The New Jersey state bird, as seen on the cover of Overkill's loudest EP. Yes, they're from Jersey.
It's 4:00 AM and, after reading VICE's blatant attack on the New Jersey music scene, I've decided to chug a cup of coffee and scrap my article that is due in five hours in exchange for this fortified and well-deserved retort.
Don't fuck with New Jersey. Seriously.
I was born and raised in central New Jersey. There is not, nor will there ever be, any shame in that fact. I grew up encountering people who incessantly asked "You're from New Jersey? What exit?" These people accused me of having ties to the Mafia, and some even insisted that I had a thick New Jersey accent reminiscent of some bonehead from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Not only did I not live anywhere near the Parkway or the Turnpike, but I didn't even own a "dawg" nor did I drink much "cawfee" until I moved to the big city.
Early in my life, New Jersey stereotypes began to roll in. We can all thank Troma Films for encouraging the misrepresentation of all of the Garden State as a radioactive playground for characters like Toxie a.k.a The Toxic Avenger in the mid 80s.
We can also agree that we are OK with that particular stereotype. If you were living in New Jersey anytime during or after the release of the Toxic Avengers Movies, you know what I mean. The thing is, it was kind of cool to be from an area drenched in such cultural and environmental controversy. It encouraged groups like the thrash metal band Overkill to rock even harder, and groups like hardcore punk pioneers Adrenalin O.D. to shred and wail about their suburban New Jersey experiences. These bands (and countless others) had a fresh influence on music that would quickly spread beyond their hometown industrial parks and cul-de-sacs.
What wasn't cool was what began to also happen around that time with the arrival of bad hair metal and pop metal. New Jersey became a breeding ground for teased hair, tight pants, and bands who decided that the next evolution of music was to stop rocking and produce albums chock full of back-to-back ballads. New Jersey became the slop bucket for tired glam acts gone shitty and the birthplace for groups like Bon Jovi, that would eventually become the poster boys for a scene all their own. That scene would attract fans of both sexes: girls who loved the crimped hair rockers and wanted to be with them, and the men who loved those same rockers and wanted to bone their groupies. Wave a lighter, take her to the point in your Trans Am, and nine months later you have 50% of the kids who, now in their mid-20's-to-early-30s, moved out of state to perma-hang in Brooklyn. These may or may not be the sad facts of the surface of a strange regional musical scene, but it should be noted that all the while, like any other popular culture, there was and still is a proud sub-culture and these examples are merely the tip of the iceberg.
Read the rest over at NOISEY.
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