Have you seen the green? Our mothership site redbankgreen continues to outdo all other major (and mynah) media for coverage of Red Bank’s landmark 50th anniversary edition of  KaBoom Fireworks on the Navesink, from some gull’s-eye views of the arriving barges, to the anticipated album of images from this year’s Third of July spectacular, still to set it off as we post this.

Of course, in Red Bank the Fourth is a relatively mellow affair; a collective “KaBoom-heit” if you will. But it’s our understanding that many of the surrounding communities curiously observe Independence Day on July 4. Over in Sea Bright, summer Santa Tim McLoone and the Shirleys retake the beach for a pre-pyrotechnics concert that starts at 7pm (with a Fifth of July raindate). West Long Branch has the era-spanning Party Dolls sparking the fireworks over at Franklin Lake, while Colts Neck has bands on the ground and bangs in the air at Bucks Mill Park. 

Over at Ocean Grove’s Great Auditorium, there’s the long-traditional patriotic concert by America’s oldest band — no, not the Jukes; it’s Sousa march specialists The Allentown Band, who we believe knew Sgt. Pepper back in the day. In Asbury Park the revels start early with the annual parade commencing from the area of Cookman and Grand Avenues at 1pm, and the Atlantic Highlands Fireman’s Fair continues Friday and Saturday, with fireworks, food and other fair fare in the always-appreciated setting of the municipal harbor — where on July 4 the winner of the annual boat decorating contest will be revealed.

But if any town around here could be said to have put an own on the Fourth of July, it’s the city of Long Branch, where for the 19th consecutive year the day-long Oceanfest celebration takes full advantage of the city’s long stretch of public beaches and boards to present a carnival/fair atmosphere unlike any other — one that does away with the usual sprawling layout in favor of a stroll that follows the shoreline Promenade, from the Ocean Place Resort & Spa and the assembled shops and eateries of Pier Village, onto the famous Moss Mile, where you can follow your own bliss to some of our favorite West End attractions, and get a healthful walk in the process. Although you’re gonna be running a tempting gauntlet of sausage sandwiches, cheese fries, funnelcakes and plenty of other deep-fried (and deeply felt) delights.

Credit goes out to the Greater LB Chamber of Commerce for pulling this thing together against all odds in this, our year of the corporate-donor fiscal fizzle. If any corners were cut, they’re not showing on the posted Entertainment Schedule, with kid-themed productions and fave dance bands (Ray Rodriguez y Swing Sabroso, The Jazz Lobsters) working the stage of the Great Lawn near the northern end of the Fest. At the Garfield Memorial Site (the plaza honoring the “Seven Presidents” of Long Branch, out back of Ocean Place) you’ll find demonstrations of martial arts, gymnastics and magic, plus a rare performance by Basha Alperin Alade’s organization ZEYBRAH — the one of a kind local exponent of Afro-Caribbean culture that brings some amazing sights and sounds to the promenade each year with the Oceans of Rhythm Festival.

Perhaps most exciting of all — in its own slow and quiet way — is the annual Sand Sculpture Competition, a tourney that attracts some of the genuine masters of this ephemeral art form. While it might not pack the same kind of thrill as watching professional beach volleyball, we recommend taking time to watch these castle kings at work, decreeing into existence some truly awe-inspiring palaces, as well as locally iconic items like the Monmouth University Hawks mascot and, once, a model of Red Bank’s K. Hovnanian building made of sand.

The whole thing climaxes with a top-notch fireworks display that claims to be “the largest along the Jersey coast.” We’ll leave Long Branch and Red Bank to parse sparks over this one. All music fans should follow us now to the next page, where we’ve laid out a few hot tips on the weekend’s races; the rest of you have a safe and a sane, and we’ll see you back here on Monday for the start of another revved up week.

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Both Josh Zuckerman and Quincy Mumford have apparently found their own way around the famous parking crunch, as they prep to play the Marine Park stage at Friday’s KaBoom! Fireworks on the Navesink.

It’s like the champagne clink and chandelier-swing of New Year’s Eve, versus the puffy-faced Twilight Zone marathon of New Year’s Day. Or Mischief Night, filled with curfews and eggshells begging to be broken, as opposed to the structured letdown of the boomer-hijacked holiday of Halloween.

What we’re saying is sometimes The Night Before is the one to watch. It’s certainly the case in Red Bank, where, for as long as anyone can remember, the Fourth of July has occurred on the Third of July. In other words, the borough declared its independence from Independence Day as observed all over the map. You got a problem with that? Didn’t think so.

While opinions vary as to why this quaint local custom took hold — it pretty much boils down to not competing head-on with the beach towns and the big Macy’s event — all agree that was once was quaint, now simply ain’t. KaBoom Fireworks on the Navesink — the branded event, the nonprofit organization, the trademark — has long ago laid claim to the title of biggest July 4th pyrotechnics event in the state, and no amount of traffic jams, overtime costs or neighbor-against-neighbor tensions over parking spaces is going to change that anytime soon.

One thing that almost did change the game was The Economy, capitalized like so when it turns ornery. With many once-dependable corporate sponsors begging off from their previous levels of support, the KaBoom kommittee was hit hard — and they in turn staged a hard-hitting drive for small, individual-donor contributions that, in addition to a couple of hot-ticket fundraiser events, helped tackle production costs that committee chairman Peter Reinhart estimated at nearly $200,000. The organization also proudly announced that they met and exceeded their call for volunteers.

If you’re concerned that corners are going to be cut this year — shorter fuses, for example — rest assured that the big sky show aims to keep that bar sky-high. Gone are the days when nonprofessionals handled the pyrotechnics (check this archive story for an anecdote from olden times) — with the Santore family of Garden State Fireworks bringing their computer-timed extravaganza back to the river for the fourth year since taking over from the Grucci company.

The borough and the business community are doing everything in their power to make more than 150,000 guests welcome and comfortable — with metered parking suspended for the entirety of July 3, a smorgasbord of dinner specials around town and a general sense that, weather permitting of course, we’ll all enjoy ourselves. The KaBoom website has the crucial info on parking, transportation and VIP dinner options — and tune in to our mothership site redbankgreen for the most complete coverage as the big day unfolds. Then Continue Reading for our take on the event’s live entertainment.

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Mike Ski of the AKAs, a popular band currently on the Warped Tour, created this example of screen print art on display for one night only at Asbury Lanes as part of the show OH SAY CAN YOU SCREEN!

By DOROTHY CREAMER

As one of the self-described “galleristas” at Asbury Park’s Parlor Gallery,  Sarah Potter is well versed in promoting unusual art.

Despite any imagery conjured up by the name, the Parlor is not some overstuffed sitting room full of tranquilizing landscapes and still lifes, but a confidently lit, wide open space for less mainstream stuff — such as the current installation La Petit Mort: A Collection of Erotica, from which a slideshow of the opening appeared right here in oRBit (scroll down and hit “previous entries”).

Potter admits that she does harbor some artistic inclinations of her own — but for the moment her energies are being focused on “helping other artists who want to get out there,” in addition to her role as curator, for a special one-night art happening that takes place on the Fourth of July — a little thing called Oh Say Can You Screen!

A celebration of screen printing, Oh Say… is the long-germinating brainchild of Potter and her pal Pete Pedersen, aka Sweet Sweedersen, a bartender and mainstay at Asbury Lanes. It’s at the Lanes that the screen-print show goes up this Saturday, in a one-night-only event that Potter hopes will offer the public a new perspective on the art form.

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Southside Johnny, Bobby Bandiera and the Asbury Jukes inaugurate the Stone Pony SummerStage for their annual 4th of July show tomorrow, July 2. (Photo by Mike Black)

By TOM CHESEK

“I’d wish you a merry Christmas,” said Southside Johnny Lyon to the crowd at last December’s Hope Concert in Red Bank. “But it would be out of character.”

Maybe Christmas and Southside Johnny are an uneasy mix — this, after all, is the guy who Springsteen introduced as The Grinch when he sauntered onto the stage — but you can hardly call him a holiday humbug when he’s got one, maybe even two, all to himself. 

There’s the long-running Asbury Jukes concert every December 31 at the Count Basie — a tradition that by rights should net him the title of Mr. New Year’s Eve. But there’s also another, warm-weather complement, in that for the past several years it’s become a tradition for Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes to return to their old Stone Pony stomping grounds on or about the Fourth of July, for a concert on the club’s adjoining SummerStage (actually the grounds of the long-gone Mrs. Jay’s, for all you old-timers). It’s a tradition that continues tomorrow evening, Thursday July 2nd.

So you see the man is about the season of corn-on-the-cob and sparklers just as much as the season of highballs and noisemakers. We call that well-rounded, and if you’re searching for a way to tie it all together thematically, may we humbly nominate Johnny Lyon for Toastmaster General of the United States, a ceremonial office that’s been vacant since the death of (once famous, now forgotten) George Jessel.

Still residing in his hometown of Ocean Grove (”although my girlfriend lives in Europe”), still exploring new facets of his big R&B sound (check out Grapefruit Moon, his recent album of Tom Waits interpretations with LaBamba’s Big Band), Johnny Lyon nonetheless doesn’t overexpose himself to local audiences. An Asbury Jukes concert is still an event; a destination attraction worth peeling your summer-sticky flesh off that vinyl seat with that awful sucking noise, and heading out to be part of the party.

Always a fun interview, Southside Johnny spoke to Red Bank oRBit here on the eve of the Pony show. Continue Reading for best results — and don’t forget to check out our interview with Jukes guitarist Bobby Bandiera, also here in today’s oRBit.

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Bobby Bandiera appears tonight in a rare rock and roll concert at the Axelrod Performing Arts Center in Deal — just hours before taking the Stone Pony SummerStage with Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes for their annual 4th of July show on Thursday. 

In an interview that appeared several months back here in oRBit, Bobby Bandiera proved why he deserves to be called the Hardest Working Man in Shore Business, explaining the origin and continuing exploration of the series of conceptually themed concerts known as the Jersey Shore Rock ‘N Soul Revue. 

Now that alone might be enough for most anybody to rest their laurels on, but since “rest” to Bandiera is nothing more a little line on a bar of music, that ain’t gonna happen. The original Cat on a Smooth Surface continues to seem everywhere at once — and in a million different musical contexts. For instance, as we post this he’s just come off the road with Bon Jovi as trusty tour guitarist, a role that the go-to guitarslinger has fulfilled for The Boss, The Bonj’ and many other musical legends.

About a day and a half after arriving back home, Bandiera and a custom-picked band will be taking the stage of the Axelrod Performing Arts Center (at the JCC of Monmouth in Deal) tonight, Wednesday July the first, for a rare rocking event that promises to mix some best-loved tunes from 1960s and 70s with some original Bandiera tunes. The 8pm show is preceded at 6:30 by a Rock ‘N Roll Summer Cocktail Party in the lobby of the Axelrod theatre, complete with mojitos and hors d’oeuvres catered by Stingers/656 Ocean in Long Branch.

But wait, there’s more — just twenty hours after the last note of the Axelrod show, Bandiera switches gears once more, as he reclaims his 24-year guitar gig with Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes for what’s become a July 4 weekend “homecoming” tradition — a Thursday evening concert that inaugurates a new season on the outdoor Stone Pony SummerStage. Then on the evening of July 17, he’ll be doing an in-store appearance at Jack’s Music Shoppe in Red Bank, for all you recession-busting rockers out there.

This is to say nothing of his next project with the Rock ‘N Soul Revue, an August 8 Tribute to Trios that expands the core concept of the guitar/bass/drums axis in some fairly fascinating ways. We reckoned we’d ask him about all these things.

Of course, when Red Bank oRBit managed to get a bead on this perpetually moving target, he was out on tour with Bon Jovi. So what was he up to when we got him on the phone — sipping mint juleps at a four-star hotel poolside? Signing autographs for humbled heads of state? Spelunking depths of rockstar debauchery unseen since the classic days of Led Zeppelin?

“I’m walking around a mall in Milwaukee,” the family-guy rocker said over a background of shouting kids and shopping-center music. “This is what we do with our downtime.”

Read on, pilgrims…

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Tell Automatic Slim: Never imitated, always in style, the pioneer blues guitarist Hubert Sumlin visits the Asbury Park boardwalk for a special show this Thursday night.

By TOM CHESEK

There’s an oft-told tale that appears on the official website of Hubert Sumlin, the 77 year old blues guitar innovator whose most enduring legacy remains his long association with the late great Chester Burnette, aka The Howlin’ Wolf. It involves a ten year old blues fan named Hubert, a sneaky trip over to the local juke joint to peer through the window at Mr. Wolf’s set, an impromptu stage debut (through the window and onto the bandstand) and the start of an association that would last from the mid 1950s through to the Wolf’s passing in 1976. There would almost be something kind of Little Rascals about it, were it not for the fact that this cute story would eventually result in such chillingly razor-edged recordings as “Killing Floor,” and “Evil is Goin’ On.”

Having relocated to Chicago from the Memphis area (”I was the only one ever drove out of the South like a gentleman”), Wolf and his young, finger-technique guitar lieutenant were just hitting their stride as the early days of what would become the British Invasion dawned; influencing an eager young generation of UK rockers and fostering the wisdom that a world without Wolf would likely be a world without the Stones, Clapton and Page.

Check out some of the period footage of Wolf and Sumlin in action, drawn in many cases from European TV shows. On performances like “Shake It For Me” and “Meet Me In The Bottom” (love those bags of potato chips clipped to the wall behind Wolf) the singer and the guitarist do nothing less than establish the template for Mick and Keith and Tyler and Perry and Jon and Richie and hundreds of other classic combos.

To those of us for whom the blues pretty much begins and ends with these guys, the Wolf voice — a voice that even his own mother likened to the pipes of the devil himself — is a wondrous thing; a sound that roars up like a giant monster and curls at the edges into a sneer that makes each line a steel fish-hook that’ll rip out your lower lip if you get too close.

And there’s Sumlin’s guitar; choppy, primitive, jagged shards of blues that have more to do with The Stooges than the studied, museum-piece sounds dealt out by a lot of festival players. You hear broken glass, kudzu, streetcars flattening fifty-cent pieces, corpses in a mangrove swamp. 

Hubert Sumlin is still gigging around out there; undaunted by age or major surgery and still getting phone calls from people like Clapton, David Johansen, Levon Helm and Keith Richards — all of whom guested on his most recent album, About Them Shoes. On Thursday, July 2, the guitarist and his band (including Kenny “Stringbean” Sorensen, Dan Mulvey and the Rollins Band’s Sim Cain!) visit Langosta Lounge on the Asbury Park boardwalk in a 9pm show for which reservations should be made at (732)455-3275. Red Bank oRBit spoke to the old master about memorably bad gigs, good friends, heavy weather and dressing for the occasion. Read on.

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Lost in the Supermarket: The Today Show’s Janice Lieberman reviews those aisle encounters and other vital consumer info when she comes to Long Branch this Wednesday night for a Girls’ Night Out in support of her new book HOW TO SHOP FOR A HUSBAND.

By DIANA MOORE

For more than ten years now, Janice Lieberman has served as the Consumer Smarts correspondent for NBC’s Today Show — advising us on the intricacies of shopping for such high-ticket items as jewelry, electronics, beauty/ fitness services and cars. So it stands to reason that she’d eventually turn her eagle eye to one of the most significant selections of a woman’s life — a subject that she covers with genuine insight, gentle humor and common sense in her recently published book, How to Shop for a Husband.

It’s a topic that, surprisingly, hasn’t been addressed anywhere near as much as the rules of dating or “modern” relationships on the best-seller list — but in How to Shop, the regular contributor to Readers Digest and frequent presence on Fine Living Network points out that, as consumers, we make shopping lists when we go scouting around for groceries, gifts, and clothes — but we also need to carry that same savvy attitude and keep the list in mind when shopping for a mate, a “considered purchase” not as easily exchangeable as other, impulse-buy items.

“You don’t want to go into a relationship and need someone to change completely,” says Lieberman. “But a few minor alterations are OK, just like that classic little black dress. If it needs a hem, that’s fine, but if it needs major re-altering, leave it on the shelf.”

On Wednesday, July 1st, Lieberman visits Avenue/ Le Club at Pier Village on the Long Branch promenade for a special “Girls’ Night Out” event in which she’ll be reading from and signing copies of her book. It’s another presentation by Book It! Events, the literary-minded producers of personal-appearance excitement who’ve brought Robert Wagner, Joyce Carol Oates and other notable people to venues all over eastern Monmouth County.

Book It! founders Jacquie Fiorito and Kim Widener — who are in the process of rebranding their business as BookMark It Events — recently established their own home venue at The Grove at Shrewsbury, where on July 8 they’ll be hosting journalist Kelly Corrigan for an appearance in support of her personal memoir The Middle Place. More on that event later.

Red Bank oRBit spoke to the busy Lieberman by phone late last week. Continue Reading to find out why men are like yogurt — and why you should only date someone who’s uglier than you.

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A BasieCam scene from last October shows the new custom-made chandelier being hoisted into the ceiling skyscape.

Cancel all appointments, leave the kids to hitch home from the game and sling some PopTarts for dinner this Tuesday night — anyone who’s a fan of Red Bank in general and the Count Basie Theatre in particular won’t want to miss what the venerable venue has in store on the evening of June 30.

It’s a free world premiere screening of The Basie is Back, a 40-minute documentary detailing the story behind the 80 year old auditorium’s massive, four-month facelift project last year; a long-delayed, donor-funded undertaking that was given a major boost by a special Springsteen concert in May of 2008 — and opened to the eyes and ears of the theatergoing public last October 30 with a show by another favorite Jersey ShoreCat, Bobby Bandiera.

According to Count Basie CEO Numa C. Saisselin, filmmaker Steve Rubino of the Margate-based videography company Handprint Productions approached the Basie board at the outset of the 2008 project, with the idea of chronicling the transformation of the old hall and lobby areas from a place of plaster “dandruff” and blandly whitewashed walls, to a spectacular space befitting its status as a favorite whistle-stop for some of the most hallowed names in show business.

For Saisselin and company, the 2008 capital campaign (spearheaded by board member Russell Lucas) and interior makeover are just the latest and most visible manifestations of an ongoing process that began in 1995 — a work-in-progress that’s included a new roof, new seats, new marquee, new tech booth, plus modern security, alarm and climate control systems.

So, if you’re thinking that the project is a wrap, think again. And if you’re thinking that you’ll sit out Tuesday’s show and catch up with the film later on, that may be easier said than done.

As Saisselin maintains, there are no scheduled screenings beyond the 8pm Tuesday showing. No DVD copies available for purchase. No immediate plans to stream it on the theatre’s website. Just this one-time community event, during which the people of the Basie get to rest on their laurels for just a little bit under an hour — before hunkering back down to the business of planning the next phase of the restoration.

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