Jay Mazeffect's Review of Bastards Of Meldody, The Tea & Whiskey, The Successful Failures @ Buddie's Tavern 7/24/10

Rock & Roll Is Alive And Well, And Not On Your Radio

(The Successful Failures, The Tea & Whiskey, and The Bastards Of Melody live at Buddies Tavern 7-24-10)

I was having a conversation the other day with a friend of mine, over marginally decent pizza*, about how the radio and mainstream print is a veritable cultrual wasteland when it comes to finding "new" music. I say "new" in the sense of being introduced to an artist for the first time, and not necessarily in the sense that they just started producing music this year. Both he and I agreed that blogs, are pretty much, where it's at, and combing through them are like raking over the local record store of yore for something new and exciting, and all the more are the place where you take a chance on something you are unfamiliar with like you might have back in the day when albums, tapes, cd's were actually affordably priced. The coversation wrapped up, and we went on our seperate ways, and it was afterwards that my mind floated back to the previous weekend, and the show I atteneded at Buddies Tavern, in Parlin, NJ.

You see, Buddies is one of the few venues that actively supports orginal music, and doesn't see it as the red-headed stepchild of the cover band trade. So on any given Saturday, you can walk in there and hear something "new". It's not always good, sometimes great, and other times magical, like the first time you got laid, or the first time you borrowed you parent's car and went out driving on your own, or the first time you heard your favorite song (you know, the one that will follow you around for the rest of your life**). Saturday night, July 24th, 2010, was THAT kind of night.

I arrived midway through The Successful Failures set, and immediately were drawn into their midwest by way of the Raritan River rock and roll stylings. It was if the Replacements, circa "Pleased To Meet Me" were playing a set in my local watering hole. It's amazing how one band can restore your waining faith in live rock and roll.

Already feeling my journey out was completely justified, The Tea & Whiskey performed next. Complete disclosure: I've known Scruff (the guitarist/vocalist) for many a year now, but that doesn't change the fact that this band has a potential that all of his previous projects didn't. I've always wanted Scruff to sing more/shout less, and to channel his inner Elvis Costello, and this band does just that. Complimented with the equal but opposite stylings of bassist J, who is the musical yin to Scruff's yang, and with the veritable middle ground being filled by the cute as a button Steph Z on drums, it's really great to see a band in its infancy knowing that they are on a clear trajectory for great things.

Rounding out the night was The Bastards Of Melody. The "Tim" to The Successful Failures' "Pleased To Meet Me", they played the ragged, melodic sort of indie rock (emphasis on the ROCK) that is sorely missing from most stages in and around the garden state. Seriously, these guys know their way around their instruments, in a way that would embarrass most bands playing the local Live Nation stage. In a perfect world, The Bastards/Tea/Failures tour would be filling Radio City Music Hall. But in lieu of that happening, if you can get your lazy ass off the couch, turn off shark week long enough to venture out in the great wide open New Jersey night, and buy your beer and burgers at a venue that lets you in for FREE, where the bands get paid, and supports a local, homespun rock and roll scene more than any other establishment in the last 20 years, you can accidentally walk into a night chock full of bands that can change your life.

Rock and Roll IS alive and well, and yes it's still out in the real world. Time to shut off my computer, and go out into the real world, and see some bands. Care to join me?

- Jay Mazeffect
8-8-10

* The pizza was a slice of chicken parm.
**My song being "When You Were You" by The Holy Rollers, NJ.


www.thesuccessfulfailures.com

www.myspace.com/theteaandwhiskey

www.bastardsofmelody.com