One of the few bright spots of the global pandemic has been music. We’ve seen members of our favorite local bands from 20 years ago performing streaming concerts, members of our musical community working together to create one-off covers of their favorites or simply having the time to rediscover the music we forgot how much we loved.
Jersey Interchange, a collective of Garden State musicians coming together to cover classic songs from the local punk, ska and hardcore scenes is taking care of the latter.
Previous Jersey Interchange collaborations feature members of Bigwig, Senses Fail, Folly, and Wisdom in Chains among others covering the likes Saves the Day, Weston, Misfits and Lifetime. You can find many of the original tracks along with the entire discography of the Jersey Interchange at the NJPP Archives here.
Today we have the absolute pleasure of premiering the newest track in the series, Ian Musgrove of The June Spirit, Fire Divine and his current solo project Garden of Ian joining Desoto Jones and Kiska guitarist Adam Staszewski for a re-imagining of “Static Snow” originally recorded by Desoto Jones on their 2004 Demo.
Jersey Interchange mastermind Christian Lesperance of Never Again details his experience as Musgrove agreed to be a part of the project:
“I was a big fan of The June Spirit when they were playing around Jersey during the early 2000s. They definitely had a real buzz going for them, and seemed to be on their way to something bigger. Then, it was like they fell off the face of the Earth all of a sudden. They broke up. But I really wanted the June Spirit represented in Jersey Interchange, so I gave it the old community college try and reached out to Ian. To my pleasure, he was really into the idea, and told me he was going to search for the perfect song. Then, much like in the early 2000s, he disappeared into the ether.
He re-appeared with a song and band that I was unfamiliar with, but it was fucking awesome. I dove into Desoto Jones’ discography and discovered so many good songs from the band. I wish I had known about them for the last 15 years!”
Musgrove, who cut his teeth in the early 2000’s South Jersey music scene, says of the track:
“With zero clue which South Jersey song to pick for the project, I reached out to the ‘Reminiscing About The South Jersey Music Scene’ group on Facebook to get some help with picking a song to cover for the project. One of my contemporaries, John Browne of the band Dilemma, suggested I cover “Static Snow” by Desoto Jones. This was perfect… They are still DESTROYING as a band, and out on tour with freakin’ Sponge in 2021!?
I managed to convince Desoto’s lead guitarist and songwriter Adam Staszewski to drop some leads on my version of the song. Outside of that I recorded and programmed the rest in my little janky bedroom studio. To be clear, I believe a good cover song shouldn’t sound anything like the original. Especially when the original is perfect already. All that said, I really hope you guys enjoy it.”
Those of us who were lucky enough to live through or witness late 90s, early 00s pop punk in North Jersey have a trio of gentlemen in addition to Lesperance and the Jersey Interchange keeping our passions ignited. It all started when Jay Vics formerly of Red Rover created the NJPP Facebook group for us to reminisce about the scene that was.
Starting in April, Vics took things one step further by using his time during the pandemic to create the live stream performances known as Quarantunes. Over the six iterations, these live streams have featured performances from some members of the best Jersey bands you may not know; Lanemeyer, Humble Beginnings, LWL and The Youth Ahead, the best Jersey bands you do know; Midtown, Armor for Sleep and The Ergs and some special guests from out of state; Braid, Far, H2O, Weston and The Dead Milkmen. The next volume will take place 2 October with performers not yet announced.
Mike Doyle, formerly of Lanemeyer and Arcade Academy has started a podcast, This Was The Scene. Originally devoted to interviewing members of the local scene in that era and hearing the stories from the perspective of members of the bands, the zines, the promoters and other members of the community. Guests have included members of Dropkick Murphys, Lawrence Arms and Goober Patrol.
Additionally, there is the archivist Joe Pulito of 37 Slurp. Pulito has been a featured performer on both Jersey Interchange and Quarantunes and is known among the community for doing God’s work. Over the last few years, Pulito has put together the NJPP Archives a voluminous online catalog of music, video and flyers from the New Jersey pop-punk and NJPP-adjacent scene from 1994-2002.
Bad Dad (occasionally called Ed) has been on the periphery of the punk and punk-adjacent scene for over twenty years. While many contributors to this site have musical experience and talent, Ed’s musical claim to fame comes from his time in arguably the most punk rock Blockbuster Video district in NJ where he worked alongside members of Blanks 77, Best Hit TV and Brian Fallon. He is more than just an awful father to his 2 daughters, he is also a dreadful husband, a subpar writer, a terrible dresser and has a severe deficiency in all things talent… but hey, at least he’s self-aware, amirite?
Check out the pathetic attempts at photography on his insta at https://www.instagram.com/bad_dad_photography/
