The news seemed like an implausible rumor when I first got wind. Any Day Parade was planning a Reunion Gig on Friday at the 58 Gallery on Coles Street. Last year, the band’s leader, Tree Jackson played a gig there with her acoustic band, the Morning Glorys, which became a sort of farewell performance.Tree announced that she was moving back to her old Kentucky home.A few days before the Reunion Gig, fliers were pasted on the park bulletin boards – Jersey City’s Own Any Day Parade – One Night Only. In an email, Tree confirmed that indeed she would be in town and she would be playing with the boys. The rumor was true: They’re Getting the Band back together again.
The time of the show wasn’t on publicly displayed posters, it only appeared on the very small facsimile of the flier one of the band members handed me at the Grove Street Green Market – “Doors at 8/Noise at 9.” This on-a-need-to know-basis-information was literally peripheral data – barely readable, stamped into the margins after the handbills were printed.
I was near giddy with anticipation, playing the two Any Day Parade CDs/EPs during the week, familiarizing myself once again with their catchy, provocative songs.
So, at the designated time I walked to Coles. The night air was unseasonably cool. Except for a few stragglers smoking cigarettes outside the large glass windows, there was no visible activity on the sidewalk. The art exhibition and entrance portion of 58 Gallery was unlit and empty. But through the door, behind the art exhibition space, the backroom was packed with dozens of downtown gen-yers, drinking and yammering in the shadows. They were as excited as I. Tree was back in town and the penultimate Jersey City band would be playing for the first time in nearly two years.
A very weird, trippy free-form blues arrangement of one of their “grungier” numbers, If I Stay Too Long, from their 2nd CD/EP, started things off. Tree belted it out in a sultry growl that soon became a sultry shout. She was in the crowd, singing amongst the people, before clambering to the stage. Even in the cramped, ultra-intimate setting of an art gallery’s back room /performance space, this act of showmanship was successful. Applause, cheers, welcoming noise greeted her.
The guys are not wearing shirts. I don’t know why. We’re not wearing shirts was the only explanation. Joe "J.D." Daly, the guitarist and Chuck Daly, the bass player, are nearly covered in tattoos while, Larry J. Brinkman the other guitar player, and Pat Byrne, the drummer, had no noticeable ink whatsoever. Regardless of this illustrated vs. unblemished Caucasian skin contrast, due to either genes, youth or exorbitant depilatory bills, all four naked male torsos were freakishly free of body hair. About a foot shorter than the men, still youthfully impish and wearing a ragged white t-shirt, on stage Tree resembled a world-weary gamine who had accidentally stumbled into the boy’s locker room.
The scene was feverish and hallucinatory. An outlandishly fitting, boozy return for this unique, talented and original band who always insisted that the line separating Alt-Country Rock and Grunge Punk was thinner than everyone else claimed it to be, and then went on to make that line even more narrow.
I guess it was 2008 when I first saw them, caught several shows (early ADP blog here).
In 2009, they embarked on a tour, playing outside the New York area, returning to provide a seriously fantastic set at the Arts festival. Later, they performed at South by Southwest in Austin. Their demise, for reasons unknown to me, soon followed; my only consolation was they left after a high point, the 4th Street gig was their best performance that I had witnessed. According to sparse scuttlebutt I heard, the other band members put their musical careers on hold while Tree, the main singer and songwriter, hooked up with a local acoustic band, The Ashes – with Tree they went under the moniker The Old Glorys. The Ashes are a fine band – very Americana acoustic, skilled cats – but they never attained the same chemistry with Tree or sense of purposeful fun Any Day Parade possessed.
Here’s the bottom line. Tree is a great songwriter and singer. I’m a fan of her music. Checking out what she is up to is an effort that if I’m able to make I will. I believe she is at her best with Any Day Parade. While I haven’t seen her band mates in other forums, it seems obvious that she brings out something special in them and I would hazard that musicianship wise, they’re at their best with her. The sum of Any Day Parade’s parts adds up to a very compelling musical whole: a dynamic, idiosyncratic balance of tension and cohesion.
To describe ADP at their Reunion Gig as rough around the edges is an understatement. They only had two rehearsals, and either one or none with Tree. Alcohol had been served. It was a party for a friend who hadn’t been seen for a while; most everybody there knew each other and the set was really just an excuse – a damn good excuse – to get together and have a few, then a few more. The rowdy atmosphere also meant that the band wouldn’t be attempting any of the quieter, more introspective Tree songs, such as I’ve Had Time, which was an unfortunate but understandable trade off.
Fun was the priority here, so the fast and loose mood was inevitable. A few well known Any Day Parade numbers, like Broken Lamps and Miss You – the latter, a marvelous ditty about a couple reviving their spark – while greeted by applause of recognition, were not sustained on stage. The tempos were carelessly accelerated, some lyrics went unremembered, and cues were glaringly missed. The musicians could be seen smirking, wincing, shaking their heads, giggling with embarrassment.
“We were always a punk band!” said Tree.
At another point, the guitarist J.D. sarcastically remarked, “This is the tightest we’ve ever played.”
The truth was they had to work the kinks out. The music needed several songs to find itself again. The band had to reacquaint themselves with the music and each other. Any Day Parade is quirky and edgy, adept at countrified tangents yet always able and willing to indulge their hard rock impulses. Those impulses reigned supreme at the reunion gig.
Maybe the music took the shape it did because of the nature of reunions. You know how it often can be when you meet up with dear friends after being parted for a long time: at first you exclaim, burst out welcomes, but an uncomfortable lull often follows the initial enthusiasm as you begin bridging the divide time away from each other naturally creates. The lull is temporary. Bumps are smoothed over and soon it’s just like old times as you again roll along the familiar road of companionship. Rekindling any relationship is rarely instantaneous, and hearing this process unfold in the context of this particular group of musicians was actually very interesting and not unsatisfying.
Any Day Parade may have been somewhat inebriated (as was much of the crowd) and very under-rehearsed, but they were glad to be together again and the crowd was elated to see them on stage again and everyone in the dimly lit, cave-like back room of the 58 gallery – a converted industrial garage – joined in this journey of rediscovering what made ADP so special.
From the first song, it was obvious that hard rock blues and emo would be the course the music would follow. At a climatic moment towards the end of the set, Where We Fall was played. An evergreen showcase for the band, the song features dialog lyrics between tortured lovers, as sung by Larry and Tree, with Tree being especially strong. This was the Tree we remember! A bitter, bluesy rendition, they took this song to a new, more honest if darker place. Larry then went into his signature tune, Hold on You, turning his honky tonk rave-up with its romantic lyric where one lover says he has a hold on you because she has a hold on me, into an acid-tinged, up-tempo rock lament. The word hold was never more threatening. This fresh, heart-felt darkness gave this song a new sting.
The individuals of the quintet had now found the same groove. They abandoned their disorderly conduct start. Any Day Parade was finally, and fully, revived.
JD picked a Credence Clearwater hook and Green River exploded out of the amplifiers. Tree’s vocal, sultry, growling, gradually building into a soulful, emotional holler, recast this spooky swamp classic into a Emo tour de force. Tree’s best vocal of the night and one of the best I’ve heard her unleash. Any Day Parade was unequivocally marching to the sea, taking no prisoners and burning everything in sight. A riveting, stunning performance that left me helplessly applauding and cheering.
Any Day Parade may never have received the recognition or financial success they deserved. They’ve had hard knocks and making ends meet is a struggle. Playing a gig without a cover charge in a garage filled with old drinking buddies is not a rent paying scenario. But the singing and playing on Green River was high-level and unforgettable. May not be sufficient compensation, but it is worth noting.
Things get blurry... there were some other fiery covers I wasn’t as familiar with... the set ended with Dead Flowers, one of their signature songs, the climatic closer of many a gig. This night the Stones classic was rendered as a dark, blues-oriented, electrified ballad, that quickly evolved into a crowd pleasing sing-along. At one point, the singer for the local punk act, the Wildflowers, shared the microphone for a few refrains.
The band was urged to do another encore. Tree thanked the crowd. She became emotional about visiting the city she called home for a decade or so, although her sardonic humor remained intact. “I love Jersey City, because every time I felt like slitting my wrists, I would go outside and meet people who felt like slitting their wrists. We all felt the same way.”
Sometimes when it comes to friendship, fellowship and community you must take what you can get by way of platitude. Everybody had been drinking. Her voice, which this night mostly dwelt in her robust lower register, was now slightly frayed but this hoarseness only thickened the feeling as she went into Bring it on Home. The crowd was more familiar with Dead Flowers, but sang along anyway. Sam Cooke was the appropriate coda of an emotional, joyous evening of home coming and reunion.
But reconstruction? Still undetermined, but signs augur well.
The set was a cross between eavesdropping on a rehearsal and popping a cork on the porch while the neighbors dusted off their instruments and plucked a few familiar tunes. Any Day Parade didn’t merely prove, however, that they still have it, although that fact is no longer in doubt. As individuals, they’re older and as musicians, better. Perhaps the experience of being separated, in spite of the lack of rehearsal, the amount of alcohol imbibed and the disturbing shirtlessness, eventually enhanced the performance. A reunion gig is not a comeback show or new recording, but it may be a start that leads to something more full fledged. After the shaky beginning, their set did not rely on glorified nostalgia. This band still has something to say.
Many moments revealed new possibilities, pointing towards other musical territories that Any Day Parade is well able to march through.
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