just wasn't fulfilling at that time. I was like, "I don't want to listen to guitars. I don't want to listen to pianos. I don't want to listen to Springsteen. I want to listen to angry rap / hip-hop." So I was listening to a lot of Schoolboy Q, a lot of Biggie because it was making me feel better. I was like, "I don't want to make this Jailbirds album right now. This is for people who are in love. And I just got dumped."

That's when I reached out to Belv. That's when we made "Dark City Lights." I think he was going through some stuff, too, and that's why it came out the way it did.

The two parts of the song play off of each other so well. The hook sounds happy and carefree. There's a positivity to the verses, but there's also the day-to-day struggle of living in the city. How did you guys write the song?

BB: On my part of the song — I think through 6 albums or mixtapes or whatever, I've always tried to say the same thing. This was the first time, I think, I said it in a way that every listener could be like, "Oh let me listen to it." All of the other times, it was vulgar with a lot of cursing and stuff.

It was a build up. I was going through some tragic things. Like, I went to a show. I was performing. I met an A&R rep, and they were interested in me based on my single "My Operation," but then two of my brothers were injured in a fight at this event and hospitalized. I was going through a break-up. My dad passed. My friend died in his sleep. Somehow, I was strong enough to live through it. I would have thought it would have killed me, the pain inside. I wanted to put that in the track. All this stuff you go through, at the end of the day, you still live through it.

I overwrote every verse. He told me, "There are too many bars!" There was so much stuff coming out. He sent me the beat, and I literally wrote it in 30 minutes. I called him and said, "I'm done." He said, "What?" I said, "I'm done."

I wanted to get those emotions out. It's about feeling. Like the lyric "Tell your girl you love her / Hope she feels the same." She might not say it back to you, but you hope she feels it. Music is the way I let that out. When he sent me that, I was like, "Oh my God. This is my chance to release everything. Let me say it in the most humble way."

MC: And the hook sounds so carefree because that song used to be called "London." I wrote that staring at the London Eye while on tour with Shai Hulud. A massive sold-out tour. I wrote that at the most carefree point in my life. So, when I came home, I sent him "London."

BB: And I'm not a fictional rapper. I'm a realistic writer. I have to have been through something to talk about it, so I was like, "We have to change the London thing. I've never been to London."

MC: So we decided to make it an anthem about where we're from.

BB: "Dark City Lights."

Asbury has — and I've been as much a part of this as anybody — kind of marketed itself as a rock and roll town, but there is an active rap and hip-hop scene around the area. Do you feel like the different music scenes are becoming more aware of each other?

BB: I just booked a record release show at Asbury Park Yacht Club in November; and, since the song came out, more stuff like that has been happening. I don't want to say that "Dark City Lights" started that, but it does show that it's possible to reach new people.

You're both from the area, and you've seen the changes Asbury is going through. What are your thoughts on that?

MC: My bands cut our teeth here in Asbury years ago before all the re-development. We were here when things looked pretty bad for Asbury…

BB: I'm from Asbury Park. I'm kinda sad that this took so long. I was deprived of a normal childhood, of being able to walk from my house to the beach. My brother and I were shot over on Bangs Avenue…

MC: …just like two blocks from here.

BB: There's good and bad, but the city deserves to have some success.

What do you say to people who say things like, "I like all kinds of music except country and rap?"

MC: I say they're probably not that into music. I like all kinds of music. Like I said, I didn't want to listen to folk or Americana after my break-up. I went to Belv and told him not to hold anything back on this song.

BB: I think, if you listen to a song that features someone like me, and you like it, you'll start digging and realize, whoa, that's a hip hop artist. To each their own, but people have the same problems. There are different issues on the different sides of the tracks, but people still deal with problems; and that's the same.

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.

Summer Strummer Jam Happened at The Stone Pony w/ Jesse Malin, The Vansaders, Matty Carlock, and Lots of Guests, 8/19/17

The Jesse Malin Band Headlined Strummer Jam

Without People, You're Nothing

The only time I ever saw Joe Strummer play live was back in the early 90s. I went to see The Pogues on their Hell's Ditch (produced by Joe Strummer) tour at The Beacon Theatre in NYC; and, instead of Shane McGowan, Joe Strummer fronted the band. I remember this being a surprise to me on that night in 1991; and I remember thinking, "Well, if it isn't going to be Shane, then at least I get to see Joe Strummer." The Pogues closed the set with a cover of The Clash's "London Calling."

I'm not sure if this was true, but I remember a rumor that Mick Jones and Big Audio Dynamite were playing across town. People thought maybe, just maybe, there was the possibility of some kind of Clash reunion happening that night. Mick never did show up at The Beacon, but one person who was apparently in the house was Jesse Malin. Malin told the story of that evening during his band's set at The Stone Pony this past Saturday night. He managed to meet Strummer at The Beacon and have him sign a ticket stub. "Love it to life," Strummer wrote to Malin over 25 years ago. That bit of advice became the title of Malin's 2010 album.

Jesse Malin and his band were at The Stone Pony on Saturday night as part of the "Summer Strummer Jam." Malin and WBJB music director, DJ, and tireless supporter of local music, Jeff Raspe, organized Saturday's event to celebrate the life of Strummer while raising money for The Joe Strummer Foundation and Music and Memory. The Stone Pony event was one of nine taking place around the world on Saturday and one of more than twenty that have happened so far this year.

The Strummer Foundation provides support to projects "that create empowerment through music." Music and Memory is one such organization. The Long Island-based charity "brings personalized music into the lives of the elderly or infirm through digital music technology." Specifically, the organization provides Alzheimer's sufferers with music from their childhoods. Music and Memory's Robin Lombardo talked about the sparks of recognition that familiar music can bring to people who may not even remember members of their own family. The Jesse Malin Band, Asbury Park's The Vansaders, Middletown's Matty Carlock, and a long list of guest performers all donated their time in support of both causes.

Music and Memory's Robin Lombardo

Matty Carlock, who previously fronted hardcore band Back And Forth, opened the evening with some heartfelt songs dealing with subjects like addiction and mental illness. "All I have is honesty," he said at one point. He closed his set by leading a sing along of Bruce Springsteen's "Atlantic City."

Matty Carlock

Kris Gruen, son of iconic rock and roll photographer Bob Gruen, came out to cover two songs that Strummer loved, including Bob Marley's "Redemption Song." He told the story of first meeting Joe Strummer with his dad. Bob Gruen stood next to me taking pictures with a small point and shoot, and I'll admit to feeling a little self-conscious about taking my own pics in the presence of greatness.

Anyway...

The Vansaders delivered a powerful and relentless set. They're a band that likes to let the music do the talking, and they rattled off song after song in quick succession to make the most of their allotted set time. I know they won over a few new fans. Later in the evening, I saw a young boy -- who I'd seen out front earlier with his family as I waited in line -- approach The Vansders' Doug Zambon for an autograph.

The Vansaders

From there, Jesse Malin and his band began their marathon of an evening. They played about an hourlong, sweaty, high-energy set of their own before acting as the backing band for a twenty-song Strummer tribute set that featured a slew of guests.

Jesse Malin

After a short break following their own set, Malin and his band came back to kick off the Strummer part of the evening by covering The Clash's "Straight to Hell." They then brought guests to the stage one by one for versions of Clash or Strummer songs.

Highlights:

Matty Carlock brought out his punk frontman persona to get everybody up front for a wild version of "White Riot."

Patrick Stickles of Titus Andronicus let loose on "Clampdown" and "Complete Control."

Patrick Stickles

Members of Hollis Brown stalked the stage on their cover of "Brand New Cadillac."

Jonathan Bonilla of Hollis Brown with Danny Clinch and The Jesse Malin Band

Rebecca Korbet covered 101ers' (the band Strummer left to join The Clash) song "Keys to Your Heart."

R.B. Korbet

The great Ted Leo gave fantastic renditions of "Death or Glory" and The Mescaleros' "Coma Girl."

OK. So, CoolMom and CoolDaughter #1 are out of town. That meant that my parents were watching CoolDaughter #2 so I could attend the show. As the clock moved past midnight, they texted and asked if I could come home to relieve them. That meant I missed performances from The Hold Steady's Craig Finn and Tad Kubler, Brian Fallon, and the group sing-alongs of "I Fought the Law" and "London Calling." I did have some correspondents in the audience, though, as Scotch and Timmy LaRock texted me, "Chaos for I fought the law all yr pals on stage." I've also seen videos of Fallon's "Rudie Can't Fail;" and, like everyone else on Saturday, he appeared to be having an absolute blast.

Congratulations to Jesse Malin and Jeff Raspe for putting together a truly memorable evening that packed the house and, I'm sure, raised a whole bunch of money. I enjoyed my time squished down front. There were great people sharing the moments with me, new friends and old. It's always a wonderful experience to sweat and sing along with friends, especially when it's in the name of a great cause.

Jeff Raspe

All the pics will go up in the Flickr galleries at some point today.

Happy birthday, Joe.