Are You Dave?

It’s summer in Hoboken, and that can only mean one thing: The Gordys are on the loose! That’s right, the Mile-Square City’s hottest Klezmer outfit did its thing again this year at Sinatra Park, and as always, it was a blast. It was a gorgeous night, featuring a lovely moonrise over our Manhattan backdrop. Big thanks to Geri Fallo, Tom Sweeney and sound-guy Chris “Gibby” Gibson.”

This year’s Gordy line-up featured:
Dave Lambert, guitars, mandolin, vocals, percussion and harmonica
Howard Olah-Reiken, guitars and vocals
Pamela Strell, vocals and percussion
Adam Laden, guitars, mandolin, vocals and woodwinds
Barbara Arnett, accordion
Rob Harari, keyboards, vocals and percussion
Joe Harari, drums, vocals
Justin Michael, bass guitar
And two special guests:
Donna Coney Island, vocals
Gordy Haas, vocals and guitar

That’s right, Gordy himself, after whom the band was named, made his stage debut with us tonight! He rocked that Bon Jovi country tune, “Who Says You Can’t Go Home?” And the hilarious and talented (and patient) Donna Coney Island stepped in on several tunes, notably “Time Warp” and “We Got The Beat.”

Also, the night featured some VERY special guests, as the Gordys: The Next Generation took the stage. Rob, Howard, Adam and Barbara’s kids all came up to sing that inescapable Train song, “Hey Soul Sister,” and they did a heck of a job.

We even got asked to do an encore! Stunned, we stumbled our way through “Angel from Montgomery” to the delight of the synagogue crowd. Then we went to the bar at 10th and Willow for afters, already planning the set list for next year’s show.

The photos on this page are by Joe Epstein. Bill Benzon also took some great shots of the night, you can see them here.

-- Weather When Posted --

• Temperature: 81°F;
• Humidity: 54%;
• Heat Index: 82°F;
• Wind Chill: 81°F;
• Pressure: 30 in.;

Last year the town threw a magical birthday celebration for a true Hudson River hero, Pete Seeger. I was honored to be a part of it. Even better, Geri Fallo asked me back to join everyone in a reprise this year!

The amazing members of the Demolition String Band (Boo Reiners, Elena Skye, Clarence Ferrari and Skip on bass) put the show together and served as the MCs and “house band” for the night. Just as last year, rehearsing with Elena and Boo was a treat and a half. Even better, as we were running through “Turn, Turn, Turn,” local guitarist Julio Fernandez (you may know him from a little jazz combo called Spiro Gyra) was hanging around, and accepted our invitation to join in. He harmonized and we even threw in an extra slot for a guitar solo for him. All of a sudden I was a member of a supergroup!

I tried to remain cool on the outside, but I gotta say I was positively giddy inside. I was so cool I even offered to buy a round for everyone (rehearsal was at the Shannon Lounge, a classic pub in the true Hoboken tradition). No one took me up on it, but Julio did let me buy him a bottle of water and we sat and gabbed for a bit at the bar, where we were soon joined by Abbe Rivers on her way to rehearse her numbers. I love Hoboken, have I mentioned this lately?

Last year’s event was marred by drizzle, and the weather threatened to turn ugly again this year, but as of this writing we still haven’t seen a drop of the predicted downpour. Sinatra Park was bathed in a gorgeous sunset as we all gathered to perform.

Here’s the line-up from this year’s event:

1. The Hoboken Youth Choir did “If I Had A Hammer,” “This Little Light of Mine” and “This Land is Your Land.” Kate Jacobs, youth wrangler, asked me to stand by and play some guitar chords to keep everyone in the same key, which I was happy to do. Little did I know that Boo would join in on mandolin, along with Skip, the Demolition String Band’s stand-up bass player. It was a regular hootenanny.
2. Then it was my turn! I did “The Garden Song (Inch by Inch),” throwing in a little talkin’ blues cribbed from some classic Arlo Guthrie bits but also containing some of my own original insights. If Pete Seeger can make a speech during a song, the by gum so can I. Then the rest of the band came up, along with Julio, for “Turn, Turn, Turn.” The extra guitar and fiddle solos made the song last longer, but it was still over far too quickly for me.
3. Jon & Deena of The Cucumbers did “Kisses Sweeter than Wine.” I cornered them later and invited them to the Gordys show on June 24 (we’re covering one of their songs!)
4. Boo Reiners and the Demolition String Band led the crowd in singing “Michael Row Your Boat Ashore.”
5. Abbe Rivers melted some faces with her powerhouse renditions of “Mary Don’t You Weep” and “Jacob’s Ladder.”
6. Kate Jacobs, again in delightful counterpoint to Abbe, led the crowd in “Goodnight Irene,” one of my favorites.
7. Elena Skye told us about the times she’d met Pete Seeger, then picked up her banjo and did “Union Maid” and “Little Boxes” with the Demolition String Band.
8. Tom Vincent, former mayoral candidate, did a jazzy “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy.”
9. Eddie Fogerty ripped into “John Henry.”
10. Martha Fraiser played dulcimer and harmonized with her dad on the country classic “Get Along Cindy.”
11. I finally got to hear Annalee Van Kleeck sing “Where Have All the Flowers Gone,” and WOW.
12. Gene D. Plumber did his classic rendition of “Joe Hill” and gave a shout out to union workers who gave us the greatest gifts of all: the 8-hour work day and the weekend!
13. Julio Fernandez led the crowd in a soulful “Guantanamera.” Earlier that day, talking with Julio, I found out he’d been born in Cuba and was sent to live with an aunt in Hoboken when he was 6. The man should write a book. I’d read it.
14. Dave Calamoneri channeled his inner Steve Earle for a sweltering “Bring ‘em Home.”
15. The it was time for the big “This Land is Your Land” ensemble number. There were plenty of singers and guitarists on stage, so I grabbed my harmonica and threw that in instead, which was kinda cool, I thought.

A typical week in the life of the Fuzzy Lemons can include anywhere from 75 to 200 e-mails. Buried in among the discussions of set lists, copyright issues, technology, marketing and general hoo-ha are actual announcements of gigs that we’ve booked.

In an effort to keep my schedule (and my head) straight, I’m trying to cull all of my events from the e-mail torrent and get them all listed in one location. And wow, turns out it’s quite a list:

• April 11 11:00 a.m. TFL @ The Knitting Factory, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
• April 11 TFL @ Room 84 in Hoboken
• April 30 - May 2 Kindiefest (a cool conference I plan to attend, though I haven’t yet registered!)
• May 21 PENDING TFL @ Jersey City Family Fitness Fair (they haven’t returned our e-mail so we’re not holding our breath)
• May 22 11:00 a.m. TFL @ the Knitting factory
• May 22 HOPES Spring Fling, 7:00 at the Rue building
• May 23 PENDING Southpaw (A cool Bklyn alt-country bar)
• June 5 11:00 a.m. TFL @ the Knitting factory
• June 20 TFL @ Father’s Day festival in Nutley, NJ, time/stage TBA
• June 21 TFL at Make Music NY at Richard Tucker Square, NYC 4:00 p.m. (this is a cool city-wide music festival and we’re thrilled to be rocking this park on the Upper West Side!)
• June 22 TFL @ Shipyard Park, Hoboken 7:00
• June 24 Gordys at Sinatra Park, Hoboken
• June 26 & 27 TFL @ The Bronx Zoo!
• July 10 11:00 TFL @ The Knitting Factory
• July 27 Music Together at Shipyard Park
• August 8 TFL @ Rumson Recreation Ctr 7-8 p.m.
• August 9 TFL @ Waterside Plaza NYC 7:00 p.m. (pre-show for a movie night overlooking the East River, should be fun!)
• August 14 TFL @ Kids Kingdom, Elizabeth NJ (thanks to our friends at This Is It! Productions)
• August 22 PENDING Morristown
• September 11 and/or 12 TFL @ Union County MusicFest, Clark NJ (Psyched to do this festival again!)
• September 26 TFL @ Hoboken Art & Music Fest
• October 9 TFL @ Clearview Cinema Hoboken (rain date Oct 10)
• Oct 17 Barnes & Noble Lincoln Triangle

Whew! That’s a BUNCH of road trips around NJ, a crop of outdoor shows right here in Hoboken (a favorite), a mind-blowing conference with the biggest names in the business, and jaunts to Brooklyn, the Bronx and NYC. And we haven’t even booked our Knit gigs for the 2nd half of the year yet. I’m exhausted just thinking about it, and eager and excited to rock so many places. The week of June 20-27 promises to be extra crazy… and extra fun! See you there!

~ Dave

This morning I got a call from Geri Fallo at city hall, the nice lady who books all the gigs for the town. She said Telemundo was taping a show down at Sinatra Park and I should go down there and sing on hispanic TV. “Can’t be that simple,” I thought to myself, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to put on my Fuzzy Lemons t-shirt and check it out.

Well, in the end it happened pretty much like Geri said! None of the other leading Lemons were available, but I wasn’t going to miss a chance to be on TV. Around 3:00 I went down to Sinatra Park, site of those gorgeous waterfront Gordys shows. Sure enough, they had a bunch of cameras set up and a bunch of Telemundo TV personalities taking turns performing and interviewing local artists and musicians. I asked a production assistant if it was true I could sing some songs and she said “sure,” so I frantically texted Kipley and Dana to see if there was any chance they could come down. None at all, as it turned out.

But because the universe is a cool place and Hoboken is an awesome little town, Justin and his wife had wandered by, and I corralled them into being my moral and technical support. They sat with me for over an hour as I waited my turn and tried to figure out what to perform.

I figured I could give them a Fuzzy Lemons CD and lip-synch to it, as a lot of the other artists were doing. But the problem was, the songs on the CD are in English and this was clearly a Spanish-based program. So I shifted gears and remembered that Music Together has taught me several songs in Spanish. I asked Justin to use his blackberry to help me e-mail some folks and drum up some kids to help me sing, and ran through the words and chords to the two easiest, most fun Music Together spanish tunes I know.

The director (the person with the headset who snapped her fingers and pointed at people the most) called me over at one point and asked what I was going to perform. I’d been given to understand that lip-synching was preferred, because overall the sound of a CD was better than open microphones on a breezy riverside promenade. I said I could lip-synch in English, or sing live in Spanish.

“Ok, you sing in Spanish,” she said, and went off to snap her fingers and point at some other people.

So that settled it, I was going to do Music Together stuff, and for that I wanted some kids (I work better with a crowd). No families showed up that I knew, but there were some kids around, some of them the offspring of the Telemundo crew or of the performers. I gathered a couple of them and taught them “Don Alfredo Baila” and prepped them to come help me on stage. They were enthusiastic (read: hyper).

Finally, around 5:15, I the director snapped her fingers and sent me to the stage, in front of the camera. I brought my little flock of kids with me, we plugged my guitar in, and on cue I launched into “Don Alfredo.” It was a hoot. The production assistant and Justin were both standing beside the camera, pantomiming along with the song, giving the kids silent direction to dance and smile and follow the motions of the song.

Then the interviewer came up and did a little bit where she waved our CD in front of the camera and spoke rapid-fire spanish. She asked me some questions (in English, thank goodness) and I think I gave coherent answers. I did a second song, “Maria Isabel,” with the kids dancing around me and Justin and the PA pantomiming moves for them from offstage. Then I finished, and we were done.

Justin gave the director a Fuzzy Lemons CD and she said something to the effect of “You’ll come back with your band and be on the show again next Saturday in Prospect Park.” I have no idea if she meant it or what; she said she’d call the Fuzzy Lemon line on Monday. But I’m going to devote a little free time tomorrow to translating a Fuzzy Lemons song into Spanish. Who knows?

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!!!!!

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).

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.  

 

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.

 

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.”

 

Thus are legends born.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photos courtesy of Jeffery Vock