Today’s Subjects, Billy O’ and Laura P, With Yours Truly
If you had the distinct pleasure of going to Howell (get) High School in the mid 90’s, then chances are you probably know a dude named Billy O’ Brien. I met Billy way back then, when we were both just learning how to cut out of class without lockdown school monitor Ms.Coffield catching you as you tried to high tail it out of there on nice days. Our tolerance of the tedium of the suffocating classroom would reach its upper threshold, and the June afternoons would be calling…
Billy was always a super sweet dude. I’d see him in the hallway, around raging at parties–hanging out with pretty much every group of kids. And of course I would see the infamous Billy O’ at shows! It’s funny how things turn out. A few years after school ended, us music kids sort of ended up filtering into the counterculturally cool and then still pretty much up -for-grabs-Wild-East that was Asbury Park of the early 2000’s.
Billy O’ Rocks A Basement Show
I mean, if you’re from Central Jersey and you live for music, you are bound to find yourself washing ashore here. And before he was a driven promoter, Billy was quite the frontman in a few fine bands his own self. Frustrated with the often cumbersome way the artist community and venues were missing out on an opportunity to get this place on the map for a new generation of music, and highly aware of both industry and artist perspectives, Billy decided to step up and bridge the gap that was keeping Asbury from coming into full bloom.
Armed with a sincere interest in putting Asbury in the sights of the national independent music industry for our generation and a widespread network of fellow musicians and likeminded friends, Billy had the stones to use all the resources he had deliberately, or otherwise, acquired to bring our diaspora together in order to consolidate our scattered, fledgling community.
Back in, oh man, must have been 2003ish, located where Langosta Lounge now stands, there used to be a bar called Club Deep. DJ Mike Merrell, another key player in the Shore Alternative opus, would spin the best in Alt Rock between sets at the Shark Party, an alternative night O’Brien and Merrell put together.
There was absolutely nothing like it at the time, which is pretty insane considering there were and still are dozens of amazing original live acts all around this area. My own band, The Obvious, played there with another great act, the now defunct The Chilling Details.
The S*ALT Crew, L To R: Pete Lepore, Mike Merrell, Billy O’ and Buck
O’Brien, Merrell and fellow music loving crony, Michael “Buck” Crowell, went on to build their Alt Rock bastion atop Asbury Park higher and higher as the years passed. The fellas struck a relationship with Millennium Radio, establishments like the institutional Wonder Bar, and created the Shore Alternative brand, complete with their own HD radio station of the same name.
Anyone with two eyes in their head could see that the fellas worked their little tails off and gave their whole hearts to the cause. The results were clear. National independent acts were making regular stops in AP, coming back again and again for a spot in a well built bill, to play for an audience that many had previously doubted was there. Independent acts like River City Extension, backed by O’ Brien and S*ALT, began drawing hundreds and hundreds of kids locally, consistently, and getting national media attention from the likes of SPIN, amongst other outlets and tastemakers.
Despite the fact that no one had an MBA, it was more than apparent that the guys knew the business, and for girls like me who loved music but were stumped as how to take our own acts to the next level and put AP in the national dialogue, S*ALT became an amazing resource in and of itself.
River City Extension Plays To Yet Another Packed House
Things seemed good. Really good. And then, like we were characters in a bad Ayn Rand novel, we got the news. Apparently, much like they disapproved of our kind in high school, the grown ups did not like Shore Alternative’s terrestrial radio. The plug was pulled. Way to take the wind out of our sails, douchebags! Sheesh. I guess Being Marginalized By Blind Corporate Interest Still Sucks.
But, as any rock and rollah worth their S*ALT knows, that’s how it goes in the world of Alternative rock. You can pour your heart into something and then some Suit sucker punches you and you find yourself stumbling back, catching your breath, and wondering what the hell happened.
And then you in a split second, you get it together, make a fist and come out fucken swinging. All that street sensibility is what got us this far in the first place, after all.
So Billy O’ has regrouped. Fomenting a new rebellion, this independent promoter has a new strategy and some stupid Suit isn’t going to keep him from doing the right thing by his own self, and by the alternative community at large. He’s going to the Left Coast, Cali to be specific, and building up Save Alternative, his Western answer to S*ALT. Billy’s wildly intelligent, perennially gorgeous and always sweet-as-pie counterpart, the fabulous Laura Penrose, will be setting up shop out there, too. Poolside, bitches! 😉
Laura & Billy: Power Couples Everywhere, Look Out!
And here’s where my little 16 year old self, the one who was high-fiving Billy O’ after shots of grain alcohol at a house party at someone’s parents house, gets a little weepy. Us Howell kids, and the rest of the lot, well we’re gonna miss you kids something awful. Clearly Mr. O’ Brien’s departure is gonna affect the community in a fundamental way. And of course AP will absolutely not be the same without Laura’s patented champagne afternoons and her own bubbly personality.
I’m gonna have to sign off now, before I lose it. But before I do, I implore you to go to Watermark this Saturday, May 14th starting at 3 PM, and party down with this fabulous power couple before they take an extended leave from this coast and fly on over to the next one. I’ll be doing shots and high-fiving the wonderful Mr. Bill O Brien, just like I did a decade and a half ago, back when we were both just kids who loved music and were looking for a good time.
Well, hell, I guess some things never change. 😉
XOXO
Ang
