It was 5:30 in the afternoon when I clocked out of my job at Balance Salon in downtown Jersey City. Sweeping hair, swiping credit cards and running around to grab toilet paper and cleaning supplies had certainly exhausted me. Still, like most Saturdays at quitting time, I had other plans that did not include a long nap. That Saturday's script entailed covering the 2nd annual Ghost of Uncle Joe’s rock and roll cover show, this year to be held at the historic Jersey City and Harismus Cemetery.
Needless to say, I was psyched.
In honor of Halloween, I had worked my entire seven-and-a-half hour shift in costume. I was dressed as Snake Plissken from John Carpenter's 1981 film, Escape From New York, complete with black eye patch, leather duster and a B.B. gun rifle. But this costume wouldn't be practical for my reporting, so I ran home to change into a sweater and peacoat. Besides, I would have hated to have the cops ask me why I was wandering in a graveyard with what looked like a real shotgun.
I hopped on my Huffy bicycle, which has no working brakes, and pedaled my way up Newark Avenue. It was fiercely cold and cloudy, and yet there were many passersby out on the streets, both in normal wear and in costume. In a close-knit community like Jersey City, Halloween refuses to be confined to the small calendar box labeled "The 31st."
I veered left into the six-acre graveyard on 435 Newark Avenue, where I was greeted by a short woman named Eileen E. Markenstein. Markenstein is the President of the Board of Trustees for the cemetery. I was asked to give a small donation to aid in her restoration project and so I quickly handed over a fiver. I learned that all profits gathered for the evening were going directly towards the improvement of the graveyard, including upkeep costs and new equipment, such as work gloves, gardening supplies, tractors, snow-blowers, and a Bobcat lift. It would be a night of rock and roll for a great cause.
"I have several of my family members buried here," said Markenstein. "This is a beautiful landmark that's important to the history of Jersey City."
I was then asked to sign a liability release form, just in case I should stupidly lean against a gravestone, fall, and break my hip. I couldn't help but think, "Why would an honest and friendly woman like Markenstein, who is out seeking such a noble cause, allow hundreds of people to dance and jump around on the plot of land where her grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles are buried?”
* * *
Down the narrow path was a small stage where a band, set to cover Motörhead, was tuning up for their performance. They were surrounded by hundreds of tombstones, some of them marking the graves of soldiers who served in the Revolutionary and Civil War. At stage right, a stone read:
ANDREW JACKSON BARNEY
Born April 23rd, 1829. Died September 12, 1878
His wife, Henrietta Boken, born June 22, 1841, and died on November 19th, 1884, rested by his side. Their neighbor was a man by the name of Antonio Ramos, who had a final and permanent sendoff reading "Con Amor de tu Familia." He was more than one hundred years younger than the departed couple. Their graves were overshadowed by a gnarled, wretched oak tree that stretched upwards to the cloudy twilight, like something out of a Washington Irving story. A large, inflatable tarantula rested in its bare branches.
More stones stretched out of the faded, fresh-cut grass at stage left, where the Melendez and the Lockwood families reclined and received a close spot to the performance. If they couldn't see the bands play, perhaps they would absorb some of the immense volume through the soil, and silently rock out, down below in their caskets.
Under the pale darkening sky, it was easy to see that the cemetery was beautiful. Graves stretched up hills to the western Journal Square area, towards a natural rock wall, wrapped around sycamore trees and an old, two story caretaker house, then cascaded into a steep hill back towards downtown Jersey City. A life-sized replica of Jason Vorhees was placed just before the hill’s descent to warn visitors not to cross. The horror icon served as a decoration and a safety precaution.
Motörhead had now finished tuning up, and dozens upon dozens of people filed into the cemetery. I caught a man wearing a red sweatshirt, bandana and blue jeans that were absolutely filthy with soil. He was an exact caricature of a caretaker. He moved his 16oz. can of Budweiser to his left hand and shook my right, passing off some trace dirt into my palms.
“Do you see that?” said John Wilson, 48, pointing to the gravesite of Roberto Rolon. “That’s 8 hours of digging! I can handle it,” he boasted, patting his protruding gut. Wilson, who has been a caretaker at the cemetery for two and half years, explained that he found peace living in the on-site home, and that aside from a few high-school trespassers, his job caused him no grief.
Wilson went into detail about the evergreen trees and the rosebuds he helped to plant, and the heavy stones he had moved around the land. He was proud and laughed often, exposing his crisscrossed teeth like a set of tossed yellow Chiclets. He explained that while the cemetery currently had no more available plots, he still had a job burying those who had a reservation. I liked talking to Wilson, and promised myself to give him his own story someday. But at that point, Dancing Tony was taking the stage as Master of Ceremonies.
* * *
If you live in Jersey City, then reading this section is not necessary, simply because you already know who Dancing Tony is. For those who don't live in the sixth borough, Tony, born Anthony Vito Susco, is by and large the brains behind Jersey City's social scene. Whether he is organizing the annual Pagan Feast (which this year, raised hundreds of dollars in donations and food for the Human Needs Pantry) or throwing together various bands and artists at the collective 58 Gallery space on Coles Street, Dancing Tony is dedicating himself to downtown Jersey City and ensuring that no one is ever bored. As I write these words, he is currently setting up for a superhero-themed costume party at his apartment tonight.
"If you have an event and get a lot of people out, for me, it's just refocusing the power of people," said Dancing Tony, who acquired his nickname for his notoriety to cut a rug. "The strange thing about where we're at venue-wise is that we are now forced to use these alternative spaces."
In this circumstance, the "alternative space" was a graveyard.
Jersey City's most infamous music venue, Uncle Joe’s, closed in May of 2005. It was one of the last vestibules where debauchery and rock and roll still walked hand in hand, a mirror to the East Village days of the late 1970s. Local bands from New Jersey as well as more established traveling acts were frequently put on Joe's bill. But due to what Tony refers to as, "the antiquated laws against Jersey City's entertainment," the building was sold and demolished, much to the misfortune of the Garden State's bar-hoppers.
Where Uncle Joe's once stood, there is now a vacant lot. Empty coffee cups and potato chip bags are strewn about to complete a picturesque scene of a rock and roll tragedy. The Ghost of Uncle Joe's event is named in honor of the legendary dive venue, and is now appropriately held in the cemetery off Newark Avenue.
The first meeting between Dancing Tony and Markenstein was somewhat serendipitous. Upon organizing the annual Fourth Street Arts Festival, which brings dozens of bands, shops and artists together for an all day outdoor celebration, Tony realized he would need a parking lot cleared to make room for visitors. This required some gardening tools, which wereborrowed by Markenstein's cemetery coalition, thanks to the help of the Village Neighborhood Association.
The two got to talking and decided that by holding an event at the historical
graveyard, they could help to raise money and throw a hell of a party.
As aggravated as Tony is about the inability to properly house musicians, Tony
was delighted with the turnout at the cemetery, and said that he would happily organize the event there every year from now on. He confided in me that his larger scheme was to open up a venue of his own, but until then, Jersey City's social masterminds would continue to get creative, and find more obscure, (though certainly not less entertaining,) places to play.
* * *
"Ladies and gentleman," Tony said to the crowd, dressed in a 19th century undertaker outfit, "I will be taking measurements tonight should anyone like any post-mortem preparations," holding up a lengthy piece of rope. Never being one to skimp out on details, Tony addressed the audience that he had changed his nickname for the evening to "Riga Mortis Tony," and had even fashioned a huge black top-hat made from a spray painted Tecate beer box. He issued a brief statement to be respectful to the grounds and to not litter, and then introduced Motörhead, who immediately ripped into their best known song, "Ace of Spades" from the album with the same title.
The three-piece band, which any other night goes by Animal, did not simply perform Motörhead songs, but rather transformed themselves into the actual Motörhead. The group sported large cowboy hats, aviator sunglasses and mutton chop beards. The singer even drew on two enormous moles to his face that Lemmy Kilmister is so famous for. Meanwhile, the audience thrashed about and proved they were anything but shy, slam dancing into eachother, raising fists and chugging cheap beer. More and more participants were jogging towards the stage by the second.
Motörhead took little time between songs, giving only a brief second to tune up. They played songs exclusively off of the classic 1980s release, with such hits as "Love Me Like a Reptile," "Shoot You in the Back," and "Live to Win." They closed with the extremely racy and abrasive track, "Fast and Loose," where someone in the audience commanded the group to "raise the dead!" Though I saw no actual zombies that night, I would not be surprised if the audial intensity did awaken at least a dozen departed souls. The audience roared with applause as Motörhead stepped down.
At this point there were about 150 or so costumed citizens wandering around the graveyard. I thought to myself how much downtown J.C. was like the sitcom Cheers. Everyone knows your name, and likewise, you know theirs. I ran into my friend and local music blogger, Zac Clark, who had borrowed one of my shirts to complete his costume of Seymoure Krelborn from the movie The Little Shop of Horrors. As I was talking to him, a man in tight blue jeans and a werewolf mask ran up to me and gave me a beer. It was one of my best drinking buddies, Augie Catarella.
Still speaking in his mask, Catarella shared his opinion on the city and its appreciation for the arts.
"I think that downtown Jersey City is an untapped reservoir. We're an unpretentious lot and we're used to having so little, so naturally our parties are the shit," said Catarella, who, when not playing in his band, The Radio Exiles, works full-time as a teaching assistant to adults with special needs. "I mean, how fucking cool is it that we're in a graveyard right now?"
He lifted his mask to gulp down his Pabst Blue Ribbon, and then detailed his sexual escapades from the night before.
Riga Mortis Tony got back on the microphone and reminded everyone that there was to be no smoking, drinking or urination on anyone's grave sites, half as a joke and half in sincerity. He then introduced the next cover act, R.E.M.
To be honest, I was never a huge fan of R.E.M. I always felt that Michael Stipe was kind of a square. But the band on stage did an excellent job of keeping the crowd motivated. This was quickly becoming an increasingly harder task, as there were now more than 300 live souls on site. The group only performed the lesser-known songs that came out of the late 1980s.
Midway through the second song, the band's power was cut off, an apparent electrical shortage. The music was quickly restored with the busy sound crew (working pro bono, of course) but within a few minutes, the power cut out again. Anxiety spread throughout the audience, fearful that their plans for the evening might be dashed by a few faulty surge protectors. There were murmurs among friends about where to go next, and a middle-aged man, holding his three children, drunkenly shouted, "That's some bullshit!" over and over. The power was restored and the band, as if expecting a shortage, started the song directly where they had left off, on the very same note. The rest of the set went on without a hitch. The few interruptions may have startled the audience, but nobody left the party.
I congratulated the singer, Adam Schlesinger, on a job well done, who informed me that the band had only two rehearsals together before their performance. He then said he had to run because his main band, Fountains of Wayne, had a show at the Hammerstein Ballroom in a few hours. This man had been nominated not just for a Grammy for the 2003 hit, "Stacy's Mom," but also for an Oscar for writing the titular song to the film, That Thing You Do, and no one watching had even known of his musical credentials.
Go figure.
I was excited for the next band, covering Neutral Milk Hotel, for two reasons. The first was that two of the members were loyal clients at the hair salon where I work. I was very familiar with the scalps of Chris Landry and Sean Kiley. The second was that the band holds a special place in my memory bank. I can distinctly remember being seven years old, driving around with my mother listening to On Avery Island (1996) and In the Aeroplane Over the Sea (1998). She played it constantly in her minivan voyages to the grocery store. I can picture her crying as she sang the words to "Two Headed Boy," the two of us looking for parking at the A & P.
That was 15 years ago.
The band opened with "The King of Carrot Flowers" parts 1-3. Admittedly, it was nearly a one man show with Kiely playing harmonica, acoustic guitar and singing over the soft drums and back up guitar. What the Neutral Milk Hotel cover act lacked in dynamics, they made up for in encouraged audience participation.
The words echoed across the plot of land, "And your mom would stick a fork right into daddy's shoulder/ And dad would throw the garbage all across the floor/ As we would lay and learn what each other's bodies were for." There were only a few strobe lights and generator-powered bulbs to provide the entire illumination. In the distance, the lights from Dickinson High School poured out into the two way street. Even in the dark atmosphere, I could make out the faces of the hundreds singing along. By the completion of the set, there was hardly room to move.
It was only in the downtime between acts that I realized how absolutely freezing it was. The week prior to Halloween was absolutely gorgeous with night time temperatures in the mid to upper 60s. Those halcyon days of autumn were now behind us. My body was violently convulsing with chill. Further up the hill by the spirits table was a tiny space heater as well as a raised fire pit, but there was not enough room to support all of the frigid bodies. It was clearly the smokers' location of choice.
Those not fortunate enough to grab a warm spot sought comfort in another's arms, either caressing or doing jumping jacks to stave off hypothermia. I chose the next best thing: after running into a girl with whom I had a one night stand a month earlier, I helped myself to her whiskey, which was concealed in a Poland Spring water bottle. The warmth was quick and artificial, but the comfort was real.
For full disclosure, I am friends with all of the members of the next cover band up, The Descendants. Chuck Daly, the bass player, and his brother Joe Daly, guitar, are both drinking partners of mine, and we occasionally share the same DJ set. Chuck is also a licensed tattoo artist who has been doing the artwork on my arms and ribs for nearly two years, and is just one of those dudes that everyone, especially women, try and get close to.
Pat Byrne was playing the role of Milo Aukerman, the band's four-eyed, loud-mouthed singer. I consider Pat to be one of the nicest people in Jersey City, and I attend every one of his DJ sets at our local watering hole, Lucky 7s. A week prior to the Halloween show, I saw Pat biking down the street while I was eating outdoors at a French cafe.
"Pat!" I yelled. He squinted his eyes as if trying to make out who I was. "It's me, Dave!" Without stopping, he raised his arm and flipped me off. I like to think he was just getting in character for Milo.
Lastly, the drummer, Matt Wector, is a Manchester United soccer fanatic. He has full sleeve tattoos, and teaches a fourth grade elementary school class. He once told me that he makes his kids cry every day.
The band perfectly replicated the actual Descendents lineup. Although I was surprised they didn’t play anything from the record Milo Goes to College (1982), they still annihilated the crowd with 1-2 guitar riffs and spastic drum beats from songs like, “Sour Grapes,” “I’m Not a Loser,” “Silly Girl,” and “Clean Sheets.” The good thing about having the songs be no more than two minutes long is that everyone was able to hear more of them. Some of the cutest chicks in the crowd were slam-dancing just as hard as the boys. Meanwhile, Pat was screaming and hopping around in denim shorts, saying that he and the band had driven all the way from California. “You guys better fucking enjoy this!”
They did.
After the show, I went over to Chuck to tell him that I appreciated the show. Our conversation went like this:
Dave: Chuck! That was a great set, dude.
Chuck: Thanks, brother! It was drunken insanity.
Dave: Oh, you were drunk by the time you got on stage?
Chuck: Yeah. I’m not going to remember anything I’m doing right now.
Dave: Can I quote you on that?
Chuck: Fuck yeah!
I never bothered to do a follow-up interview.
Up next were the Misfits, who were going by the name, Glen D and the Lodi Three. The Misfits are the original horror punk band, so to have a Halloween without the Misfits is like having Christmas without Bing Crosby. It just doesn’t make sense. The fact that the Misfits are also New Jersey natives (specifically, Lodi) meant that the crowd was going to go absolutely bat shit. I no longer wanted to be a reporter; I wanted to be a part of the audience, throwing my arms and singing every word (I am a Misfits fanatic and own their entire discography.)
So I put down my binder. The drummer rolled out the unmistakable tom-toms that begin “Hybrid Moments,” and at the first cymbal crash, a wave of angry zombies was pushing towards the stage. It was only a matter of seconds before I felt an immense blow to the back of my skull, falling straight down to my knees.
So much for wanting to be a part of the audience.
Some concerned concert-goers pulled me up to my feet, as I could have easily been trampled by the sea of people. I began to vigorously rub the back of my head and make guesses as to what could have happened. Did someone throw a baseball at my cranium? Could it have been a thrown beer bottle? In about 30 seconds, there was a lump protruding from my skull of about half the size of a golf ball. Nevertheless, I soldiered on and listened to the Glen D and the Lodi 3 play “20 Eyes,” “Astro Zombies,” “Braineaters,” “Bullet,” “I Turned Into a Martian,” “Angelfuck,” Skulls.” They closed the set with “Last Caress,” one of the first songs I ever learned on the drums when I was just 11 years old. Everything comes full circle.
After their set, a kid about my age came up to me and said that he elbowed me in the back of the head. He apologized, and I accepted. What other cities do you know where something like this wouldn’t end in fisticuffs?
It was nearing 11:00pm. The event was supposed to be over an hour ago and there was still one cover act left on the set: one of the founders of psychobilly punk, The Cramps. I remember when lead singer Lux Interior passed away in early 2009. I was glad to see that another band was going to try and fill their shoes, although I knew it was going to be an extremely difficult task.
People around me got to talking about where to go afterwards, either the Lamppost Bar, Lucky 7’s or a costume party at Parlay Studios. I just wanted to see the Cramps. A tattooed youth got up to the microphone. I could see their set list, which only had five songs on it.
40 seconds in the sludgy classic, “Human Fly,” the microphones and power cut out. A universal groan spread out. A full five minutes later, they started up the song again, and, like a bad T.V. re-run, the power cut out, again. This time, the singer tried to entertain the crowd like Interior might have, rubbing his crotch against the P.A. system, the stage, the girl bass player. But of course, there’s only so much a man can hump before the audience is going to want a change of scenery.
Three more times: power turning on, the band starting up the power cutting out. It was becoming embarrassing. But as I looked around at the hundreds in the cemetery, at Marge Simpson, Wayne from Wayne's World, a few rastafarians, the Blues Brothers, an escaped convict, Wonder Woman, Superman, Frankenstein, Groucho Marx, a bloody doctor, an army of zombies in corpse paint and fake blood…none of them were making moves to leave. I understood that this was more than just a celebration of music, or even more than a fundraiser for a graveyard (which evidently ended up raising money $4,000). This was an event about community, about solidarity.
The band started up again and finished without interruptions. The bass player couldn’t keep in tune or in rhythm. They were awful but it didn’t matter, because we were all there.
Somewhere upstairs, Uncle Joe smiled.
