April Lindner

Glitz and glam: chandelier at John Varvatos on the Bowery One of my major life regrets: I never saw a show at CBGB --though I lived very near New York City in the 1980s.  My excuses are boring and involve being a broker-than-broke grad student in Yonkers where the buses stopped running at 11 p.m.  CBGB closed its doors in 2006, and despite how large it looms in my imagination , I was pretty sure I'd forever missed my chance. Like The Ramones CBGB is no more A few years ago I even popped into the high-end John Varvatos boutique which stands on the hallowed ground CBGB used to occupy.  I got kicked out for taking cell-phone pictures of its punk-rock posters and the stage now used to display men's shoes.   Last Thursday night, though, I was miraculously granted a do-over when Jesse Malin threw a concert at John Varvatos.  The doors opened and I hurried deep into the grungier-than-thou darkness, straight to the stage--or as close to it as I cou...

Bassist Johnny Pisano at the first annual Rockland-Bergen Music Festival When you're Jersey Shore musician, Stone Caravan frontman Joe D'Urso, you don't just throw a party on your fiftieth birthday.  You throw a music festival. Birthday Boy Joe D'Urso And when you're Joe--a longtime promoter of charitable causes--you make the day really count, collecting proceeds for Light of Day and WHYHunger  and other worthy charities.   You outfit the German Masonic Park in Tappan, New York with two stages, offer free admission to anybody born in 1964, and invite your friends to come out and play. Because your friends just happen to be legends of the New York/Jersey Shore/national music scene, word spreads among music fans, and enthusiastic concertgoers spread out blankets and lawn chairs under a perfect blue sky The result? A perfect summer celebration of music and the folks who love it. with Diane Lynn Gotaski Pastrick photo of Kiley Armstrong b...

Jesse Malin and band, live at Drew's There's this guy named Drew Eckmann who lives on a lake in New Jersey and throws amazing rock and roll house parties.   The New Yorker has taken note of his series: As has FUSE t.v.: One of Drew's favorite acts is Jesse Malin; in fact, on a recent summer night Jesse narrowly beat out Graham Parker as the act who has played in Drew's concert series the second most often.  (Number one is the great Willie Nile. )  Andre and I were at the recent Jesse Malin show, because where else would we be?   Jesse's set was full of new songs from his soon-to-be-released album, with a few old favorites sprinkled in. Though Jesse always puts on a great show, there's something wonderfully intimate about a venue that just happens to be someone's living room.  The guests bring pot luck dishes, everyone gathers on the porch or in Drew's cozy house, and when the show begins, we're all a part of it. ...

To thank the fans who contributed to his Pledgemusic campaign and who have been faithfully awaiting his next album,  Jesse Malin  held a contest .  First prize: a studio visit. I entered the contest, and, to my amazement, I won .  If you've read any of  my other posts about Jesse , you might have noticed that I'm kind of a major fan.  So this was a huge deal.  Wednesday morning--very early so there was no chance I'd get stuck in traffic and miss my visit-- I made my way to the Lower East Side, and, much later, all aflutter, rang the doorbell of Flux Studios. Jesse greeted me and gave me a quick tour of the studio.  Then we sat down in the  mixing room with multi-talented musician Derek Cruz and engineer Brian Thorn.  The three of them were fine-tuning a song called "Stay Clean," listening to several different versions, trying to settle on a favorite.  Did it sound better with the background vocals punched up?  Shou...

The storytelling side of Jesse Malin came out to play last Thursday night at a special event at the University of Pennsylvania's charming Kelly Writers House.   At his concerts, Jesse's fans are treated to rambling, entertaining stories between songs.  But this time around, the stories took center stage.  And what stories they were--about the early importance of KISS and Jim Croce in his life, about starting a punk band, Heart Attack, at twelve years old and playing Max's Kansas City, about joining the hard core band D Generation and trying to live up to the strict "politics of punk rock church," about meeting Bruce Springsteen and duetting with him on the song "Broken Radio," and about the power of speaking your wishes out loud.   Music critic Anthony DeCurtis only needed to ask a few questions and Jesse was rolling. And Jesse even treated us to a few songs in between the anecdotes. This unusual event was the result of a pled...

Daffodils on the Penn campus Now that spring has sprung for real, and there are colors to be seen (not just the endless gray of a landscape coated with road salt), I just want to say: Tomorrow, Saturday April 5, from 1 to 4 p.m., I'll be signing copies of Catherine and Jane at Books-a-Million, at the Springfield Mall.  (This is a reschedule.  Last weekend I had a really yucky cold and didn't want to spread my germs.) I'll be blogging soon about a unique event that took place last night at the University of Pennsylvania's Kelly Writers House: a Q and A session with none other than singer/songwriter Jesse Malin. And, finally, I'll be reading some of my favorite children's books in the Indies First Storytime event.  If you're anywhere near Bethany Beach , Delaware on Saturday May 17, swing by Bethany Beach Books at 3 o'clock.  I'll gladly take suggestions about which two picture books I should read, though I do have one or two in mind ...

P.M.A.--Positive Mental Attitude--is Jesse Malin's credo--or one of them, anyway.  If you look closely, you'll see the outline of the letters on his electric guitar.  This weekend, when we were sorely in need of a little P.M.A., we drove over to Asbury Park to see Jesse play the Wonder Bar. Jesse's been working on a new album, and he hasn't been playing live much lately.  Always an energetic performer, he was on fire Saturday night.  His songs--new and old--were delivered with the enthusiasm of someone completely pumped to be back onstage after a long hiatus.  By the night's end, Jesse was hurling himself around the stage with a ferocity I'd never seen before, channeling his former self--frontman for punk band D Generation.  I was up against the stage--because where else would I be?--and a couple of times I thought I might need to catch him...or at least break his fall. Jesse in motion One of the night's highlights was an electr...

Today Andre helped me put up the beginnings of a rock and roll memorabilia wall.  On the left we've got an autograph and two picks from Eric "Roscoe" Ambel of the Del Lords.  And on the right we've got a ticket from Fairleigh Dickinson University's 2010 WAMFest which featured a conversation/concert with Bruce Springsteen and poet laureate Robert Pinsky, moderated by John Wesley Harding, a.k.a. Wesley Stace.  If you squint, you'll see that my ticket was autographed by Wes and by Bruce.  Robert Pinsky remains the one that got away! We've got a lot of concerts lined up for October, so I'm hoping my wall will get some new swag soon. And though it's already hanging on a different wall (with my other favorite memorabilia--poetry broadsides by Charles Simic and Richard Wilbur) I have to share one of my very favorite souvenirs: The day the Advanced Review Copies of my novel Catherine  first reached me also happened to be the day Andr...

Jesse Malin at Drew's While I was writing my novel Catherine , I listened obsessively to the music of Jesse Malin.  At first, my interest in the guy was casual; I'd seen him play a couple of times at Light of Day, a yearly concert that benefits research against Parkinson's Disease.  Also, he had recorded a song--"Broken Radio"--with Bruce Springsteen, and as a huge Springsteen fan, I always pay at least passing attention to musicians who interest Bruce. But over time, my appreciation of Jesse became more intense.  For one thing, he's a vibrant performer.  For another, he writes the kind of song that's all too rare these days--rock and roll that manages to be smart and edgy yet unironically, full-heartedly romantic. And then there were the parallels between Jesse's life and that of Hence, one of the key characters in Catherine --Heathcliff in my retelling of Wuthering Heights.  Like Hence, Jesse Malin had a first act as...