While at Princeton earning her Evolutionary Biology degree, Brittany Haas joined the jam-grass band Crooked Still on fiddle with whom she recorded four albums of esoteric bluegrass, folk-grass, jazz-grass and chamber-grass. No telling if she smoked a lot of grass. Probably not. For if Hass is anything, it’s focused. Driven.

Jersey City indie-folk singer-songwriter Jacob Tremont hit his stride in 2025 with the laid-back groove of his wistful “Slow Motion Night.” It’s the title tune of his impressive new album that landed in May on Mint 400 Records out of Passaic County. Tremont’s music fits right alongside Wilco on a mix-tape. He writes of heartbreak and healing in a soothing everyman voice one could easily love.

Hoboken’s Doctor Mister Genius have self-released “Man of Simple Taste,” the latest in a series of singles, this time accentuating their particular brand of Americana Soul (through a Jersey blender). As written by guitarist David Ribyat, it is yet another stab at their freewheeling genre-bend that has up to now included punk, metal and surf.

The Jersey Sound would like to wish everybody a healthy and happy New Year.

Morris County First Night, Ocean City First Night, and Seaside Heights First Night: Train rides, hot air balloons, face painting, fireworks, magic, Rizzo’s Wildlife Show, The OMG Bubbles Dazzling Bubble Show, meet’n’greets with Mickey and Minnie Mouse plus Polynesian Princess Labubu and a singalong with The Hunter Girls.

The 2025 stateside leg of the My Chemical Romance tour is over. Reviews were fantastic. The 2026 Southeast Asia leg of the tour has been pushed back from April to November. Valentino Petrarca, writing in The Aquarian, called it “their most exciting year yet…it’s not just another tour, it’s a whole new world.”

Singer-Songwriter Cyndi Dawson is a gem and records for Jem. She’s a Little Girl Lost, as the title of East Brunswick band The Cynz famously proclaimed on their last album where they covered 1978’s “Tell That Girl To Shut Up” by Holly & The Italians and 1989’s “Room Without A View” by The Smithereens. On January 23, all bets are off, as their new album, Confess, brings the band to a whole ‘nother level.

On January 9, Strikezone Reecords will release Blue Fire by West Orange guitarist-composer-producer-educator Dave Stryker. Recorded at the legendary Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs, it was mixed and mastered at Trading 8s in Paramus. Among its nine tracks is Paul McCartney’s 1967 “The Fool On The Hill,” Charlie Parker’s 1947 “Dexterity” and Jerome Kern’s 1937 “The Folks Who Live On The Hill.”

Lead guitarist Robbie Robertson [1943-2023] wrote “Christmas Must Be Tonight” for bassist Rick Danko [1943-1999] to sing on The Band’s seventh studio album, Islands (1977). Reportedly, he wrote it upon witnessing the birth of his son. Elton John famously loved it.  Train and Ronnie Hawkins covered it. Mark Mulch, originally from Toms River in Ocean County, now living in Nashville, in our humble opinion, has the best cover of all.

Good Damage, the Middlesex County band we wrote about last March when they claimed to be “Better Off Alone,” has gone one step further by wanting to be “Just Alive.”

"I finished writing “Christmas In Songtown” after I returned from a trip to Ireland this fall. I saw buskers on the streets. I saw musicians in the pubs sharing their joy of music from Kelly's in Belfast and Temple Bar in Dublin. They were universally playing practically the same covers you'd hear at the Jersey shore bars, so I figured I'd give us all a challenge in song to write a better one than this.”

I guess it had to happen. The evil forces of the oxymoronic soft-rock agenda have kidnapped the great Bumblefoot, paired him with Graham Bonnet of Rainbow, and forced him—kicking and screaming—to record “Just The Two Of Us,” the Grammy-winning 1980 soul song by Bill Withers and Grover Washington, Jr. It’s on the new Yacht Metal from Cleopatra Records.

Before Twisted Sister became internationally-known rock stars, they were Silver Star out of Bergen County, cross-dressing and considering themselves to be New Jersey’s answer to the New York Dolls. From ’72 to ’80, they toiled in clubs constantly refining and redefining their act. It wasn’t until ’82 that the band as we know it blossomed. Cleopatra Records has now released the 12-track Hammerheads 1980, named after a West Islip, New York, venue.

When we last visited The Modbeats in August, they had put out “Frankie,” a song actually better than anything its subject (Frankie Avalon) ever did. Now the band from Cherry Hill in Camden County that blends a 1960s British Invasion feel with surf-rock and power-pop has come up with another winner:  “Midnight Train” (listen below). It’s been a fan favorite at gigs.

The #1 purveyor in the world today of the sound of Quintette du Hot Club de France—the groundbreaking band that Belgian-born guitar pioneer Django Reinhardt and violinist Stephane Grappelli started in 1934—is Stephane Wrembel from Maplewood. It’s called Gypsy Jazz and it is, indeed, its own special genre.

She was 22 at Woodstock in ’69 when she walked out on that stage in a soft drizzle, a complete unknown armed with only an acoustic guitar, and proceeded to make half a million people fall in love with her, myself included. Throughout the years, that love has deepened, her quirky albums became beloved, and her gigs legendary (like the time the electricity went off at a Rutgers gig and she sang her heart out with no mic, or her incendiary set at The Capitol Theater in Passaic on her birthday. “Anyone else celebrating a birthday tonight,” she impishly asked and I raised my hand.  Her death last year at 76 came as a shock.

After a seven-year lay-off, the Asbury Park Music Foundation (APMF) has announced the return of the Asbury Park Music Awards. (It originally ran from 1993 through 2018.) According to the foundation, “the event celebrates the artists who keep Asbury’s legendary music scene alive while also raising funds to provide life-changing music education to under-served youth in our community.” February 20, 2026, at The Stone Pony, will be the next chapter of this prestigious award ceremony.

The Annual Light Of Day shows have been scheduled for January benefitting efforts to eradicate Parkinson’s Disease and related illnesses. Over the last 25 years, the Light Of Day Foundation has raised upwards of seven million dollars.

Asbury Park icon—by way of Mississippi—Steve Forbert You’d See The Things That I See (The Day John Met Paul).” He announced the song by saying, “While touring England in November of 2010 I was able to (along with Diane) make a visit to John Lennon’s childhood home in Liverpool. All Beatles fans have heard of Mendips.

It was 2023 when we introduced you to Nikki & The Skyrockets out of Jersey City. Now the band has released the eponymous follow-up to its impressive Late Last Night debut. Singer-Songwriter-Guitarist Nicole Bozzuto is a force to be reckoned with.