News & Vintage Fashion Blog

Get on the bus for a virtual visit to the Woodstock festival location in Bethel NY!

I recently made a music pilgrimage to the original Woodstock festival location. It’s a wonderful, safe visit to the museum at the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts. They are currently limiting attendance to 25 % capacity and masks are required.

The museum does a great job setting up the differences between the early 60’s pop culture and what led up to the Woodstock Music and Art Fair in 1969.

Of course, I was very interested in the display that contrasted early 60’s fashion, mod fashion, and the clothes worn by festival attendees!

If you go, I recommend you pay an extra $5 for the outdoor “Meet Me at Woodstock: an Augmented Reality Tour Experience”. This prerecorded tour is narrated by Nick & Bobbi Ercoline, the couple pictured on the front of the Woodstock soundtrack album. They take you on tour of the site, letting you know where all the important places were in 69. It’s as close as you get to being there.

So put on your Janis glasses, fringed vest, and  love beads and go! It’s only 2 1/2 hours from Asbury Park. I highly recommend this trip!

Save the Saint Asbury Park’s coolest club! UPDATE

This damn virus is hurting us all. We were upset to hear that the Saint Asbury ‘s independent rock club was thinking about selling.  Unfortunately, clubs are going to be one of the last businesses to reopen. The Saint is owned by Scott & Meg, not a big corporation with deep pockets. Luckily, their bartender Marguerite set up a Go Fund Me page to raise the funds to get them through.

UPDATE:  It is now over 5 months later, and the Saint still needs your help. The funds raised by Marguerite’s page got the Saint through the last few months, but have been depleted by rent and other expenses. The new Go Fund Me page can be found here. Hopefully the club can reopen with larger capacity soon.  But wouldn’t you hate to see them close and not have done anything about it? So even if you gave last time, reach in and give them a little more.  I did.

Scott from the Saint is one of the reasons I decided to move my store here. We’ve been friends for years, since before he opened the Saint, and even before the days of his prior venture, T-Birds Cafe. He is major supporter of the independent music scene, and any city that has a venue like this is worth investing in.

the VooDUDES at the Saint

Scott helped with my grand opening celebration in A.P., arranging for Richard Bacchus of D Generation to play a set at the party. The Saint has been our home for the Asbury Park Mardi Gras Masquerade Ball for the last 2 years. They’ve always been there to host numerous fundraisers for organizations in need. Now they need us.

Asbury Park without the Saint is unacceptable.  Please donate to this good cause & help keep Asbury Park cool! Save the Saint!

“Asbury Park Riot Redemption Rock n Roll” is streaming for free!

If you’re a Bruce fan, or just a fan of music history, you should check out “Asbury Park Riot Redemption Rock N Roll”. This well done documentary covers the history of music in Asbury Park NJ, race relations, and the power of music. It’s streaming for free on YouTube until the end of August. You can watch the full hour and a half film here.

I was able to see this film at its premiere at the Paramount Theater in 2017. There was an amazing jam session with many of the musicians who played at the famous Upstage club after the film showing, including Bruce Springsteen and Little Steven Van Zandt. They added some of the footage from the jam to the finished film.

The Upstage club has now been gutted and will soon be apartments, but it stayed an untouched time capsule for many years. I was lucky enough to take a tour in 2015. You can see pictures from my visit, as well as photos from the 2017 Upstage jam here.

Check out the trailer for this wonderful film:

Welcome to the Upstage

Backward Glances is back and open for shopping!

Asbury Park is now open for shopping and outdoor dining, and so are we! No, it’s not a normal summer, but we hope you can still come visit and have a little fun.

We’ve got safety protocols in place. Our employees are wearing masks, and as per government orders, shoppers must wear masks to enter our building and stores. We have hand sanitizer placed by our entrance and on our counter, and we ask that you take a squirt before shopping.  We are cleaning high contact areas regularly with bleach solution, and are sanitizing dressing rooms in between each use.  We’ve removed three racks of merchandise from the store to make room to social distance (these rack are now in our hallway, so you still have just as many items to shop!) If you are uncomfortable shopping in person, all our products are still available to ship or do curbside pickup.

Cookman Avenue is closed to traffic on the weekends, and it’s quite the festive atmosphere.  We’ve got merchandise on the street and all the restaurants have sidewalk tables.  So mask up and come out!

Don’t have a nice mask to wear? We can help! Check out the cool masks we have for sale.

Welcome to Part 2 of the 1977 article on the Asbury Park NJ beach & club scene:

I recently discovered a magazine from 1977. “Intune”, billed as “young New Jersey’s entertainment magazine”.  I couldn’t find any information on the magazine & don’t know if they ever published another issue. But I was taken with this article on the Asbury Park NJ beach, boardwalk & club scene. I published part one in my blog last week if you want to catch up. Here’s part two. Amazing how some things never change. Keep in mind that this article is 43 years old.

“ASBURY PARK” by Carol Maso Fall 1977 (part 2)

Things aren’t as smooth as they might be down here. Edward English, town councilman and villain, has initiated a referendum to stop all live music in Asbury Park.  Eighty percent of the population is made up of blacks and senior citizens, most of who are not exactly into rock and roll. the town councilmen seem to think that Asbury Park is getting a bad name. The fact is, not so many years ago, Asbury Park was a losers’ beach. No one came. It was following in the steps on its sister, Atlantic City. It was dying.

Since the success of Springsteen and the Jukes, and the rock renaissance, the place is packed. The past Fourth of July was the best ever. The average age dropped ten years from the previous years. They pour in from everywhere, just hoping to get a glimpse of Bruce, see the Jukes play pool, or catch a good act.  New York city comes to Asbury Park more often than the other way around.  There are rock movies at the Paramount. Even live concerts have found a new home there, in addition to the Convention Hall. Rock and roll has pumped energy and money into this broken resort spot. “They should build a statue to Bruce Springsteen here”, says Mike.  “Without Bruce and the ocean this town would be worse than Newark.”

Still English and the others say all of this is giving Asbury Park a poor image. The town council complains about the noise, crowds, and drugs. The town hassles the hell out of the kids.  Emotions run high.

Only the ocean is indifferent.

It’s hot and the merry-go-round horses spin by so fast they make you dizzy. A father stuffs taffy into his mouth. “They don’t make it like here anywhere else,” he says. Pretty girls pass. The man that runs the Funhouse lecherously looks on. Palm readers and fortune tellers cackle from inside their dark booths. They know when you will die.

Asbury Park is the kind of place where, if you have a good tan at least a hundred people have better ones. If you are fat, an army of fat people are crowding you out of the water. If you are beautiful, it is a beach filled with beauties.  If you’re cool, there are countless cool kids. It is a place rich in possibility and devoid of possibility. It embraces every form of life and death. It is as wonderful and horrible as the whole world itself.

Better than any history book, better than anything I, or anyone else, can scrawl on the cold page, Bruce’s records tell what Asbury Park is.  Asbury Park is special, and not just for the summer. It is specials because it provides the energy, the despair, the cheap thrills, the hopes, the violence, the dream material that makes rock and roll. Bruce Springsteen is more special.  Asbury Park has a million stories to tell, if we only had the heart to tell them, if we only had the ears to hear them. Bruce does.

New Jersey has never been a cool place to come from in the eyes of the rest of the country. Squished between the Big Apple and the City of Brotherly Love, its politics are scandalous, its weather rancid. Its cities make good party jokes. But, now they’re walking tall down here. The local boys, with chests pushed out, say they wouldn’t think of living anywhere else. You see, they say, its the only place left where a good band can get a decent break; where you can just park your car and hit nine or ten clubs, and get good rock and roll all day and all night.

INTERESTED IN THE 1977 INTERVIEW WITH SOUTHSIDE JOHNNY? 
We’ll reprint in a future post–so make sure to visit our blog page to keep up with coolness of the past and present!

Do you have any info on “Intune” magazine or author Carol Maso? Please let us know!

Did you ever want to get in your time machine, cruise the circuit,  and visit those long gone Asbury Park clubs?

I recently discovered a magazine from 1977. “Intune”, billed as “young New Jersey’s entertainment magazine”. This was issue number 1. Did they every have another issue? I couldn’t find any information. But I was fascinated by this article on the Asbury Park clubs and the Boardwalk. So let’s take a trip back to fall 1977, and see what’s happening in Asbury Park.

“ASBURY PARK” by Carol Maso Fall 1977 (part 1)

There’s this little game, called “Fascination”, that you can play all night for so cheap, you wouldn’t believe it. The “Hungry Lion” and the “Rainbow Room” are open for business.  The Senior Citizens are having a convention. The Baby Parade is coming to town. The air smells real.  The chili dogs are great. The ocean is cold, but the music’s hot. I’ve been away too long.

The Boardwalk feels good under my feet. The monster Convention Hall and Casino Arena rise out of the sea, advertising coming attractions. Garcia, the Kinks, Heart, Commander Cody, Climax Blues Band, Utopia. This is Asbury Park, decaying queen of the Jersey Shore, mother of Bruce Springsteen and the Asbury Jukes, home of rock and roll. It pours from every radio, every hamburger stand, from the roller coaster, and the ferris wheel.  Kids hang outside the “Stone Pony’ doing their Jukes imitations. Locals reminisce about how Bruce always used to play there, and that coffee house over the shoe store on Main Street. Last week, Bruce danced on the bar at “Guilio’s”, they say. I look for Crazy Janie, and she’s everywhere. Southside Johnny blares from the beach, and I know it is the way rock and roll was meant to be played all along.

We decide to sit around at “Guilio’s South”, a bar down the street from the “Pony”. They’re real nice there, and besides, the band is playing the Doors. We’re all from New Jersey, except the drummer from a band that plays the night show, and the photographer, who’s from Panama. Disco is dead, we all agree. We eat heavy metal for breakfast. Manager Mike Nesbihili states proudly that his club has never been anything but rock and roll.  One the reasons disco is a drag, he says, is “because you have to spend a hundred bucks before you even step out of the house. Give a guy a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, and you got money in your pocket. We’re not as trendy as they are in the City. The kids know what they like, and they don’t go for every new craze that comes along.” They won’t be bullied. High energy rock and roll is what they want, and that’s what they get. “There’s a lot of talent around”, Mike says, “a lot of things happening.” At Guilio’s they try to be a showcase, combining bigger names like Leslie West, Rick Derringer, Tommy James, Brownsville Station, and Mick Ronson with local draws and recently signed contract groups. There’s rock and roll all afternoon.  Rock all night. Love me two times.

STAY TUNED FOR PART TWO OF THIS ARTICLE:  Changes are afoot! The city of Asbury Park wants to stop all live music. Will they succeed? Read part two here. 

Do you have any info on “Intune” magazine or author Carol Maso? Please let us know!

Check in at our vintage fashion blog, for more great articles, coming soon.

Everyone had a blast at the Mardi Gras celebration in Asbury Park on 2/22/20! King cakes, pets, music & more!

Our 5th annual Asbury Park Mardi Gras celebration was held on Saturday February 22nd. Look at all the fun we had!

MARDI PAWS PET PARADE:

Our first Mardi Paws pet parade was a big success! Twenty eight dogs registered for the parade, which was organized by Paws Pet Boutique.  The registration fees raised funds for Wag On Inn Rescue. Dogs were available for adoption as well.  Type B Tie Dye’s Dancing Bear led the parade down Cookman Avenue.  After the parade, 3 deserving pooches were awarded prizes for being best dressed. All the dogs were adorable in their festive outfits.

KING CAKE BABY HUNT:

King cake babies were hidden in 19 businesses downtown. Our intrepid hunters had to locate all the babies and write down the secret words that they held.  All participants were rewarded with a mini king cake baked by Crust & Crumble.  Five lucky hunters received awesome prize packages donated by the merchants of Asbury Park.

MARDI GRAS HAPPY HOUR:

This was the 3rd year for Mardi Gras Happy Hour at Taka, and food and drinks were delicious as ever.  Taka always puts such an interesting spin on New Orleans favorites! This year’s menu included Cajun Yakisoba with crawfish and andouille sausage, BBQ Shrimp Bao Buns, and Shrimp & Grits.  This is a great place to meet up before heading over to the ball!

THE MASQUERADE BALL:

Time to party at the Saint! The VooDUDES returned for another night of dancing fun.  Our opening act, the Outcrops, wowed the crowd and made lots of new fans.

Costumes were wonderful; it is always so hard to choose our prize winners. After lots of cheering and applause we crowned our 2020 King and Queen: King Tom from Union Beach and Queen Donna from Asbury Park.

Current and past kings and queens of Asbury Park met for one royal photo.

2020 Queen Donna, 2018 Queen Beth, 2018 King Chris, 2019 Queen Debbie, 2019 King Wolf.

Who will be rulers of 2021 Mardi Gras? See you next year to find out.