I spent a few years bouncing around the eastern seaboard, from DC to WV to VA. And when I’d tell people I was from New Jersey, I’d get a number of reactions. My response was always “Never underestimate the curious allure of the Garden State.” And it’s a credo I live by; there’s no place quite like it.
Our unifying theme in talking to the artists of the XPoNential Music Festival this weekend was “What’s your favorite thing about New Jersey?”
Here’s a selection of our favorites:
“The locale, and the community atmosphere, and it’s home to the artists that inspired me.”–Matt Duke
“The Devils.”–Keith of Good Old War
“The Turnpike.”–Dan from Good Old War
“Jersey Tomatoes.”–The Peace Creeps
“…I LOVE the New Jersey Nets.”–Tre’ Williams of The Revelations
“It’s great to play so close to home.”–Kevin Bacon
“Flying Fish Beer, brewed locally in NJ (you got a problem with that?)”–East Hundred
“Taylor Ham (pork roll for those not in the know)”–John Gorka
“The Jersey shore.”–Gandalf Murphy and the Slambovian Circus of Dreams
“The shore, the corn, the tomatoes.”–Like a Fox
Like a Fox also wins the prize for “best tattoo we saw all weekend”–one of the band members has the state inked on his left forearm (see the pic up top).
That’s Jersey Love, people.
Speaking of which, my favorite moment of Jersey Love was The Bacon Brothers’ fun cover of Springsteen’s “I’m in Love with a Jersey Girl.” You can’t go wrong with the Boss.
And, as Raegan just pointed out, John Gorka has perhaps the best-known and most affecting of all expressions of Jersey Love, as shown in the video below from NJN’s State of the Arts. This was the second song of his set on Saturday, and got a huge reaction.
So, enjoy! To be continued.
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Nick Paleologos, Executive Director, New Jersey State Council on the Arts
As a New Jersey resident, knowing the long distinguished history of ou
Opera New Jersey’s 2011 Summer Season
Kenneth Bennett Lane, Lake Hiawatha, NJMAY 11, 2012 AT 4:22 PM As a N
Lee Sellars of "Twelve Angry Men" at George Street Playhouse
The actor in the center of the first picture with the knife in his han
raegannyc
Don’t forget about John Gorka’s song about Jersey either. The small-town Texas girl in me couldn’t help but laugh when he sang “I’m from Jersey, it is not like Texas.” Too true!!!
Jim
Gorka is awesome – so quintessential New Jersey, he’s such a favorite son!
JeffG
The “Jersey Girl” song is actually a Tom Waits song that Springsteen covered.
Lauren
JeffG is right… so does this make Tom Waits four degrees from Kevin Bacon?
Jonathan
Argh. Yes, indeed, everyone. “I’m in Love With a Jersey Girl” is by Tom Waits. Sometimes, I need to take the Jersey Love goggles off!
Kenneth Bennett Lane, Lake Hiawatha, NJ
As a New Jersey resident, knowing the long distinguished history of our own New Jersey Symphony, I am gratified at the scheduling of the different symphony orchestras, on a daily change, from the many states still commercially viable to maintain them, at the prestigious Isaac Stern Auditorium of Carnegie Hall. I have sung four solo concerts, three of them three hours long at that deservedly respected and honored venue. It helps us recognize the cultural potential within our own communities. Born and living in Jersey City, NJ I had the distinct advantage of proximity to the Met Opera and the New York City Opera and to Carnegie Hall, Town Hall and Lewissohn Stadium to attend both rehearsals and performances of major orchestras and chamber music ensembles. I had started my professional career at age seventeen and was known sufficiently to receive entrance to rehearsals and broadcasts at Carnegie Hall by Mr. Turner, the house manager. Even at Toscanini’s Studio 8 H as well his Carnegie Hall rehearsals and broadcasts, access to the Toscanini events I had by my friendship at Juilliard with a violinist in the NBC Symphony who represented me as a family member. At age 10 I heard on WNYC a broadcast of the recording of Toscanini’s conducting the New York Philharmonic in the Rhine Journey and Funeral Music. This recording was made long, long before his recording with the NBC Symphony. That hearing encouraged me to borrow from our major library in Jersey City, on Jersey Avenue, the piano vocal scores of all the Wagner operas from Der fliegender Hollander to Parsifal and the full orchestra scores of the RING and TRISTAN. I started studying composition and composing from then on. . My study of voice with Friedrich Schorr, Alexander Kipnis, Margarete Matzernauer, Frieda Hempel, Martial Singher, Mack Harrell, John Brownlee and Karin Branzell, all leading singers at the Met Opera before they retired, prepared me for my rep decisions. Schorr, Kipnis and Singher I saw in performances at the Met long before I got to study with them. I studied composition with Pulitzer Prize winner Roger Goeb. I am a Wagnerian romantischer heldentenor, the director of the Richard Wagner Music Drama Institute, and an opera composer of “Shakespeare” and “The Political Shakespeare. My websites where one may download, free, 37 complete selections out of the one hundred that I sang in four main hall, Isaac Stern Auditorium, solo concerts, I repeat, three of them three hours long. My websites are WagnerOpera.com, ; ShakespeareOpera.com and RichardWagnerMusicDramaInstitute.com