The Jersey City Jazz Festival kicked off this afternoon despite threats from iffy weather and the ongoing construction at Exchange Place. According to organizer Bryan Beninghove, it was touch-and-go this week as the city raced to replace water pipes under the soon-to-be renovated plaza at the foot of Montgomery Street. Whatever stress Beninghove was feeling, […]
Jersey City Music
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Rogue Waves June: Jersey City Jazz Festival and More
The Jersey City Jazz Festival pitches a big tent. This year’s event is the most varied in its history, with very little redundancy in a lineup that involves more than two hundred musicians at thirty shows spread over four early June nights. Tonight’s ticketed kickoff event at White Eagle Hall (337 Newark, $25, show at 8 […]
Posted inPerforming Arts
Rogue Waves May: Live Music in Jersey City
There hasn’t been much action at Monty Hall (43 Montgomery St.) since the beginning of the pandemic. That’s been a shame. Any room affiliated with WFMU — the legendary free-form radio station upstairs — is bound to have exciting bookings. For years, Monty Hall was one of the most reliable spots in Jersey City to […]
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Rogue Waves April: Live Music (and Rocky Horror) in Jersey City
You many have heard recent reports of drag-averse states banning showings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. I take this as a personal insult to Jersey City. Rocky Horror wasn’t created here, but we’ve got a long history with the movie and its attendant phenomena, including some memorably gonzo screenings and performances in the Harsimus Cemetery. Sal Piro, the longtime […]
Posted inPerforming Arts
Rogue Waves February: Six Concerts and an Entreaty
It’s the first of the month, and that means we’ve got some more Jersey City shows to discuss. But before we do, I’ve got an urgent entreaty for you. If you’re in a band, or if you’re a rapper or a pop vocalist, or a local producer, or studio owner — if you’re involved in […]
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Applications Available Soon for This Year’s Grants from JC Arts Tax
This coming Monday the Department of Cultural Affairs will begin accepting applications for calendar year 2023 grants from the Jersey City Arts and Culture Trust Fund, according to a press release issued yesterday by Mayor Fulop. The fund, which is supported by a local property tax, issued its first such grants, which totaled $900,000, in […]
Posted inPerforming Arts, Uncategorized
Rogue Waves January: Joe Bataan, CR and the Nones, Tom Barrett, Debra Devi, and More
Though it’s been imitated plenty of times since 1967, “Subway Joe” remains unique. Everything on the record jostles for attention like buskers in the subway. The piano and the Caribbean drums are blown out, distorted, and gleefully shoved into the red. Trumpets blare with impatience like car horns in rush hour traffic on Fifth Avenue. […]
Posted inVisual Arts
The Jersey City Arts Awards Continue to Confuse and Confound
Onstage at White Eagle Hall, a woman read a poem beside a flock of white birds. The birds were statuettes: pigeon-sized trophies given to the winners of the 2022 Jersey City Arts Awards. The woman was Professor Ann Wallace of the English Department at NJCU, cancer survivor and long COVID sufferer, and the newest Jersey […]
Posted inDowntown, Narrate, Performing Arts
Nation Of Language and GIFT at White Eagle Hall
Tris McCall reviews Nation of Language and GIFT at White Eagle Hall
Posted inPerforming Arts
Album Review: “For Executive Meeting” by The Paranoid Style
Though they’re not shooting for the charts or even a mass audience, they nevertheless elicit powerful responses from the many who feel marginalized by the reverbed-out mushfest that is modern American alt-rock.