It’s a wrap! 2023 Mardi Gras in Asbury Park!

We had a festive 2023 Mardi Gras weekend in Asbury Park on February 17th & 18th! Look at all the fun we had at the 7th annual event:

MASQUERADE BALL WITH THE VOODUDES:

We kicked things off on Friday night at the Asbury Festhalle & Biergarten. Our friends the VooDUDES were back to entertain us for the 7th year! In between sets, last year’s ruler Queen Nicole crowned her successor, Queen Laura.  Our ruler will be assisted in her reign by Prince Buddy.

THE KING CAKE BABY HUNT:

Saturday was a busy day! Events started at noon with the King Cake Baby scavenger hunt.  Our hunters visited 20 downtown businesses looking for the hanging King Cake Babies.  Purple Glaze gave out delicious Mardi Gras donuts to our hungry hunters.  After the hunt, our participants dressed up and took photos at our expanded selfie station. Eight lucky winners received wonderful prize packages from the merchants of Asbury Park.

MARDI PAWS PARADE:

The dogs were out on Cookman Avenue for the 3rd Mardi Paws Parade, run by Paws Pet Boutique. Shady Greyhound was the grand marshal, and was followed by a colorful group of pooches! All the dogs got treats from River Street Sweets, and the big winners received Paws prize packages.  Congrats to our winners: Fritz and Otto, who shared the prize for large dogs, and Maisie who won for best dressed small dog.

MARDI GRAS HAPPY HOUR:

After all that, it was time to get a drink! Mardi Gras Happy Hour was back at Taka for the 4th year.  Taka puts their own spin on oysters and poboys, and the sazeracs and hurricanes were a great way to finish out the afternoon.

If you can’t be in New Orleans for Mardi Gras, there’s always big fun in Asbury Park.

We’re so happy to have the Light of Day foundation back for a weekend of music!

Hard to believe that is the 23rd year for the Light of Day Foundation ‘s fundraising festival! We look forward to this weekend in Asbury Park every year.  There’s so many wonderful shows happening!

Light of Day utilizes the power of music to raise money and awareness in its continuing battle to defeat Parkinson’s disease and its related illnesses ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis) and PSP (Progressive Supranuclear Palsy). For 2023,  LOD is back in its usual spot on Martin Luther King holiday weekend. Last year, it got moved to March, so now things are finally back to normal.

Check out the schedule of all the shows on LOD’s website.

So many choices! You’ll find me hanging out at the Wonder Bar Friday night and at the Count Basie Saturday night. Our friends at Musicians on a Mission are putting on a show at the Capitoline Basement on Sunday afternoon (right across the street from our building). We’re looking forward to catching the Riveras. Band member Rick Norman did a great set at our open mic show here in October.

Of course, you can find me behind the counter at Backward Glances, ready to sell you the coolest stuff! Stop by this weekend and say hi.

NJ Music in the 80’s–part six

In 2017, we published an article I wrote in 1983 about the NJ music scene in New Brunswick. We published it in 5 parts. You can read all 5 parts here. Five years later, we’ve got a sixth segment for you!

Here’s a never seen 1983 interview with Al Schnitzer, lead guitarist for JP Gotrock.  Al is now known as Al-Vis, and will be doing a holiday show and single release party for his new Christmas song, “Rudolf Where You Been Last Night?” at Backward Glances on Sunday December 11th.

At the time of this interview, J.P. Gotrock has been together for two years.

NEW MUSIC IN NEW BRUNSWICK: Bonus Interview

Meet JP Gotrock: Neal Schwartz (bass) David Shearn (keyboards) Tim Cusack (lead vocals & guitar) John Fitzpatrick (drums) and Al Schnitzer (lead guitar & vocals)

They are Court Tavern regulars, having played weekly for several months, and performed the New Year’s Eve show.  They have also played at Patrix. Their age range is 21 to 28. Two members of the band are from the New Brunswick area. Three members are from Asbury Park, and they have a practice studio there. They have also performed many times at Big Man’s West in Red Bank, and the Stone Pony. But Al says the Court Tavern is their favorite place to play:

“I think the New Brunswick music scene is the best around except for New York City–Greenwich Village. I’ve never seen anything like it.   (New Brunswick) is a lot more intimate. There’s not as much pressure on you. It’s outside the regular club scene. More relaxed. I think it’s pretty inevitable that some of the bands will break out of the circuit. There are so many. Some of them will go places. There will really be some good things happening for some bands.”

Gotrock’s 3 song EP “Out of Control” has been out for about eight months. Al lists his musical influences as Otis Redding, B.B. King, Eric Clapton, and early Rolling Stones.

“We’re on the edge of things. We’re not really original enough to play some places, and not enough cover for others. We get caught in the middle. There’s only one direction for us to go. Showcases. I’d like to get more into New York. more into the showcase scene. It means more originals. When we started out we didn’t have any originals; now we have about fifteen. We don’t want the copy side to get lost, but we want to push our originals.”

Want to know the rest of the story? You can read Al’s e-book, “The Story of JP Gotrock“. It’s a great read; the true tale of a life of music in Asbury Park and New Brunswick in the 1980’s and beyond.

Summer’s almost over, but we’ve still got lots of events in September!

It’s hard to believe that the “official” summer season is almost over.  Most place count Labor Day as the end of the summer, but it’s not really over until September 22nd. Here in Asbury Park, there are still plenty of events in September.

The Stone Pony Summer Stage has a full line-up for Labor Day weekend.  Friday September 2nd is Almost Queen. You can’t see Queen anymore, so this is the next best thing. Stop by here and pick up a Queen tee or a Freddie pin to wear to the show! On Saturday, September 3rd, they have Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit with special guest Shemekia Copeland. On Sunday, it’s Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes to finish the weekend in true Asbury style.

But it’s not over on Labor Day! Saturday September 10th is Asbury Park Porchfest. This a wonderful little festival, with the best musicians in the area playing on porches all over the city.  It’s free but donations go to support locals in need. Grab your bike and spend the afternoon gong from porch to porch. But don’t forget to stop downtown for some shopping!

September 17th & 18th is the big deal: the two day Sea.Hear.Now festival on the beach! Saturday’s headliner is the White Witch herself, Stevie Nicks. Sunday’s headliner is Green Day. Plus many more wonderful acts on 3 stages, including Boy George & Culture Club and My Morning Jacket, plus some local A.P. bands. It’s going to be great!

So don’t think Asbury Park is going to sleep just because August is over. Green Day may sing “Wake me up when September ends” but we’re rocking all month long.

Let’s dive into the complicated history of Betty Boop.

Betty Boop has been in the public eye since 1930. But who is Betty Boop, really? That’s a loaded question. Let’s take a look a the true history of Betty Boop.  This simple cartoon girl is very complicated.

Betty made her first appearance in a 1930 cartoon called “Dizzy Dishes”, created by Max Fleisher.  She seemed to be a caricature of the wild flappers of the era.  But where did Fleisher get the inspiration for Betty Boop? Believe or not, in her first cartoons, she was a French poodle, not a human at all!

Within a year, Betty has become completely human. She had the characteristics we all know now: sexy dress, hoop earrings, cute button nose, and baby voice.  That’s where her origin gets murky. Betty has many similarities to singer Helen Kane, who was famous for her baby voice, short curly hair. and “Boop Oop a Doop”.

But Helen didn’t like it, and sued Fleisher and Paramount.  When the case went to court, Fleisher said that he based Betty on several different flappers. The lawyers showed that Kane herself had taken her style from black performers of the day, including Baby Esther Jones. The court ruled that Kane could not claim ownership of Betty Boop or her characteristics, since none were unique enough to her that they could be deemed her intellectual property.

Neither Kane nor Jones provided Betty’s voice. That was mostly done by Mae Questel, who also was the voice of Olive Oyl.  Mae even did Betty’s voice in 1988’s”Who Framed Roger Rabbit” (starring another sexy cartoon, Jessica Rabbit).

But Betty was not out of trouble yet, In 1934, the national League of Decency imposed rules on the motion picture industry, and Betty had to give up her short, sexy dress in favor of a fuller dress or long skirt. Winks, shaking hips, and hoop earrings were gone, too. They gave her a boyfriend and a puppy.

Luckily we can still see the original 1930’s Betty Boop cartoons, and the Betty who appears on t-shirts and other merchandise is the sexy flapper that we love.

Betty Boop t-shirt $20