FEATURED IN THIS ISSUE

1. THE PONY INTERVIEW WITH JOE D'URSO
2. THURSDAY NIGHT PARTIES AT THE STONE PONY
3. CALENDAR OF EVENTS

This Week at The Stone Pony: Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes (Saturday), Marc Broussard (Sunday), 30 Seconds To Mars (Monday)

New on the Stone Pony Calendar: Matt O'Ree "The King of the Blues" (July 7), Joe Grushecky and the Houserockers (July 8), Last Perfect Thing (July 12), Dark Star Orchestra (July 22), Bloc Party (July 27), Hinder (July 28), Railroad Earth (July 29), Catch 22 (July 30), Gorilla Biscuits (August 4), Marty Casey and the Love Hammers (August 5), The Living End (August 7), Ari Hest (August 8), Tea Leaf Green (August 11), Pete Yorn (August 12), The Format (August 13), Mae and The Spill Canvas (August 16), Willy Mink Deville Trio (August 19), Method Man (September 23)

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Joe D'Urso is something of an adopted son of Asbury Park.  Based in Rockland County, New York, D'Urso has performed countless shows - many of them for charities or benefits - at the Pony and other venues across the Jersey Shore.  Well-known for his involvement with World Hunger Year (WHY), he is also a popular performer in Europe, making more frequenent extended tours on the other side of the Atlantic, especially in Italy and the United Kingdom. Now, D'Urso is celebrating the release of his 10th studio album, the aptly-named, Cause..., which features 13 new songs, along with three covers, interspaced with words of wisdom from musician and WHY founder Harry Chapin.  Now, D'Urso is scheduled for two upcoming dates here at the club.  On Saturday, July 1, he'll open solo for Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes on the outdoor summer stage.  Then, on Saturday, July 8, D'Urso and his band, Stone Caravan, will open for Joe Grushecky and the Houserockers.  The July 8th date will also serve as the official Jersey Shore CD release show for "Cause..." and marks the perfect opportunity for fans to purchase the album for themselves.  The Newsletter interviewed D'Urso as he prepared to spend a couple of Saturday nights on Ocean Avenue, and spoke with him about the new CD and what, exactly, someone sees when they're up on stage under the lights and in front of that legendary Pony logo.

The Stone Pony: You have a couple of gigs coming up at the Pony, a solo show opening for Southside Johnny and a full-band show with Joe Grushecky. Do you tend to prepare differently for a solo show rather than one with Stone Caravan, and is it nice to be able to mix up both types of performances?

JD: Yes, it's great to have the chance to perform both ways, as a songwriter fronting a rock band and as a solo singer songwriter. There are many different songs I've recorded over the years and some work better in each setting. Playing solo allows me to perform a few songs I wouldn't do with the band and playing with the band allows me the chance to rock out.

The Stone Pony: Another difference between the two gigs is that your date with Southside is on the big outside stage in the lot and the Grushecky date is inside the club. You've played the outdoor stage before. What's it like doing an outdoor show, and is it more of a challenge to be able to perform and to connect with your audience on stage like that?

JD: Well, the great thing about the outdoor stage is that you can see the ocean as you are performing as the stage is pretty high and you can see over the fence right to the beach! That doesn't happen too often. But the great thing about performing indoors is turning around and seeing that white pony behind the drum kit and thinking of how many shows I saw as a kid there and how many photos of great artists were taken on that stage. Very humbling.

The Stone Pony: Can you describe what you see when you're playing on the Pony stage and looking out at the audience? How much do the stage lights interfere with your vision and do you tend to be aware of people watching you and what they are doing during the set?

JD: I usually see the folks right up front and people at the bar. The middle section of the main floor gets lost as the lights shine in your eyes and I always lose that part when looking out. I'm usually pretty aware of what the crowd is doing as you're always hoping to make that connection that makes music stand out from everyday life. As least that is the goal.

The Stone Pony: Let's talk about "Cause.," your new album. How did the concept of interspacing the music with quotes from Harry Chapin come about and how did you go about obtaining and then selecting the pieces of Chapin speaking to use?

JD: The idea of this record started in two places; one, I had done a concept record before with our 2000 release, Rock and Roll Station, and, two, I had been listening to Harry's Gold Medal Collection where they had interview snippets between some songs. I thought that it would be interesting to elaborate on that concept as Harry was a great speaker/interviewer who had many wise things to say. Jason Dermer, who is the head soundman at the Stone Pony, also is on the same Supervisor's Board that I am on for World Hunger Year, an organization that Harry started with Bill Ayres in 1975, and Jason had all these CDs of Harry interviews from 1973 to the time of his death in 1981. While on tour in the UK and Italy in December, I spent numerous hours with these interviews and I started finding these great quotes from Harry that worked as perfect introductions to these songs that I had written. I really felt something special was going on as it was this natural process that I just followed and went with. I knew I wasn't making the most commercial move by doing this but that has never been a motivating factor for me, but at the same time I really thought, and still do think, it makes for a great listening CD as it brings more colors to the table.

The Stone Pony: You've included three cover songs on "Cause." Harry Chapin's "Taxi" is an obvious choice, but what about Bob Dylan's "I Shall Be Released," and John Stewart's "Gold"? Were these songs that were already a regular part of your live shows, or did you decide to add them to your repertoire specifically for recording on this album?

JD: Dylan's "I Shall Be Released" is a song that myself and Stone Caravan have been playing for about three years while on tour. I saw a bootleg DVD of us in Italy and really liked the way the song was delivered and then I started closing many of our shows with it as the last parting word.  Or, at least, the shows I decided to end quietly!  John Stewart's "Gold" was a Top 5 hit in 1979 and I remember being a kid and riding my bike down to the record store and buying the 45rpm of that song. It was produced by Lindsey Buckingham and had Steve Nicks singing background vocals on it. I had walked into a small music venue in Rockland County and saw a guy by the name of Tim O'Donaghue singing it one night and realized that I had forgotten about this song and that I loved it. Tim taught it to me and then I had Tim sing background vocals on it when I recorded it. He is Steve Nicks on this recording! "Taxi" by Harry Chapin was the first song I ever sang on stage when I was 16 and which ends this record. It serves two very important purposes; one, it allows me to sing one of the greatest story songs of all times and, secondingly, it allows me to have that song as the bookend of my career in case I never make another record. I didn't think about that at the time but it was something that I realized afterwards.

The Stone Pony: "Cause." is your tenth full-length CD. If someone had told you when you first decided to pursue music as a full-time career that you would release your tenth album and have the opportunity to make regular tours of Europe, as well as play places like the Pony, what do you think you would have said? Are the feelings and expectation when releasing your tenth disc different than what they were when releasing your first or second albums?

JD: I would have thought the person was nuts! This whole thing started in 1989/1990 with no real game plan or anything and just evolved into a small career over the years. I've had the chance to perform in 22 countries, play on the same stage and sing on the same mic as some of my childhood heroes and pursue it for 10 years as a full-time job.  Pretty amazing and I will always be thankful for this opportunity. My feelings when releasing a record today are different now then with those first few records. At that time we were still thinking major label success and MTV and the such. Over the years, I realized those things were not in my cards but I still felt I had something of substance to say to an audience. I felt we delivered a roots rock show that made people feel real emotions throughout the night. That's all I ever wanted from music as a fan, and still do, and I wanted to give that back as a songwriter and a performer.

The Stone Pony: Like many musicians, a growing portion of your back catalog is available for digital download via iTunes. Do you find yourself writing music or putting an album together differently now that iTunes has brought back the idea of a "single," and more people treat music as individual songs rather than whole albums? Do you feel that creating an album like "Cause.," which clearly benefits from being listened to in its entirely, will become impossible as the means of distributing music continues to evolve?

JD: It certainly creates a dilemma of sorts. I like digital downloads as I purchase them all the time now that I got into iTunes but they do not serve "concept records" well at all as we have 27 tracks on the "Cause..." CD with all the spoken word introductions. Now, no one will spend $27 to download it that way and I wouldn't want them to. Hopefully they'll just come to the website and purchase it for a much better price! I don't ever think of media, the radio or the Internet when I am writing songs. Never have and probably never will as the songwriting process to me is very organic. I never sit down to write. Songs just show up and I don't question the process as I have written over 200 songs over the past 15 years. Some people like to talk about the process of it but I don't as I don't understand it [at] all. I understand that I soaked up experiences of everyday life but when the moment comes when it all comes out and music shows up with it, well, that it still pretty exciting for me.

The Stone Pony: Despite "Cause." being a CD, you still chose to divide the album into two "sides." Is this just a nostalgic throwback, or is there something different that separates the two "sides," or something that the tracks on each side have in common with each other?

JD: It's a little bit of both. I still like the idea of having two separate sides as a writer. It gives you two chances to tell a story, get something across to the listener and try and make sense of where you are as a writer at that moment in time. For this CD, I choose the idea of Side One and Side Two as I wanted to separate the rockers from the slow songs. I always go back to Neil Young's "Rust Never Sleeps" which is a monumental record for me. Side One was more acoustic and Side Two rocked. It also is very much of my own personality as I perform 50% of my shows with the band and 50% solo acoustic. I am very much both of those things, a "quiet melancholy singer songwriter" and a "full-out let's have a great time rocker". I've tried my best to balance those two and not have to make a choice career-wise, which may have hurt me commercially, but that was never the reason I started doing this. It was always about, and still is, about trying to say something that is real and true. Very simple but difficult.

The Stone Pony: You've got a big tour of Italy planned for July. What's the biggest challenge when putting together an overseas tour, and how have you been able to develop a fan base over there? Will you be bringing copies of the new CD with you on tour to sell at the shows?

JD: The biggest challenge as an independent artist is always a financial one. This upcoming current tour is easier as it's a solo acoustic tour in theory; only three of the 11 shows are really solo as eight shows will be backed by two different Italian bands who have learned my songs over the past few years as Stone Caravan won't be along for this ride. Myself and Stone Caravan toured the UK for two weeks in February and Italy for two weeks in May. Putting together a tour means taking care of flights, hotels, in-country transportation, booking venues, press/media/promotion, salaries, merchandising and a few other things I'm sure I'm forgetting like ... performing! It's very tiring but at the same time it's the only way I know as I've been indy from the start of my career and started heading overseas in 1994. So, I've been touring Europe for 12 years as a headliner at smaller venues and as a support artist [for] Nils Lofgren, Southside Johnny, The Hooters at bigger venues. Our fan base is a mixture of other bands' fan bases that we have picked up with our live performances either in the band setting or solo setting. I will certainly be bringing CDs, almost all 10 titles, as merchandising really helps cover costs that come with touring.  But more so, and most importantly, it helps spread the music.

The Stone Pony: For fans who already have their copy of "Cause.," which tracks off the album do you expect you'll be performing during your upcoming gigs at the Pony? Are there any songs that you've found fans especially like and tend to be the ones they ask for when coming to purchase the CD after shows?

JD: After touring the record for a few months now, those two questions are one in the same. I'm always surprised to see which songs stick with an audience and work well in our show. Right now the new songs that have been getting lots of playing time are: "Cause," "Follow Me," "Gold," "When The Rain Finally Stops,"  "Your Only One," "Last Song To Be Sung," "Miles and Friends" and "I Shall Be Released".  I'm feeling pretty lucky to have eight songs "stick to the wall" from the 15 that were released on the CD.

Joe D'Urso's official website can be found at www.jdcaravan.com.  "Cause...," and Joe's other albums, can be purchased online at his website or at music retailers, such as Jack's Music in Red Bank, NJ.

Now at AsburyPark.net
Fourth of July plans set: A parade from downtown to Bradley Park, live musical entertainment and fireworks on the Fourth Avenue beach are planned for the city's third annual Fourth of July Festival.

CALENDAR OF EVENTS

For updated information, set times and directions, visit www.stoneponyonline.com or call the Pony box office.

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THE STONE PONY ONLINE NEWSLETTER is written by Matt Mrowicki and published by Impression Technologies, LLC (www.imprtech.com). ©2006, The Stone Pony. Comments may be sent to: newsletter@stoneponyonline.com.