Put This Date On Your Calendar

Tickets are going quickly for our Jersey Beat Benefit with The Wrens and Milwaukees on Thursday, July 21. But that's not the date I want you to save.

Two days before, on Tuesday July 19, I am going to be performing at Maxwell's myself as part of the monthly NJ Songwriters In The Round showcase. It's free, all-ages, and early - 8 pm.

I am really looking forward to this. I'll get a chance to play a few of my songs and talk about the process of songwriting, along with 3 other singer/songwriters. They turn Maxwell's backroom into a coffeehouse for this night, with tables and chairs. You can even order food if you want and eat it while watching the music.

It would really mean a lot to me to get some peeps out for this show. So, yeah, by all means come rock out with the Wrens and Milwaukees on the 21st. But try to come on Tuesday the 19th too.


TUESDAY JULY 19 - NJ Songwriters In The Round
with Missy Brodrick, Mary Lamont, Theresa Miele, and Jim Testa
Maxwells, 1039 Washington St. Hoboken
8 pm, no cover, all ages

Dirt Bike Annie's Last Ride

So have you heard of this guy MC Chris? Apparently he has something to do with the late-night cartoon series Adult Swim, and he does his own indie comedy-rap albums. He sold out Maxwells, drawing a herd of teenage boys who knew all the lyrics to all his songs and basically went apeshit for his shtick. It's good shtick, though - a short fat white guy with a beard rapping about Robitussin and video games, with pre-recorded beats and a voice synthesizer that makes him sound like a 10 year old girl.

The whole NYC/NJ pop/punk Mafia was there, and for good reason, since that clique's two keystone bands, the Ergs and the Unloveables, were both on the bill. The Ergs - whom I'm quickly starting to consider the Minutemen of the new Millennium - kicked things off with a peppery set of their rapidfire punk. These guys hew to the old SST Records standard - hard and fast, mixed with harder and faster. The Unloveables, in contrast, showcase melodies, harmonies, and hooks; and really, you can't deny that the two gals who pipe in with vocals backed by a killer rhythm section and a shredding guitar really deliver the goods.

Ah, but with all that, the night really belonged to Dirtbike Annie, who had unexpectedly announced that this was to be their last show. They leave behind a 10-year legacy, a bunch of very good records, and a lot of friends. Wherever this band lived - Jersey City, Christopher Street, or Brooklyn - they left behind tales of basement shows, of new bands forming in the Dirbike living room over beer and cigarettes, of hanging out and bonding and making a scene out of whoever showed up. That's what punk should be about, and Dirtbike Annie did it all, including grueling DIY tours that carried their music from coast to coast, one small town at a time. Whatever Adam and Dan do next, I wish them well. And I thank them for the memories.

Heather King reading from Parched 

A Busy Night
So hopefully you've read my review of Parched, Heather King's extraordinary memoir of her alcoholism (below). It's a terrific read - Heather lived a nightmare for 20 years but the book is also full of really funny stories and humor, and some wonderful tales of friendship and support that got her through those years. It's discounted at Amazon.com -- order a copy already!

So last night Heather (who is the older sister of the Queers' Joe King) was in town to do a reading at Housing Works Used Bookstore. It turns out that one of Heather's best friends from her Boston days is Anne Leary, who is the wife of comic/actor Denis Leary. So Denis came last night and introduced Heather, which probably helped attendance a bit. (The Queers connection didn't hurt either - there were a couple of punk kids in the crowd who I'm sure were there to meet Joe Queer's sister and maybe hear some stories about him.)

Housing Works is a great place, a volunteer-run used bookstore whose proceeds help the homeless afflicted with HIV and AIDS. We did a book reading for Jim DeRogatis' Kill Your Idols there last summer that was a lot of fun.

Heather read a couple of chapters from her book. She looks a bit like SCTV's Andrea Martin, with a pinched face and a giddy laugh. She was funny, warm, self-deprecating, and at times, quite moving. Then her buddy Anne asked her some questions, and then she took a few questions from the audience. The place was packed, standing room only, and after the reading, she signed (and sold) a nice pile of books.

That was the fun part of my night. I had told Drive Thru records that I would see their newest signing, 16-year old singer/songwriter Dave Melillo, at The Continental, but he wasn't going on until 10:30 pm (or so I thought.) And the book reading was over by 8, so I had some time to kill. I stopped by CBGB, thinking I would catch Fixer's set. But my old buddy Brendan wasn't working the door to let me in for free, and frankly, I didn't have the $10 cover on me (payday's tomorrow.) So instead I went downstairs to the CB's Lounge for the $5 all-ages hardcore show that was going on there. I was too late to see Blackout Skies, whom I know somewhat. I caught two full sets by other bands, both from NJ and both depressingly typical of the suburban screamo thing that's all the rage with the Hamilton Street Cafe kids these days: Teenage guys with tight t-shirts and bad haircuts, screaming and thrashing away without an ounce of conviction or genuine emotion - just a lot of tortured posing. This kind of music is so cookie-cutter and soulless, I seriously wonder how anyone can enjoy playing it. (Although I guess you do get a good workout from dancing around the stage so much. It must be nice to be 18 and have your own wireless pickups and Marshall stacks. But I digress.) I won't even name the bands, it's not their fault they're mired knee-deep in mediocrity. It's all they really know or have been exposed to. Hopefully a few of them will grow up to be musicians and write real songs someday.

So I got out of CB's and walked over to the Continental. Dave Melillo's set was scheduled for 10:30, according to the Continental's website. I got there at 10:18 exactly and he had finished playing already! Promoter Heath Miller told me that the show finished up 40 minutes early. (He also told me the turnout was pretty disappointing, so I'm guessing all the bands just blew off the night and played really short sets.)

I really like Dave Melillo's track on the upcoming Drive Thru compilation Listen To Dylan, which is Drive-Thru acts and other emo bands all doing Dylan covers. Hopefully this Florida kid will be back in NYC soon and I'll get to catch a whole set.

Parched: A Memoir worth reading 

PARCHED: A Memoir by Heather King (Chamberlain Books)
You probably don’t know the name Heather King, unless you’ve heard some of her commentaries on NPR radio or read her essays in magazines. But I’m guessing you’ve heard of her little brother, Joe King, aka Joe Queer. Parched is an autobiography in which Heather King tells the story of her life and her decades-long addiction to alcohol. Its brutally frank, and remarkably detailed; clearly, even when she was drinking herself to death, Heather kept detailed journals. The story starts in her white-trash home in New Hampshire, then moves to Boston. It’s an amazing story—even when she was drinking all the time, Heather managed to graduate from college with honors, finish law school, and pass the bar exam on her first try (it took John F. Kenney Jr., presumably clean and sober, three or four attempts, as I recall.) But although she was clear gifted and intelligent (and, as this book proves, had the makings of an author in her,) Heather was never able to move on with anything, including her law degree, until a family intervention forced her to face her problem and enter rehab. Through it all—the blackouts, the casual meaningless sex, the demeaning day jobs waitressing in dive restaurants—there’s humor and humanity, and as colorful a cast of characters as you’ll find in any book this year. The book ends with Heather finding sobriety, and there’s at least another book about the years since—finding her way back to the law, to NPR, to finishing this book. I can’t wait for it.—Jim Testa

Letters, We Get Letters
I get the strangest comments here sometimes. Three different people left comments (months after the fact) about my review of the new Longwave CD-- all three complained that I shouldn't compare them to the Strokes. Actually, what I wrote is that I think (and have always thought) that Longwave is a much better band than the Strokes. So go figure. I guess Longwave fans Google the band and then leave comments anytime they see something they don't like.

But that's nothing compared to this comment left a few days ago about my John Prine concert review:

Interesting take on Prine. Me, I was just coming around on this guy when he had to drop the old overt attack on Dubya with that old hippy liberal schtick... so that is all she wrote for me. Nontheless, I like your style of writing and will check out your blog often from now on. My post is here if you are interested: http://strangethingsafoot.com/

Funny, I thought Conservatives were supposed to support the open marketplace of contrasting viewpoints. It's the difference of opinion that makes a horse race, as Mark Twain said; wouldn't this be a sad and boring place if we all agreed about everything? And anyone who'll write off a 30+ year career filled with dozens of amazing songs, just because one line of a lyric disagrees with his political point of view, seems awfully rigid, dogmatic, and pardon the pun, undemocratic to me.

Weekend Update
It's been a pretty fun weekend so far. On Friday night, I did a show at Cafe Arabica in Morristown that John Raido set up. It was Boxcar Nancy and the Cucumbers, with me as emcee. Cafe Arabica is a coffee house in toney downtown Morristown that offers hookah pipes that you can rent to smoke flavored tobaccos. (Interestingly although quite a few people were using the pipes, you couldn't smell tobacco in the room at all.) You can bring in your own wine or beer, but since the place doesn't have a liquor license, it's all-ages. And as it turns out, it seems principally to be a hangout for local teenagers. Nothing wrong with that, except that when you average the ages between me, the Cucumbers, and Boxcar Nancy, it comes out in late thirties someplace - kind of an odd troupe to be playing for a roomfull of high school kids. But everyone was polite and respectful, if not always attentive. The kids who run the place are really nice - they fed all of the performers and put up with the bevy of wives, kids, and significant others who tagged along, too. They have live music there all the time, everything from folksingers to full-on rock bands.

On Saturday night, I had my monthly Charleston show. Mason Dixon wanted to play and then it turned out that Mike Robertson is old friends with Billy Filo and Shawn Towey - they all grew up together in Rockland County, NYC. So Billy did an acoustic set with Shawn on tambourine and backup vocals, and then Shawn did an Ankles set with Billy on bass. Sort of a mini-Uncle Joe's reunion of sorts. The third act was G-Whiz & The Caribbean Daddies, an acoustic side project of the band G-Whiz, who I'd met at the Charleston a few months ago, featuring the Hermiller brothers, Drew and Chad. Good looking young guys from Ohio, they moved to NYC to be a band (the fools!) Chad is a terrific, melodic bassist and Drew plays guitar, harp, and sings. For this set, they had a guy named Rafael on violin that added a really nice touch. They did some low-key acoustic originals and a few covers (Dylan, Velvets.) Nice.

Mason Dixon has a new keyboardist and a new gal on vocals, and although I miss Lindsay, the new lineup sounds really good. Drew from G Whiz had never heard them before and was just blown away by Robertson's songwriting and the tight, concise arrangements of the band. This band really needs to record, they've got enough material for three solid albums already!