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LIVE from New York - It's the Coney Island Rockabilly Festival!

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- Rated: 328 ↑
Sep 4, 2009 10:23 p.m. Proteus:

So here I am in NYC, riding with Kim and Joe on the way to the Coney Island Rockabilly Fest, which started just a few hours ago. Lots of bands, lots of burlesque - and who knows what sideshow features.

Joe has already set up at the venue, with a booth right inside the host club, Cha Cha's - "The Home of Wild Women and Wise Guys" - right on the boardwalk, down by the sea, and Jason Herndon is holding down the Gretsch fort till we get there.

The event is presented by Cockabilly Records, and features four tightly packed nights of East coast rockabilly bands and some serious burlesque artists. Plus there's the whole carnival atmosphere of Coney Island to absorb, not to mention the beach and the food.

It's a tough job, trying to cover it all - but here I am with camera and recorder, and I promise to give it my best shot! I see the Ferris Wheel from here, it'll be a late night of music and madness. Pics and sounds coming soon...oh yeah, and Kim gave me a hug for everyone.

I'll pass it along when I see y'all.
- Rated: 13 ↑
Sep 4, 2009 10:57 p.m. jc28:

Beutiful Coney Island, Hope you didn't bring the Caddy you might be missing a Hub cap or two by the time you leave.

Seriously there is no place like Coney Island Have a Hot Dog and Ride The Cyclone.

I look foward to all the details.
- Rated: 75 ↑
Sep 4, 2009 11:04 p.m. yettoblaster:

I rode the Thunderbolt in the 1950's!
- Rated: 121 ↑
Sep 4, 2009 11:25 p.m. Ric12string:

It sounds like it is going to be a fun time for all of you, Proteus. Thanks to Joe for allowing you to tag along and cover this event for us. It should make for a fun Labor Day weekend for all of us too!
- Rated: 21 ↑
Sep 5, 2009 12:47 a.m. nielDa:

Hey - I'm in New York..... I may have to go!
- Rated: 38 ↑
Sep 5, 2009 1:09 a.m. fauves:

Man, I wish we could have played that! just couldn't fit it in.
- Rated: 120 ↑
Sep 5, 2009 8:39 a.m. Curt:

One thing for sure, the weather couldn't be any better.
- Rated: 15 ↑
Sep 5, 2009 8:44 a.m. Brandon02:

Sounds like fun, I'm looking forward to the pics and audio to come.
- Rated: 37 ↑
Sep 5, 2009 8:47 a.m. SqwareKat:

Have a great time, Pro! Looking very much forward to your coverage!
- Rated: 53 ↑
Sep 5, 2009 9:04 a.m. seadevil:

I'm right here in Brooklyn, and a friend is trying to get me down there. I'm not sure whether I'll make it, but I'll look for you guys if I do.
- Rated: 33 ↑
Sep 5, 2009 9:47 a.m. Blaydrnnnr:

Ah.. home sweet home.. Lived my first 32 years on Long Island just east of Coney. Wish I was back there. Coney is like my backyard...lots of memories... I'm VERY jealous Pro! Have a great time and hope we get LOTS of details..Man what I wouldnt do to see some of those 'Billy girls from NY!!!
- Rated: 328 ↑
Sep 5, 2009 1:05 p.m. Proteus:

Hey ho, rockers and rockettes!

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STEP right up to the carnivale of the extreme, the morbid, the grotesque, the taboo! Don't be afraid, kiddies; Jelly Boy the Clown says "we know when the show starts and we know when it's over."

But for now, step on over to the dark side, where clowns are freaks and freaks are clowns, where angels are devils (and the other way 'round). Buzzsaw guitars, voices from the other side, and thunderdrums split the soft dark underbelly of all things sweet and light wide open and let it all hang out.

Eplore! Expunge! Exorcise!

Ten miles due south of the historic Gretsch Building and the Williamsburg Bridge, at the south end of Brooklyn, south of Gravesend, west of Brighton Beach, at the Lower New York Bay, with nothing but Atlantic to the south and east – there's Coney Island.

Steeplechase Park, Luna Park, Dreamland - all gone now, victims of fire and time - but the Wonder Wheel stills turns, and Coney Island is still the original amusement park at the eastern horizon of wild America. Wide-eyed children test their limits and come out the other side hearts pounding and stronger for the experience. For them it's cotton candy, rides wild as they can stand, surf and sand and sea - and the sideshows of the clowns of the grotesque, a safe but scary peepshow into another world.

Big kids of all ages stroll the boardwalk with friends and lovers, then slip under the boardwalk, on blankets with their baby, and ease away from innocence.

Later, after dark when the night walks, some wander through the doors of Cha Cha's Club Atlantis, right next to Nathan's Famous, take the hellish blast of hot air, and find the perpetual Halloween of Cockabilly Records' 3rd Annual Coney Island Rockabilly Festival.

Is it about the music, the dress, the dancing, the wrecking, the sideshow, the burlesque, the party till dawn, the people, the fun?

You decide...
- Rated: 328 ↑
Sep 5, 2009 1:25 p.m. Proteus:

But first, I had to get here.

That was a drive through the rolling green goodness of southern Indiana to Indiapolis, and a flight to Chicago - then another to La Guardia.

On the tarmac in Chicago, changing planes:

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PLUS, the INDYspensable soundtrack of standing on the tarmac between idling jets whilst waiting for luggage.

Aisle seats, alas, so no pictures of the gradual afternoon-to-dusk-to-dark transition from the green and golden sunshine of the midwest to the endless tapestry of light which is urban NJ-NY after dark. I did catch a glimpse of the Empire State Building as the plane banked over to glide into La Guardia...

where Joe met Kim (who came in on another flight) and me and proceeded straight to Cha Cha's, where the party had already started.
- Rated: 328 ↑
Sep 5, 2009 1:42 p.m. Proteus:

Bringing Gretsch back to its Brooklyn birthplace just makes sense. Fred Jr., Jimmie Webster, and the craftsmen who toiled in the shadow of the Williamsburg Bridge could never have imagined the music that would be played on their guitars. At first, they thought they were building jazz guitars for swingin' big bands.

Then there was that crazy Chet Atkins, blending Merle and Django into countrypolitan jazz-tinged excursions into virtuosity - right alongside a crazy little Memphis concoction called rock & roll.

Decades later, it's all swirled into a whole musicological dictionary full of related musical forms, to which we attach the insufficient shorthand "rockabilly." The distance between the Gretsch Building in 1954, when rock & roll and the first rockin' Gretschs were born half a continent apart – and Cha Cha's in 2009 – is 999,990 miles further than the 10 miles that separate them.

But somehow, in some convoluted way, it all fits – and here's Gretsch, back in Brooklyn, showing off the (Ohio) pickups that started it all.

(Not that it's the first time or anything – Rocky Schiano's Street Sounds NYC is actually the world's biggest Gretsch dealer – and he's hosted several in-store events. He also sold me my Country Club, well known as The Best Guitar Ever Made...)

So can we hear it for some Dynasonics?

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A new backdrop is in place on the "skyline" behind the familiar Gretsch display rack – one which perfectly suits this event.

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Oooh, more sparkles!
- Rated: 328 ↑
Sep 5, 2009 1:52 p.m. Proteus:

Cha Cha's is a smallish, appropriately funky/seedy rock-n-roll bar. From the boardwalk in front you can look out over the bay to the ocean. Inside, a small stage at the back serves a good-sized dancefloor.

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There's a raised alcove for seating to the right side, which is where Joe and Jason set up the display.

Outside was a pleasant mid-70s, but as you enter the bar, a blast of hot air knocks you back. Luckily, an industrial strength fan-in-a-drum keeps the air turning in the back, and it's not so bad.

A couple bands had already played when I arrived, and the next band was setting up. That's when skinny apparition who announced he was from Amish country in Ohio (I'm not making anything up) came onstage to drive nails and knives into his head.

Then he did so.

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No, it's not an illusion. Next he ate a lightbulb (a traditional art passed down from generation to generation on Coney Island). It's hard to get a good picture of this: he breaks the bulb first, so it just LOOKS like chewing.

But he washed it down with PBR. What else?
- Rated: 33 ↑
Sep 5, 2009 1:59 p.m. Blaydrnnnr:

I'm homesick....
- Rated: 328 ↑
Sep 5, 2009 2:00 p.m. Proteus:

Meet Tiger Roxx, one of the burlesque performers who will be featured in tonight's festivities, shown here fixin' to put the monkey wrench of luvv on the valves of yer heart.
- Rated: 328 ↑
Sep 5, 2009 2:08 p.m. Proteus:

Jason James and the Bay State Rockers came down from Massachusetts to follow the berserking Amishman. They're a tight, punchy band with a thick, aggressive sound, a rapidfire delivery, and some really infectious grooves. (I missed recording the best song I heard them do...)

Looks like...

Sounds like...

Bay State Rockers 1
Bay State Rockers 2
Bay State Rockers 3

Dancers like...
Click for video
- Rated: 58 ↑
Sep 5, 2009 2:10 p.m. JC:

"Next he ate a lightbulb"

I'd like to see him try that with an Energy saving lightbulb!
- Rated: 328 ↑
Sep 5, 2009 2:12 p.m. Proteus:

Time for some fresh air...

and some food. We slipped into the amusement park at the last moment, as the rides were closing down but before the gate was locked. Good timing for these pics of (mostly) retro rides.

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Here at Deno's, Kim and I squirted water under pressure into the mouths of monkeys to blow up balloons. When a balloon popped, we won a prize. Kim opted for a stuffed skull-and-crossbones. Cute, ainit?
- Rated: 328 ↑
Sep 5, 2009 2:13 p.m. Proteus:

JC him sez: I'd like to see him try that with an Energy saving light bulb!

If I see him again, I'll pass along the request!
- Rated: 328 ↑
Sep 5, 2009 2:20 p.m. Proteus:

You wanna win something too?

For a Gretsch Brooklyn license plate, what's the address of the Gretsch building?

First two to hit my email with right answers win!
- Rated: 33 ↑
Sep 5, 2009 2:21 p.m. Blaydrnnnr:

My New Favorite pic.. Kim on the merry go round...wonder if she'd ride the ferris wheel with me???
- Rated: 33 ↑
Sep 5, 2009 2:23 p.m. Blaydrnnnr:

This post has been deleted
- Rated: 33 ↑
Sep 5, 2009 2:28 p.m. Blaydrnnnr:

ooops.. sorry.. you did say email..lol

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