Talking Punk and Music Journalism with Jersey Beat Creator Jim Testa

Jim Testa (Photo by Dan Bracaglia)

Recently, I had the pleasure of chatting with influential New Jersey music writer Jim Testa. Testa is the creator and editor of Jersey Beat, a Weehawken based music publication that covers music of all genres and demographics from around New Jersey. He also writes a music column for the Jersey Journal, covering the Hudson County music scene.

Testa attended Rutgers-New Brunswick, where he was thoroughly involved with The Daily Targum, the college’s daily newspaper. “Junior into senior year, I was responsible for getting the whole paper out. From writing it, to layout, to production and everything else. So, I learned an awful lot doing that, which came in very handy later,” he explained.

After graduating, he covered theater and film as a freelance writer, before becoming “fascinated” by the punk scene, switching gears to music, and writing for his friend’s fanzine down in Washington D.C.

Jim Testa (Photo by Walter Wlodarczyk)

“My column in his fanzine was called ‘Jersey Beat’, which was a pun on ‘Mersey Beat‘. This was the early 80’s. A lot of people were starting print fanzines. I decided to start one, so I started doing ‘Jersey Beat’. This was 1982.”

Jersey Beat’s Logo, Created by Dave Runit (Courtesy of Jim Testa)

Jersey Beat was a print publication for 25 years, moving online in 2007, which spawned a podcast as well, consisting of both interviews and playlists of new music Testa is enjoying.

The switch to online came with many benefits, but one downfall, as Testa explains. “You reach more people online. It’s way cheaper online, but there’s something about the satisfaction of getting something in print and holding it in your hands. If you don’t know it, it’s hard to describe, but it was definitely a real thing.” At it’s peak, the zine was nearly 130 pages an issue. Print and postage became a hefty burden, slowing publication from every two months to every six months. Being online also allowed for higher fidelity media, which was difficult to achieve in the zine’s early days.

Becoming accustomed to new technology wasn’t an issue either. Testa worked a “back office” day job in insurance while writing the zine. He got to learn every new piece of technology his employers acquired, which he quickly put to use on Jersey Beat.

A Jersey Beat sticker (Courtesy of Jim Testa)

I asked Testa about some of the stories and moments he was most fond of, and he didn’t seem to have a shortage of them. From getting involved with Hoboken’s music scene, spending time at Maxwell’s, witnessing a fight between a hardcore band and some Hell’s Angels and a run in with some punk legends early in his career.

“I was just hanging around the office, and the phone rang. I picked it up, and it was Danny Fields, who was the manager of The Ramones… He said ‘Would anyone from your newspaper like to come into the city and check out this band that I’m managing. That’s just how he put it… but reading the Village Voice, I knew it was The Ramones.” Testa went to the legendary CBGB and sat in a pew right in the front of the stage as The Ramones played their first set. “It was the loudest, craziest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. I loved it immediately”. In between sets, he interviewed Johnny and Joey Ramone, before returning to his seat. “Danny came over and said ‘I need you guys to squish over ’cause I need you to share this pew with some other people’. So, we squished over and Patti Smith came in with her date, who was Bryan Ferry, and they sat next to us.That was pretty cool, sitting there with her watching The Ramones”.

Near the end of our chat, I asked Testa if he had any advice for writers who were interested in covering local music, and he was eager to provide some.

“If you want to write about music, you don’t have to start at Pitchfork. There are lots of people like me, who run blogs and music websites, who, if you reach out, would be happy to publish you. You just have to have the initiative to do it, or, you can go online to Wix or something and start your own blog. It doesn’t even cost a dime… Let people know you’re there, share your stuff, you know, there’s plenty of social media. If you go out, buy a record and review it, go online, find the record label or the band, and send them a copy of the review. Say ‘Hey look, I’m doing this. Could you send me something else to write about?’ You’d be surprised at the response you could get”. He also stressed the importance of being able to share your opinions and not “feel like a jerk”.

He also said that his inbox is always open to music writers. “If you have the bug and think “Oh, I love writing reviews,’ or ‘I’d like to interview this band in my town,’ you can contact me or you can contact other people online. We’re all overworked, underpaid and looking for help. So, there are definitely opportunities out there that people don’t take advantage of.”

Testa compared music journalism to actually playing music, calling it “difficult” and “mostly thankless”, but said that “nothing worth doing comes easy”.

Speaking with Testa gave me an extra little kick to keep doing what I’m doing. I admit, it can be frustrating, but it can also be a blast and I hope somebody reading might feel “the bug” and get involved themselves.

A Q & A with Rowan’s Own Jackson Zabransky, AKA, Denim Mob

Jackson Zabransky, AKA Denim Mob. Photo by Damon Mazer

Last week, I had the delight of sitting down and chatting with Jackson Zabransky, a musician at Rowan, and the mastermind behind Denim Mob.  The synth-pop project dropped its debut track “Psylocin”, back in March, which, at the time of writing this, has garnered almost 11,500 streams on Spotify. I spoke with Jackson about the success of his first track and the project’s connection to Rowan, among other things. Take a look.

D: How did the project come about? What was the inspiration behind it?

J: So, I was playing music, contemporary music, since around the beginning of high school. I was in a bunch of different bands of a bunch of different genres. It took me a while to get into production. So, when I got to college, I started taking more courses on making music on the computer, and not having to be in a band set up where everyone has to contribute something. I started writing on my own going into college; I got a midi keyboard for my computer. I’ve been writing a bunch since then, over time trying to figure out how to do it the right way. I didn’t just want to throw songs up there, and then have them sit and do nothing, because I knew they had potential. I had maybe a month of schooling here, in terms of business and audio, to support it, so I was kind of picking it up as I went along. I’d kind of pushed the process back, to keep finding the right people to help me do it, working on writing the songs, and mixing the songs, the whole nine yards, until finally, around sophomore year I was ready to go forward with it, and at least start playing shows with some friends helping me. I don’t think I released anything until the beginning of maybe… I think the end of my sophomore year, beginning of my junior year I finally released a couple demos, just testing the waters, until finally I was like, “All right, we’re ready to move forward.” I came up with the name, and decided on “Psylocin.” The rest is, well, here we are now.

Hear Jackson discuss the origin of the name Denim Mob:

D: How do you think Rowan has influenced your writing, and how you make music in general?

 

J: Well, for starters, on a very basic level, definitely, the courses have influenced me. Whatever I learned in each course has influenced how I approached it on my own. On that level, there’s that. I know that when I go home for the summer and I have nothing to do besides work and hang out, my drive just, wooosh (gestures down) right down the gutter, ‘cause when my brain’s not in ten different places, and I’m not going crazy, I don’t write for some reason. You’d think that would be a great time to sit down and write because you have so much free time, but I feel like it’s become a mechanism of just, forgetting about what’s going on, and so, when I don’t really have to forget about what’s going on it’s a bit harder. So definitely being here, just in of itself, has kind of gotten a lot of good ideas out. I mean, “Psylocin”,  I wrote in the computer lab [in Wilson] before I even had Logic on my computer. At the end of the week, I was like, “Alright, I’m gonna go into the lab this weekend and write something.” On Sunday, I decided to take a walk over to the studio, just threw a couple loops in, and was playing on the keyboards and stuff, and then it took two years to write the lyrics (laughs), but we had most of the song off of that. I think I definitely do get a lot of different genres, especially with who we book around here. You got 4333, you got Rowan Alt. Rowan Music Group’s been doing a couple small things, and Art Heads Anonymous. There’s so many different genres. Back at home, when I was in high school, a lot of the shows were emo, and not emo, like, MCR emo, but emo like Modern Baseball, and umm…

 

D: American Football. The sports…

 

J: Exactly, exactly. That definitely reflected on my writing for a while, but that was kind of only one thing. I think seeing all the different things that people can do has allowed me to kind of be more experimental with how I’m treating it, and being more like, “Alright, I can step outside my box,” because I don’t have to do necessarily what I know.

D: How do you think the community and the school itself has encouraged your endeavors in music?

J: When we got here, it didn’t. I’m on my senior year now, so three years ago there was no music scene. I swear to God there must have been, max five [shows]. I only knew about two or three of the shows that happened within the entirety of my freshman year. The addition of the music business program the year before I came definitely helped. Once my grade got in here, we started really getting stuff done. Then, it kind of allowed for a lot more people to be interested. There was very much a growth period, but we’re kinda at a point where a lot of the people who would be coming to the show know about the show. Realistically, Rowan hasn’t done much for us. Our program has done a good amount for us, and there are opportunities to play at you know, Battle of the Bands… if you win Battle of the Bands you get Hollybash, which we got…. Well, we won Battle of the Bands, we were gonna play Hollybash. Hollybash got rained out, so we had to do it inside, and then we got cancelled, then we got moved finally to the food truck fest, and my computer broke (laughs). The computer breaking wasn’t on their part, everything else was, and that’s not to talk bad, you know, I mean, shit happens, and I didn’t give them a hard time or anything. Realistically, outside of our program, there’s not really many opportunities. I am thankful for what they have. There’s a bunch of people who have helped grow the scene to where it is now. I mean, it’s not any number of people. Everyone who comes to the shows is responsible for it being as popular as it is now, and also everyone who tells their friends or bring their friends. There was definitely a core group of probably ten kids who have had very strong hands in getting the shows together, planning the shows, booking, making sure everything happens and happens smoothly. So, yeah, we’ve kind of been on our own for the most part, at least with the scene. I don’t count Battle of the Bands or any of that stuff as the “Rowan music scene”. It’s just kind of stuff they put on. I’m very proud of where it’s come to. If this was the way it was when we came in freshman year, or if I had known about this when I was coming to the school, it would’ve made it so much more likely for me to come.

D: Do you think if the scene was as big as it is now, you would have grown as big a following as you have?

J: I think, maybe more. I have so many people who have been so supportive and I’m so thankful, not that people haven’t been in the past. A lot of it was my friends, and a ton of my friends support me now, but there are so many people who I’m acquaintances with, or friends with, but we don’t hang out all of the time, and people I don’t know at all, and I hear them talking about it, or someone will post something on their story and they’re listening to the song and I’m like, “Okay, cool.” As the scene has developed, subsequently we’ve been able to develop, because we’ve been able to play more shows, get on the bills, and such. That was part of me waiting to figure things out. It’s been rapid. “Psylocin” took off without me really doing much about it. I think that if there were people, if it were already as established as it is, I think it would keep growing, and therefore, I could grow with it.

Jackson discusses his track. “Psylocin”: 

D: What do you have planned for the future?

J: Definitely some music videos coming some peoples’ ways. I got a lot of ideas. I’m just kind of formulating them. Definitely more shows. We have a couple coming up, but once the next song gets released, it’s gonna be promotion. It’s gonna be playing shows. It’s gonna be releasing music videos. It’s just, I love when people enjoy the song. It’s another feeling. It’s really gratifying. I just want to keep giving that to people. It’s hard, because [“Psylocin”] was the first thing, and it has done so well for the first thing I released for this project, so it’s kind of like, “What am I gonna do next?” I definitely have some stuff. I have faith in it. We’re gonna see where it goes.

To end, Jackson discussed his favorite 80’s bops: