The true story of Tom and Margaret Potter’s Upstage scene

   In a time when social unrest and Vietnam were reaching a boiling point, music was the communal salve that healed all wounds. In the city of Asbury Park, culture and art clashed head on into some of the…

Kill The Alarm

JC Dobbs

December 9, 2011

PHILADELPHIA, PA—When New Jersey performer Garen Gueyikian (aka Kill The Alarm) sent an invite for a South Street Philly show, I thought, “What the hell?” A night out of the Shoreworld zone and into the City of Brotherly Love sounded like a…

AURIN—Northern NJ
With this week’s band, I did something a little different. I was on Twitter when I noticed a Sarah Anderson had started following me. I didn’t know who she was, so I took a look at her profile and it turned out she was the lead singer…

STRANGERS PASS—Rahway, NJ

I finally had a chance to listen to a CD that was mailed to me this year. The CD is a self-titled EP from a band called Strangers Pass out of Rahway, NJ, and I actually thought it was pretty good. There was nothing mind-blowing about…

Mike Chick: Hello Mountain

   Grand Alto was a band that graced the Shoreworld pages more than once. Featuring dark, tongue-in-cheek compositions, the band used killer chops to make their climb to the top of the Jersey heap before mysteriously calling it a day.

   Rising from the…

SANITARIUS—Staten Island, NY

I was recently contacted about a great metal band out of Staten Island, NY, called Sanitarius. After listening to a few of their songs, I love these guys! Sanitarius take it old school with their brand of metal. Their sound on songs like “Paradigm,” “Eyes To…

Pete Myers: Jigsaw Monet

The old saying, “You can’t keep a good man down” was custom written for this Manasquan, New Jersey, artist. Peter Myers is a songwriter with so much background history that I’m always shocked that writers don’t talk about him on a regular basis.

Myers’…

THE DEAD AGAINS—Belle Mead, NJ

I was recently contacted on The Aquarian’s website about this new band out of Central Jersey called The Dead Agains. When they contacted us, they labeled themselves as a punk and metal band, but when I logged onto their ReverbNation page, reverbnation.com/thedeadagains, they had…

   There seems to be fewer bands that utilize antics and theatrical mayhem. To be honest, when I go see a rock band and they all kind of mope around like emotionally troubled vampires staring at their Sketchers, it doesn’t do shit for me. The fastest way to disconnect…

DARKNESS DESCENDS—Rockaway, NJ

Darkness Descends singer Angry Jay North recently reached out to me to check his band out for North Jersey Notes. In the email, Jay explained to me that Darkness Descends won The Break Contest two years in a row earning them an opportunity to play the…