Are You Dave?

Here’s my latest schedule:

• March 1: TFL at Cabin Fever - our official first anniversary gig!
• March 6: Solo gig at J.C. Fridays, at Made with Love Organics in Jersey City
• March 9: Gordys purim show at the synagogue
• March 15: TFL Family Beach Party at “Shades,” 720 Monroe
• March 21: TFL at Liberty Science Center in the IMAX theater!
• April 24: TFL at All Saints’ spring bash
• May 1: TFL at HOPES (tentative)
• May 30: TFL at the Waterfront Museum
• June 14: TFL at Kiddiepalooza on Pier A
• June 4: Pete Seeger 90th Birthday tribute featuring some of Hoboken’s top musicians!
• June 7: TFL at the OLG Fun Fest at Church Square Park (tentative)
• June 14: TFL at Kiddiepalooza on Pier A
• July 28: Music Together at the Shipyard 
• August 4 : TFL at the Shipyard
• August 6: The Gordys at Sinatra Park 
• December 6: Annual holiday show with Howie at the Hoboken Historical Museum.

I’m especially excited about the Pete Seeger thing; I’ll be sharing the stage with some of Hoboken’s top musicians, including the amazing Boo Reiners and Elena Skye (the Demolition String Band), The Cucumbers, Abbe Rivers, and Jim Mastro of the Guitar Bar. Jim has agreed to do “Turn, Turn, Turn” with me! I’m utterly psyched. 

Notice also the end-of-summer crunch: Music Together, Fuzzy Lemons and Gordys shows, all within a two-week span. I LOVE it when that happens! LOVE IT!!!!!

I recently posted that things are quiet. That’s no longer true. Here’s how my gig calendar is already filling up for 2009 [updated 2/17/09]:

For many years now, the various bands of Hoboken have “banded together” for an annual concert to raise money for a worthy charity, play some holiday songs, and generally have one last hootenanny before the year’s end. I fist started playing these shows maybe 4 years ago with the Gordys. That year, the event was held for Katrina relief. This year, the money was going to the Jubilee Center, an after-school program in town, so when the Gordys got the invite to play I also passed it along to the Fuzzy Lemons, who quickly agreed that it’d be fun.

Each band only got two sing 2 songs this year. The Gordys have traditionally perfomed “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” (featuring me!) and that old Pretenders chestnut “2,000 Miles,” with Pamela on vocals. But Pamela begged out this year, on the flimsy grounds that she’s due to give birth any day now, and the band was kind of done with the Grinch song. So instead we went with 2 numbers that Howard and I have perfected over the last couple of years at our Museum shows: “Winter Wonderland” and John Lennon’s “Happy Christmas (War is Over).”

The Fuzzy Lemons, meanwhile, had just learned “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” for our own Holiday gig on 12/5, and Dana had been pushing to sing “Santa Baby,” so that short set was easily decided.

It was, as always, a very fun evening. Hoboken musicians are, by their very nature, a warm and friendly crop. We love to jam with each other, a tradition that goes back at least two decades (when the town’s aging population began to be replaced by artists drawn by low rents). And we love to drink together, so piling us all into the back room at Willie McBride’s with a few of our fans is always the recipe for a good time.

The Fuzzy Lemons had a ball, playing what was certainly our latest gig yet. (We went on at 8:15!) Justin’s wife captured our ska rendition of “Santa Baby”:

I got a lot of props for the Grinch song; I’m afraid of what might happen if I don’t perform it next year.

The Gordys, meanwhile, took the stage for the first time without Pamela, and with yet another drummer on the throne: Joe Harari, Rob’s teenage son. He did a great job and will most likely be invited back, if his other four bands don’t keep him too busy. Justin’s wife captured “Winter Wonderland,” and the whole room sang along on “War is Over,” which was great. I wanted to get the whole crowd up on stage for the final chorus but it was still pretty early and no one was drunk enough to try it, I guess.

However, by the end of the night everyone was more than ready to join Geri Fallo on stage for a rendition of “Christmas Wrapping,” the big hit for The Waitresses in the 80s, written by absent Hoboken resident Chris Butler. Now, I take a lot of the blame credit for Geri jumping up on stage to sing; I think Harari (Rob, not Joe) and I were the ones who truly pestered her to get on stage with The Gordys over the summer.

It’s possible that we’ve created a monster.

Here’s how I spent my week: 

• Sunday evening: Gordys rehearsal at HEFC. Justin is playing bass with the Gordys this year.
• Monday evening: Church rehearsal—Justin and I lead the worship music a couple of times a month, and tonight is rehearsal for this coming Sunday.
• Tuesday evening: Gordys rehearsal, the last one before the show.
• Wednesday evening: Fuzzy Lemons rehearsal. As you know, Justin plays bass for the Fuzzy Lemons.
• Thursday evening: The Gordys perform at Sinatra Park. See the Gig Diary for details.
• Friday afternoon: Justin comes over to record bass parts for the Fuzzy Lemons’ upcoming CD. For the first time in a week, I don’t say “see you tomorrow” when Justin leaves.

He’s a good friend, fortunately.

After seven months of doing children’s music, it’s always a treat to get together with the Gordys and play some old-fashioned grown-up Rock’n'Roll. The Gordys are a rag-tag collection of local folks like me who love to sing and play when the kids are otherwise occupied. Over the years we’ve managed to accumulate guitarists, bassists, keyboardists, sax players, singers, even an accordionist. And we’ve managed to put together a nice repertoire of tunes that we’ve played up and down the lengths of Hoboken (plus one show in Bayonne).

Sunset in the Hudson. Photo by Jeffrey Vock

This was our fourth annual concert at Sinatra Park on the banks of the Hudson River. We went with a “greatest-hits” set, rehashing some of our greatest tunes rather than wasting valuable rehearsal time on new material.  

Photo by Jeffrey Vock

This year we had a one-hour set following local rock star Bill McGarvey. He did two songs that I’d been thinking of bringing to the Gordys—”American Girl” by Tom Petty, and The Pixies’ “Here Comes Your Man.” Thank goodness I didn’t push for those tunes—that’s the musical equivalent of wearing the same dress as the hostess at a party.

 We did our best Beatles, Springsteen and even the Partridge Family, in front of a huge crowd (I think the entire congregation of the Synagogue comes every year). This year’s band was made up of Howard Olah-Reiken (guitar, vocals); Rob Harari (keyboards, trumpet); Adam Laden (guitars, sax, vocals); Pamela Strell (vocals, percussion); Barbara Arnett (accordion); Christopher Speich (drums); me (guitars, harmonica, vocals); and new member Justin Micheal on bass, replacing the semi-retired Jorge Fernandez.

Dancing to the ever-popular klezmer set.

We only had three or four big rehearsals before the set. I think the combination of talented musicians playing the songs they love made for a beautiful, entertaining night. The two big highlights were the ever-popular klezmer set, and a guest appearance by Geri Fallo and her friend Wendy Setzer. We’d been badgering Geri for an entire year (literally, we began about an hour after we finished the 2007 Gordys show) to get up and sing with us, and finally she relented. Not only did she agree to sing with us (provided she could bring a friend for moral support), she surprised the whole band by choosing a They Might Be Giants song, “The Sun is a Mass of Incandescent Gas.”

Wendy and Geri rock the waterfront.

Thus are legends born.

Photos courtesy of Jeffery Vock