The Wave Gathering—Gaining Momentum For June
The new and improved Wave Gathering will host a street-wide (and free) outdoor festival on Saturday, June 20, 12-6 p.m., in Downtown Asbury Park on Cookman Avenue to compliment the weekend.
The street festival will be a huge food and music celebration showcasing the town’s outstanding restaurants as well as providing entertainment for thousands of festival-goers with performers from all over the country. This year has a slant towards being family-friendly with entertainment for the kids to enjoy. The festival plans on showcasing many acoustic performers during this street fest time frame as well as a line up of well-known bands later in the day.
Food and drinks can be purchased “festival style” from participating restaurants throughout the city that will be serving from tented areas along the downtown Asbury festival route. Whether your culinary passion is hot dogs or sushi, downtown Asbury Park will have it all.
The Wave Gathering also offers their well-known indoor weekend showcases. As the dates get closer the band line-up will be available here. The showcase takes place on Friday night, Saturday night and Sunday. Weekend passes give you access to all indoor venues for the entire weekend.
Tickets for individual shows can also be purchased as well. For more information please visit wavegathering.com.
Little Steven’s Lost Cathedral Gets The Crown Of Thorns
Ya gotta’ hand it to Steven Van Zandt. I mean the guy could sit back on his laurels and collect the checks for the rest of his life if he wanted to. But he doesn’t, because he knows his job rocks, literally. Van Zandt’s new label, Lost Cathedral is the sister label to Wicked Cool Records and was specifically created to release the latest Crown Of Thorns disc. Faith is the re-issued collection from a group that has weathered the last decade in the hard knock world of rock and roll and managed to survive. The U.S. version of Faith contains the original 11 tracks on the import as well as three bonus tracks.
Lead vocalist Jean Beauvoir has an unequaled rock and roll pedigree; he was Gary U.S. Bonds’ musical director when he was a teenager before playing as an original member in the ‘80s punk icon The Plasmatics and then moving on to play bass in Van Zandt’s Disciples Of Soul. This led to much success in both film scores (Sly Stallone’s Cobra) and co-writing with the likes of KISS, the Ramones and Debra Harry, just to name a few of rock’s proverbial royal ones.
Faith is dark enough to steer clear of typical and generic pop rock labels as the band yanks the wheel hard left to yield some interesting results.
Track opener and title song “Faith” starts winding up like something out of John Carpenter’s Escape From New York before exploding with atomic bomb riffs courtesy of guitarist Tommy Lafferty (King Flux, Voodoo X). A stylistic melding of Bad Company, The Cult, and Billy Idol, Faith works its way into your head with vicious hot hooks and everlasting choruses. Other favorite “Rock Steady” spits enough guitar venom to make Slash wake up and take notice. Lafferty is one of the true unsung gunslingers in rock and complimentary to Beauvoir’s vocals, which cut with the urgency of a scalpel through flesh.
Michael Paige and David “Hawk” Lopez hold the low ends down like a railroad spike in the train track with their tight, unbreakable rhythm assaults disc wide. While tracks like “Believe Me” and “All I Wanna Do” slip briefly into Bon Jovi/Journey territory the disc swings right back into rock and roll damnation on tracks like the Van Zandt co-penned “Motorcycle Loretta” which stomps chest pounding hard with rock and roll caveman moxy ala BTO and The Crüe. The fast, furious, stripped-down feel of “The Healer” brought on the feel of a Barracuda 440 going full bore down Double Trouble Rd. Jean Beauvoir and the band have come out swinging with a versatile hard rock re-issue that revisits the old feeling that rock and roll just can’t be ignored when it’s this god damned good. lostcathedral.com.
Asbury Rockstars Want Your Body!
Yeah it’s almost that time again. Hot dogs, hotter weather and ice-cold beer can only mean its softball time in the Garden State. The Asbury Allstars are putting the teams together are looking for a few good men (and women) for their third annual game on Saturday, Aug. 8, 2009. The tournament is played by local bands, solo artists, and support staff and volunteers from Asbury Park and surrounding areas, split into eight teams, in an effort to raise money for various charities of their choosing.
Players must be currently gigging musicians or roadies, merch people, photographers, bar staff, etc. (for behind the scenes team) in the Asbury Park area. Each player will be responsible for paying a $7 entry fee, which gets you a spot on a team and a team t-shirt. Oh yes, and a warm, fuzzy feeling for doing good for charity is free of charge. The Asbury Rock Stars Charity is also currently seeking sponsors for the 2009 Tournament.
Sponsorships can be in the form of monetary donations, donated services, and/or in-kind support (i.e. water for players, promotional materials, etc.). In addition to the marketing benefits, your business will also enjoy the prestige and goodwill associated in supporting and creating awareness for local charitable causes. If you want to play, contact them now, as deadline is May 24. Send an email to signup@asburyrockstarscharity.org with your name, email address, phone number, the captain you are signing up for (listed on asburyrockstarscharity.org), and t-shirt size. Play ball!
