Four bands reminded Friday just how important this storied culture still is
NEW BRUNSWICK -- "Come closer!"
They are 60 shadows inching forward, flickering between flashes of colored light. The heat from their bodies forms condensation on the exposed pipes just inches above their heads. Beads of moisture drip down onto the cracked concrete floor.
Listeners nearest to the music can reach out and touch Joe Zorzi, the impassioned frontman of local hard-rockers Modern Chemistry, as he hammers hard on his Gibson SG and thrashes at eye level.
There is no stage -- no room, no need.
Every time someone opens the door at the top of the splintered staircase, to join what's quickly become hottest party on campus, the sound spills full-volume out into the street.
Which street? We aren't allowed to say.
Welcome to a New Brunswick basement show, where devotion to independent music remains unfettered and thriving, and each moment in the underground is joyously imperfect and real.
Hosted in homes, a small collective scattered about the Rutgers University campus, these frenetic gatherings have since the late '80s fueled a scene that regularly grooms worldwide rock and punk stars. Many large college towns from Boston to Albuquerque offer basement shows, but few cultures are as storied as New Jersey's raging heritage.
The list of now-beloved bands who first coalesced in sweltering and often cryptically named residential venues -- "Paradise Lost," "The Bunker" and "J House" are some current monikers -- reads like a main-stage festival lineup: The Bouncing Souls, Lifetime, Thursday, Saves The Day, Midtown, The Gaslight Anthem and Screaming Females have all wailed through makeshift PA systems and jammed while avoiding damage to furnaces and french drains.
Fans dance at a basement show in New Brunswick, March 24, 2017. (Matthew Smith | For NJ.com) Even if Asbury Park has recently returned as our state's musical nerve center, with the brick-and-mortar venues and infrastructure to prove it, New Brunswick remains as the New Jersey scene's unadulterated, pounding heart.
However the Central Jersey culture is not nearly as prominent as it was 25 years ago, when The Bouncing Souls booked concerts in their own home on Commercial Avenue and flyers blanketed the college campus. Today, the cluster of houses that still schedule shows do so with reticence; locations for upcoming events are traded like stock secrets -- rarely will you see an address posted to a Facebook event, paper flyers are long gone -- in efforts to avoid attention from police. A city noise ordinance has been strictly enforced for the last decade.
Yet simultaneously there is great demand for these guerrilla gigs; amid the state's largest student population, many New Brunswick venues have either shuttered over the last two decades, or book mostly 21-and-over events. These basement shows fulfill a need, not only for young fans (who typically pay a $5 or $10 cover fee), but for the bands themselves. The energy is electric at these small performances, with much less pressure than playing an established venue. One good show builds a heap of confidence for an otherwise unproven group, who can more readily experience the rock star fantasy with a few-dozen listeners dancing wildly and chanting to their songs.
Band anonymity wasn't the case Friday night. Down inside a nondescript house a few blocks from the College Avenue main drag, four of the state's strongest local outfits -- all of whom have already developed cultish followings in pockets around New Jersey and elsewhere -- teamed up for an exhilarating performance.
For Modern Chemistry, the only group of the night native to New Brunswick, basement shows have become warm-ups, to stay fresh between tours. The band, who mixes alternative rock and emo-punk in concurrence with Brand New or Manchester Orchestra, has already hit the road with genre stars Mayday Parade and will tour the U.S. with emo titans Taking Back Sunday this summer. With much larger shows on his resume, the affable singer Zorzi worked easily within the manic crowd and raged through the group's most anthemic number "Never Scared," a song of explosive highs that sent crowd members flying across the 20-by-20-foot room.
The night's hottest performance came from Deal Casino, a polished Asbury Park four-piece who have gigged tirelessly between the two cities over the last four years. Residencies at The Saint and Langosta Lounge in Asbury Park have clearly paid dividends for the pop-rockers; the band unleashed a seamless, synth-bolstered set that riled the crowd into frenzy. Singer Joe Parella noted to the crowd how unaccustomed his guys were to fans moshing to their music, and at a point in the set where DC had planned for a ballad, they quickly swapped in their heaviest tune, an Arctic Monkeys-esque jam called "Panama Papers," to maximize the moment.
Deal Casino, a rock band from Asbury Park, performs at a basement show in New Brunswick, March 24, 2017. (Matthew Smith | For NJ.com) Deal Casino's set came to a thrilling end when their first successful single, 2014's "Bang Bang Bang," was extended into a deep, mid-song deconstruction. The audience quieted as Parella crooned, with just a light kick-drum behind him. Moment by moment, guitars flooded in and drove the song to a soaring conclusion. Fans shrieked for more.
The set was a constant reminder of how the band scored an opening spot at Delaware's enormous Firefly festival in June, or how two Deal Casino songs, "Bare Hands" and "Anything That's Bad," recently took off on Spotify, and together now total more than 1 million listens.
A slot earlier, The Vaughns, an eclectic, female-fronted group from Springfield wowed with a tight mix of garage-punk, surf and hard-rock. Singer Anna Lies was magnetic at center, with a quivering, idiosyncratic and even coy vocal delivery that all but forces you to listen in.
The Vaughns, a rock band from Springfield, performs at a basement show in New Brunswick, March 24, 2017. (Matthew Smith | For NJ.com) Asbury Park's new punk-rock mega-group, the as-large-as-10-piece Teenage Halloween, opened with just three members Friday, but singer Luke Henderiks still delivered enough punky petulance to fill the room.
Of course, the hiccups that come with any DIY show were present throughout the night: too much feedback from a speaker, one band's drummer accidentally swiping another's snare, that moisture we mentioned dripping on everyone -- hopefully none fell into the beer cans folks brought from home, no booze was served this night.
But ultimately that is part of the basement shows' raw charm. Gear cases are piled into a dark corner, and no one can find anything. A stranger shines a flashlight while a band member looks for his stuff. He says "Thanks. Hey, what's your name?" They become friends, the community grows.
Friday is a good night. The police haven't been called. The music hurtles along.
Teenage Halloween, a punk band from Asbury Park, performs at a basement show in New Brunswick, March 24, 2017. (Matthew Smith | For NJ.com) Bobby Olivier may be reached at bolivier@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @BobbyOlivier and Facebook. Find NJ.com on Facebook.