News + Reviews

The Most Exciting and Important Music News in New Jersey
Mike Greenblatt Mike Greenblatt

Webathon To Benefit Spondylitis Sufferers

South Amboy Internet radio station BlowUpRadio.com (“Where New Jersey Rock Lives”), will broadcast its 19th annual ‘Banding Together Webathon” October 16, 17 & 18 to benefit the Spondylitis Association of America, a non-profit organization “educating, empowering and advocating for people living with spondylo-arthritis.

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Mike Greenblatt Mike Greenblatt

The New Jersey Punk Rock Flea Market Returns

The Devil called the folks who put on the New Jersey Punk Rock Flea Market. He asked for their souls. They gave him a flea market instead. So this year it’s “The Jersey Devil Night Market” Saturday October 17 from 3:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. at the N.J. Expo Center on Sunfield Avenue in Edison with bizarre stage acts, live music, Tarot readings, photo ops, taxidermy, a Black Mass Pop-Up Art Show, food trucks, live fire and dark art performances, “Sinister Sellers” (with 100+ Strange Oddities) and an “Evil Costume” contest.

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Mike Greenblatt Mike Greenblatt

Sinatra Tribute Tonight!

The all-star 7:00 p.m. tribute will take place at Hunter College’s Kaye Playhouse on 68th Street between Park and Lexington in Manhattan TONIGHT.

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Mike Greenblatt Mike Greenblatt

Patriarchs In Black Want ‘No More Blood’

Paramus Metal Warriors Patriarchs In Black are ready To Serve Man, as the title of their new album says, but not until January 8. For now, though, they want “No More Blood” because they, in the words of profound lyricist and lead guitarist Dan Lorenzo, “just want to get back home.”   

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Mike Greenblatt Mike Greenblatt

ProgStock 2026

The Rutherford Williams Center will host America’s largest International Progressive Rock Festival—the 2026 edition of ProgStock—starting Thursday for three days with a Sunday after-party at Bolero Snort Brewery on 20th Street in Carlstadt.

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Mike Greenblatt Mike Greenblatt

Jersey City Becomes An Art Colony This Weekend

For the first four days of October, Jersey City is an art colony when the 37th Annual Jersey City Art & Studio Tour (JCAST) returns. The celebration will include artists, galleries, live music, exhibitions, murals, tours and “cultural experiences across all six wards of Jersey City,” according to the town itself. The theme this year is “Unbounded Nature.”

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Mike Greenblatt Mike Greenblatt

Camden County Band Gets ‘Tangled In The Vines’

From the mild streets of Hadden Heights in Camden County, the boyz of alt-emo band Sleep In sing of friendship, self-loathing, daydreaming, personal struggle and “the strange rituals of party culture” on their fourth album, Tangled In The Vines

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Mike Greenblatt Mike Greenblatt

Remembering Pioneer Guitarist Emily Remler

Born in 1957 Englewood Cliffs, guitarist Emily Remler gravitated towards Louisiana then Hollywood, stunning audiences and record-buyers alike with her incredible jazz licks like the second coming of Wes Montgomery [1923-1968], developing his thumb technique and his octaves. She was 32 when she died on tour in Australia after a lifetime of abusing opioids. She would have been 70 next year when Firefly: The Emily Remler Story, a new documentary, tries to unravel the reasons.

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Mike Greenblatt Mike Greenblatt

The Count (and The Duke) are Jazz Royalty

T2 Music has released Royalty: The Music of Duke Ellington and Count Basie by the Springfield Symphony Jazz Orchestra. It’s a magnificent tribute to the two composers, complete with alto sax (2), tenor sax (2), clarinet, baritone sax, trumpet (6), trombone (3), tambourine, piano (2), guitar, bass, drums (2) and vocals (2). The Count Basie Orchestra recorded the 1949 Memphis Slim hit “Everyday I Have The Blues” with Joe Williams in 1955. Here, Kurt Elling sings it.

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Mike Greenblatt Mike Greenblatt

Maithili Raelle Chooses Herself in Empowering Anthem

“I Choose Me,” by Indian-American Maithili Relle, raised in Asbury Park, is a jolt of electricity between herself and Brooklyn-born rapper Hiii Siddity. Her sense of pop history results in how within the song she samples “Where My Girls At,” the 1999 hit by Las Vegas girl group 702.

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Mike Greenblatt Mike Greenblatt

2026 Central Jersey Free Jazz Festival

Anyone in or around Watchung Avenue in Plainfield on Sunday October 4 is in for a treat. Starting at noon for six hours, WBGO Personality/Author/Newark Museum of Art Jazz Curator  Sheila Anderson will host the 2026 Central Jersey Jazz Fest…and it’s free. Jazz House Kids will open. Rain or shine. Complete with food, art and vendors.

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Mike Greenblatt Mike Greenblatt

Tadpoles Are Back

Todd Parker started Tadpoles in mid-‘80s Hoboken as a vehicle for his songs, vocals and psychedelic guitar shrieks. As the 1990s dawned, he found some like-minded musicians in New York City that loved his brand of noise-pop space-rock. Down now to a trio of Parker (guitar, bass, vocals, synthesizer), drummer David Max and Nick Kramer (electronics), they sound a little something like Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd.

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Eleni Hagen Eleni Hagen

Jersey’s Golden Door: Grammy-Winner Julie Gold Looks Back at Immigrant Legacy in New Short Film

The road to legendary American songwriter status? For many, it could only have begun in New Jersey. Such is the story behind a new short film entitled “Harbor of Hope,” tracing the life and legacy of “From a Distance” composer Julie Gold and her Russian American mother, now an official selection of NJ Web Fest 2026 (September 24-27) at the Clairidge Theater in Montclair. 

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Mike Greenblatt Mike Greenblatt

New Brunswick Band Releases First New Album In 20 Years

Never Say Die is the first new music by New Brunswick emo-pop-punk band Tokyo Rose in 20 years. Currently on the road with Pittsburgh alt-rock powerhouse Punchline, their new single, “Better When,” is, according to the band, the “fever dream of a manic depressive.”

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Mike Greenblatt Mike Greenblatt

Pantera to Headline The 10-Band ‘Great NOLA Trendkill’

Pantera frontman Phil Anselmo is going home to Louisiana to perform—for the first time in 30 years—at his hometown New Orleans Lakefront Arena and he’s bringing nine other bands with him. The two-day event on November 20-21 will also feature Down, Black Label Society, Power Trip, Corrosion of Conformity, Crowbar, Pig Destroyer, Eyehategod, Rade and Herakleion.

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Mike Greenblatt Mike Greenblatt

Longtime Jersey Sideman Finally Goes Solo At 41

Adam Zurbruegg has toiled in Tri-State bars most of his adult life with cover bands and as a sideman. The 41-year old Little Falls resident has now taken the plunge into original material with the release of Then Again by Adam & The Elephants, due this Friday.

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