I know, I know… 3 weeks since my last Undertow. BUT… you can’t say you weren’t warned about potential gaps this summer. Maybe you shouldn’t have binged all those early winter/ spring Undertows and spread them out to get you through the lean times! But no… you had to read them when you got them… (But seriously, sorry for the gap. (A) I’ve been super-busy and (B) I sat down to write one 7-10 days ago and it was just really boring and short. That doesn’t mean this one won’t be super-boring, but there’ll at least be more super-boring stuff. Just… fucking read it…
GIG WRAP-UP OF THE WEEK(S):
A lot to get to and a lot coming up… Let’s take them one at a time, shall we?
JERSEY GIRL FRIDAYS: Terry & Jerry returned to Jersey Girl for a busier-then-expected summer kick-off gig. Aside from one overserved (not by Jersey Girl) woman who insisted we just had to know “The Ballad of Curtis Loew” by Lynyrd Skynyrd, it was a solid return with a solid crowd. (I would bet that even the current version of Lynyrd Skynyrd doesn’t know “The Ballas of Curtis Loew”, but I digress…) We even had a Sandy Mannik sighting! (Which means Ralph was somewhere nearby rubbing his temples…) I KID! We love Sandy and Ralph. She always posts videos of us on social media and hits the tip jar 2-3x a night. Neither of the these things is required. But they are appreciated.
The above paragraph was written 3 weeks ago and the one constant since then is the very nice Jersey Girl crowds and Sandy and Ralph. As well as a helthy dose of Alex & Lynn Sosik.
THE STRANGERS 5/10: Long story short; 60% of The Strangers (my Billy Joel tribute band) come from points north and east, so arranging a rehearsal can be challenging. So we decided to get together Saturday afternoon at a friend’s garage to go over the stuff we didn’t play in Manchester a few weeks ago. This is all fine and good, except I left Jersey Girl Friday night with a sore throat and was having trouble talking by Saturday afternoon. With a rehearsal and performance looming this was, to say the least, worrying. Yada yada yada, I gave some of my best vocals in years at Anglesea Pub for Billy Joel Night, so I vow to never again complain about my throat, no matter how much it hurts. In the immortal words of my partner, Jerry Kolber, “The only way I could tell your throat was bothering you was your constant bitching about it…”
Reliable stalwarts Sandy & Ralph, along with Alex & Lynn Sosik, helped make it a great night.
The 2nd Annual Billy Joel Night brought to an end our off-season residency at the Anglesea. We are, as ever, grateful to the Pub and Sean McMullan for giving us a place to work in the winter and look forward to returning in the fall. Keep an eye out for 80s, Beatles and Yacht Rock projects we hope to get off the ground this year, with Anglesea Pub as Ground Zero.
THE STRANGERS 5/24: The band reconvened 2 weeks later to help Mike & Tiffany Gain celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary with a backyard Billy Joel show. Rehearsal wasn’t an issue, this time it was Jerry and I getting there on time from our PigDog gig at the back of the water park in Wildwood. with a little clock finagling and a lot of carpooling we were able to do so (okay, so we started 20 minutes late, but nobody trusts a band that starts on time…) The Gains’ booked us for this party after our Billy Joel Night at Anglesea. Last May. 55 weeks ago. And we’re glad that (A) we all lived long enough to play the gig and (B) Mike and Tiff invited us. It was a great time.
LAST MINUTE SONG SWITCH OF THE WEEK: During the intro the (the great) “Downeaster Alexa”, Jerry looks at me and says “you sing it.” This is fine. I love singing that song. But… it’s a challenging (read: painful) vocal. In the interest of my recent vow to not bitch about my throat, I’ll simply say that I would have put it at the end of the night, not the 3rd song of the day. Everything after that was sung on a wing and a prayer. Still, I crushed Downeaster Alexa.
CATCHPHRASE EXPLANATION OF THE WEEK: I ended the Billy Joel gig, as I end every gig, with “Til next time, so long and thanks for all the fish.” One of the many large, burly corrections officers in attendance (Mike Gain is a prison guard) asked, “The hell does that mean?” I explained; in the great Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the world is about to explode. Before that happens, dolphins, who it turns out were an alien species all along, abandon the Earth. Scientists are able to translate their parting message, which is… so long, and thanks for all the fish.
SUNDAY 5/11: (DISCLAIMER: This paragraph was written before my No Bitching About My Throat vow of silence) Sing-Along with Terry & Dave at the Rusty Nail! Yay! This is kind of where the wheels fell off for me… I worked a full Old Navy shift (6am-2pm) that morning, had just enough time to almost take a nap before the gig, then went to the gig. And this time when I say my voice was shot I really mean it. Couldn’t talk above a whipser. My first few songs were little more than in-tune squeaking. I eventually loosened up enough to at least do a passable singing job, but I had never been less interested in doing anything in my life than I was in finishing that gig… by 8pm it had turned cold, my throat was locking up, Dave left early to play at another gig so I had to pack up all the gear… if you looked up MISERABLE in the dictionary there was a picutre of me next to it… Also, I somehow went from around 10pm Friday night to 10pm Sunday night without eating. This seems impossible. You’vce all seen me. I love eating. But… here we were…
Anyway, the gig was actually very pleasant. We had several very nice karaoke singers (including the lovely Cathrine O’Brien) help us get through the last set, Alex & Lynn made an appearance (though, curiously, no Sandy Mannik…), my son Jackson came out with his mom… it was all very nice. It was just me that was a grumpy prick. Sing-Along with Terry & Dave is, I think, going to be a pretty fun gig once the summer crowds roll in.
SUNDAYS IN GENERAL: The karaoke end of Sing Along w/ Terry & Dave had been hit or miss until this past Memorial Day Sunday when we had, oh, a half-dozen singers join us to varying degrees of success, as karaoke is wont to be. HIGH: Jimmy from N. Jersey nailed Ice Ice Baby. LOW: Dude who kind of sing-shouted through Little Egypt by The Coasters. I had generally been okay with returning to the karaoke world; it’s not a classic bar-karaoke gig, I have a partner to help shoulder the burden (when he’s not hob-knobbing with drinking buddies), no kids allowed, etc. Then the dude aggressively approaches at 855pm asking for one more song and sorry we finish at 9 and this is our last singer and oh my god how come you can’t do one more dude I’m sorry we finish at 9 but dude how can this be the last song man I’m sorry it just is well this is fucking bullshit and I was sucked right back to the dark days of 2005-2019.
CATHRINE UPDATE: Yes, Cath took a fall last week. No, it wasn’t as bad as the one that nuked her shoulder in 2022. Yes, we’re going to the orthopedist today. No, we don’t expect her to be out of commission for very long. Severe sprain/ possible chip fracture of the ankle was the initial diagnosis. We’ll know more later, but no soccer for now.
UPCOMING GIGS:
FRIDAY 5/30: Terry & Jerry, Brown Room, 7-11. PLEASE DO NOT TO GO WILDWOOD AT 530 FOR JERSEY GIRL AS THERE IS A 70% CHANCE I MIGHT DO.
SATURDAY 5/31: Terry & Jerry, PigDog, 1130-330. Please note the time change. We’ll be 1130-330 for the balance of the summer. I’m not going to love singing at 1130, but I’m certainly going to love being done for the day at 330.
SUNDAY 6/1: Sing-Along w/ Terry & Dave! 5-9, Beach Shack & Rusty Nail. We sing, you sing. IT’S JUNE!
AND IN CASE IT’S ANOTHER 3 WEEKS BETWEEN COLUMNS…:
FRIDAY 6/6: Terry & Jerry, Jersey Girl 530-930.
SATURDAY 6/7: Terry & Jerry, PigDog 1130-330, Rusty Nail 5-9.
SUNDAY 6/8, 6/15, 6/22, 6/29: Sing-Along w/ Terry & Dave, Rusty Nail 5-9.
WEIGHT LOSS/ WEIGHT GAIN ROLLERCOASTER OF THE WEEK:
Long story short, the weekend of our first Billy Joel show on 5/10, from Friday night to Sunday morning, I lost 7 lbs. (They say the soul weighs 7 lbs…) From that Sunday morning to Tuesday afternoon, I gained 9 lbs. What the fuck…?
WEIGHT UPDATE: While I am by no stretch of the imagination “thin” or “skinny” or “in shape” or “handsome” … scratch that, I’m very handsome … I have reached and managed to stay at, for several days, my college weight. Unfortunately, college is where I became the fat fuck you know today. Still, progress is progress. Today, fat fuck. Tomorrow, chubby.
AM I THE ASSHOLE? OF THE WEEK:
Sometimes I feel very badly for the local homeless population. And sometimes they park their bikes in the Wawa parking lot taking up most of the front spaces at 530am while I’m trying to get to work and they blow snot rockets onto the pavement and I want them to die.
READER COMMENTS:
Nicole Coyle: Still need to get to the boat....very soon... THE BEAR opened an episode with save it for later, not sure if you watched it and reviewed that show...i may have missed it with my stacked backlog...i got to meet Matty Matheson (ed’s note: Matty Matheson plays the “dumb” cousin) at a book signing a few months ago. he's a stellar, authentic human being. looking forward to seeing you soon! (ed’s note: please note, 1. All the poor grammar and missing punctuation in Nicole’s comment is ENTIRELY HERS as I just copied and pasted. 2. I have indeed opined on THE BEAR in previous columns. I love this show. I find it to be overwrought at times, but generally excellent. This meme kind of sums it up for me…)
THANK YOU TO ALL MY PAID SUBSCRIBERS! We have skyrocketed to 17 this week (welcome Cindy Benigno)! I honestly thought I’d have 100-200 by now but I kind of like writing a bespoke column for a small group of people that have an actual idea what I’m writing about… but… if you have 100-200 friends that might like this I won’t say not to them… :)
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