WELCOME TO THE PONY

Due to repairs and upgrades at The Stone Pony, the Morgan Wallen concert scheduled for Feb. 23 has been relocated down the street to the Paramount Theatre. The new date will be Wed., March 6. All tickets from The Stone Pony show will be honored. Anyone unable to make the new date can get a refund at point of purchase. Additional tickets for the Paramount are now available.

MORGAN WALLEN

with special guest HARDY

Tickets: $20 in advance (plus applicable surcharges), $25 at the door

You can’t step up as one of country’s most exciting new stars without knowing exactly what you’re about. Lucky for Big Loud Records breakout artist Morgan Wallen, that quality runs in his blood.

With his debut album, IF I KNOW ME, the hit maker behind “Up Down” (ft. Florida Georgia Line) and “The Way I Talk” lays his cards out on the table: Work hard. Love hard. Party down. Respect the past and make your own future. … Know yourself.

“I’ve never been the type of person who’s good at getting my feelings out, so for me music is a way to do that,” Wallen explains. “I just hope people get to know me and see my true colors.”

Still only 24 years old, those colors have already started to show. Working with a vocal blend which marks the spot where interstate blacktop changes over to gravelly, Smoky Mountain backroads, Wallen’s a rock and hip-hop loving country boy with a sound straight out of the modern South.

He mixes boondock bangers, amped-up anthems and sensitive, shade-tree poetry like a one-man playlist. He’s a fireball onstage, thrilling stadium crowds with superstars like Florida Georgia Line and Luke Bryan and headlining his own 2018 Up Down Tour. He’s a chart-topping songwriter with his name on tracks like Jason Aldean’s “You Make It Easy,” a Grand Ole Opry performer and an artist on the fast track with over 100 million Spotify streams, earning the respect of legends like Bill Anderson and country’s new generation at the same time.

Born and raised in the tiny, two-stoplight town of Sneedville, Tennessee, Wallen began singing in his father’s church at 3 years old and was writing songs by 18, melding a variety of influences right from the start. Sneedville is the home of bluegrass icon Jimmy Martin and Wallen went to the same high school as Kenny Chesney. But while his mother loved Christian music and he was into rap, his dad was a hard rocker all the way – laying the foundation for his son’s own fearless creative identity.

“It’s not something you would expect – a Southern Baptist preacher who loves Bad Company – but I think that’s part of what makes him genuine,” Wallen explains. “He wasn’t the kind of preacher who was throwing judgment toward anybody. He just found a way that helped him and he wanted to help other people, and if he liked a little rock-and-roll, then so be it. I looked up to it all.”

That willingness to break the mold peppers IF I KNOW ME, filled with equal parts confident charm and heartfelt vulnerability. Wallen co-wrote 6 of the album’s 14 tracks, working with established country hit makers like Craig Wiseman and Jessi Alexander, up and comers like Michael Hardy and crossover-rap tunesmiths like Ernest K. and Ryan Vojtesak (Kanye West, Young Thug, Post Malone).

Produced by studio ace Joey Moi – who also helped FGL, Jake Owen and Nickelback develop their bold sonic presence – Morgan didn’t bother trying to classify his work by genre. Instead he focused on feel, with swagger and sensitivity, heartbreak and desire all taking their place.

“Like a lot of people my age, I didn’t necessarily grow up listening to country music … I grew up living it,” he says. “The songs I wrote came from the heart, and I don’t really pay attention to what’s going on outside of what I’m doing. I just try to stick to what I know and what I love.”

With the album’s slow-burning title track, what Wallen knows and loves comes into view. Anchored by a tight, Top 40 club beat and a gotta-have-you theme, the song is all rhythm and quick hitting come-ons as Wallen looks to start a romance that lasts longer than just one night.

“It’s perfect for my first album,” Wallen says. “Like, ‘If I know me, then here’s what you get.’”

His anthemic 2016 breakout, “The Way I Talk,” takes a drawling look at putting your money where your mouth is, while “Up Down” – the irresistible thumper that features Tyler Hubbard and Brian Kelley of Florida Georgia Line – feels like typical Friday in Wallen’s mountain-valley hometown. Climbing up country radio, SiriusXM and digital streaming charts alike, it’s full of distorted twang, pounding drums, sly vocals and references to “Holdin’ it down here in ‘B.F.E.’”

“Some people have asked me, ‘What’s B.F.E.?’ And if you don’t know, you just don’t know,” Wallen says with a laugh. “I love a good time, I love to drink a little bit, I love being with my friends and I love fishing. Life is hard enough already, so if you can find a song that takes you away from that for three or four minutes, it’s a blessing.”

“Had Me at Halftime” scores with a heartfelt Hail Mary, “If I Ever Get You Back” updates the feel-good spirit of ‘90s country, and “Redneck Love Song” grooves with a blue-collar promise of everlasting love.

Meanwhile, “Happy Hour” toasts a relationship that was doomed from the start, mixing on-the-rocks lyrics and melodies into a potent, pure-country anthem. “Chasin’ You” smolders with the residual heat of a top-shelf bourbon, and “Whiskey Glasses” fuses sludgy guitars to a concept that’s basically a low-down, broken-hearted play on the idea behind beer goggles.

But with its booming beat, swampy guitars and sideways lyrics all about the country-boy good life – plus a nod to Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s archetypal country-rocker, “Fishin’ in the Dark” – “Whatcha Know About That” lies at the album’s thematic heart. It’s a place where being true to yourself is more important than playing by someone else’s rules. And that’s something Wallen knows all about.

“The song pays homage to the past, but I’m damn near rapping in part of it,” he explains, honored that the Grammy-winning Dirt Band – envelope pushing game changers in their own right – gave the track their support. “That’s one thing I love about country music right now. You get to express yourself and do what you want, and I think that’s why country is bigger now than it ever has been.”

Sunday February 24, 2019
Stone Pony Showcase

2 1:45-2:10 DARR AMISH
3 2:20-2:45 UNLABELED
4 2:55-3:20 HIPPIE TRAP
5 3:30-4:00 DREAM ETERNAL BLISS
6 4:15-4:45 ART OF RUIN
7 5:00-5:30 ABOVE THE SUN
8 5:40-6:10 HIGH ANXIETY
9 6:20-6:50 TIMMY B /BRIZZ BEATS

Saturday March 2, 2019
Rock To The Top Finals
From over 500 NJ bands, 9 bands
will compete in the big showdown!
NEW COLONY
LUNATIC FRINGE
CASANOVACAINE
SCREENAGE
ELEPHANT TALK
GREEN KNUCKLE MATERIAL
SHALLOW GREEN
SWITCH MOB
RUGBURN
Door 4:00
$12. adv / $15. dos

1 4:30-5:00 SHALLOW GREEN
2 5:15-5:45 GREEN KNUCKLE MATERIAL
3 6:00-6:30 LUNATIC FRINGE
4 6:45-7:15 CASSANOVACAINE
5 7:30-8:00 SWITCH MOB
6 8:15-8:45 NEW COLONY
7 9:00-9:30 SCREENAGE
8 9:45-10:15 ELEPHANT TALK
9 10:30- 11 RUGBURN

Due to repairs and upgrades at The Stone Pony, the Morgan Wallen concert scheduled for Feb. 23 has been relocated down the street to the Paramount Theatre. The new date will be Wed., March 6. All tickets from The Stone Pony show will be honored. Anyone unable to make the new date can get a refund at point of purchase. Additional tickets for the Paramount are now available.

MORGAN WALLEN

with special guest HARDY

Tickets: $20 in advance (plus applicable surcharges), $25 at the door

You can’t step up as one of country’s most exciting new stars without knowing exactly what you’re about. Lucky for Big Loud Records breakout artist Morgan Wallen, that quality runs in his blood.

With his debut album, IF I KNOW ME, the hit maker behind “Up Down” (ft. Florida Georgia Line) and “The Way I Talk” lays his cards out on the table: Work hard. Love hard. Party down. Respect the past and make your own future. … Know yourself.

“I’ve never been the type of person who’s good at getting my feelings out, so for me music is a way to do that,” Wallen explains. “I just hope people get to know me and see my true colors.”

Still only 24 years old, those colors have already started to show. Working with a vocal blend which marks the spot where interstate blacktop changes over to gravelly, Smoky Mountain backroads, Wallen’s a rock and hip-hop loving country boy with a sound straight out of the modern South.

He mixes boondock bangers, amped-up anthems and sensitive, shade-tree poetry like a one-man playlist. He’s a fireball onstage, thrilling stadium crowds with superstars like Florida Georgia Line and Luke Bryan and headlining his own 2018 Up Down Tour. He’s a chart-topping songwriter with his name on tracks like Jason Aldean’s “You Make It Easy,” a Grand Ole Opry performer and an artist on the fast track with over 100 million Spotify streams, earning the respect of legends like Bill Anderson and country’s new generation at the same time.

Born and raised in the tiny, two-stoplight town of Sneedville, Tennessee, Wallen began singing in his father’s church at 3 years old and was writing songs by 18, melding a variety of influences right from the start. Sneedville is the home of bluegrass icon Jimmy Martin and Wallen went to the same high school as Kenny Chesney. But while his mother loved Christian music and he was into rap, his dad was a hard rocker all the way – laying the foundation for his son’s own fearless creative identity.

“It’s not something you would expect – a Southern Baptist preacher who loves Bad Company – but I think that’s part of what makes him genuine,” Wallen explains. “He wasn’t the kind of preacher who was throwing judgment toward anybody. He just found a way that helped him and he wanted to help other people, and if he liked a little rock-and-roll, then so be it. I looked up to it all.”

That willingness to break the mold peppers IF I KNOW ME, filled with equal parts confident charm and heartfelt vulnerability. Wallen co-wrote 6 of the album’s 14 tracks, working with established country hit makers like Craig Wiseman and Jessi Alexander, up and comers like Michael Hardy and crossover-rap tunesmiths like Ernest K. and Ryan Vojtesak (Kanye West, Young Thug, Post Malone).

Produced by studio ace Joey Moi – who also helped FGL, Jake Owen and Nickelback develop their bold sonic presence – Morgan didn’t bother trying to classify his work by genre. Instead he focused on feel, with swagger and sensitivity, heartbreak and desire all taking their place.

“Like a lot of people my age, I didn’t necessarily grow up listening to country music … I grew up living it,” he says. “The songs I wrote came from the heart, and I don’t really pay attention to what’s going on outside of what I’m doing. I just try to stick to what I know and what I love.”

With the album’s slow-burning title track, what Wallen knows and loves comes into view. Anchored by a tight, Top 40 club beat and a gotta-have-you theme, the song is all rhythm and quick hitting come-ons as Wallen looks to start a romance that lasts longer than just one night.

“It’s perfect for my first album,” Wallen says. “Like, ‘If I know me, then here’s what you get.’”

His anthemic 2016 breakout, “The Way I Talk,” takes a drawling look at putting your money where your mouth is, while “Up Down” – the irresistible thumper that features Tyler Hubbard and Brian Kelley of Florida Georgia Line – feels like typical Friday in Wallen’s mountain-valley hometown. Climbing up country radio, SiriusXM and digital streaming charts alike, it’s full of distorted twang, pounding drums, sly vocals and references to “Holdin’ it down here in ‘B.F.E.’”

“Some people have asked me, ‘What’s B.F.E.?’ And if you don’t know, you just don’t know,” Wallen says with a laugh. “I love a good time, I love to drink a little bit, I love being with my friends and I love fishing. Life is hard enough already, so if you can find a song that takes you away from that for three or four minutes, it’s a blessing.”

“Had Me at Halftime” scores with a heartfelt Hail Mary, “If I Ever Get You Back” updates the feel-good spirit of ‘90s country, and “Redneck Love Song” grooves with a blue-collar promise of everlasting love.

Meanwhile, “Happy Hour” toasts a relationship that was doomed from the start, mixing on-the-rocks lyrics and melodies into a potent, pure-country anthem. “Chasin’ You” smolders with the residual heat of a top-shelf bourbon, and “Whiskey Glasses” fuses sludgy guitars to a concept that’s basically a low-down, broken-hearted play on the idea behind beer goggles.

But with its booming beat, swampy guitars and sideways lyrics all about the country-boy good life – plus a nod to Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s archetypal country-rocker, “Fishin’ in the Dark” – “Whatcha Know About That” lies at the album’s thematic heart. It’s a place where being true to yourself is more important than playing by someone else’s rules. And that’s something Wallen knows all about.

“The song pays homage to the past, but I’m damn near rapping in part of it,” he explains, honored that the Grammy-winning Dirt Band – envelope pushing game changers in their own right – gave the track their support. “That’s one thing I love about country music right now. You get to express yourself and do what you want, and I think that’s why country is bigger now than it ever has been.”

Melvin Seals & JGB

$20adv / $25dos

Jams On The Sand brings you Winter Jams:   Melvin Seals has been a powerful presence in the music industry for over 30 years with a long-established reputation as a performer, recording artist and producer. Melvin is most revered for his powerful, high-spirited, Hammond B-3 organ, and keyboards in the Jerry Garcia Band. Melvin spun his B-3 magic with the Jerry Garcia Band for 18 years and in doing so helped pioneer and define what has now become “JamBand Music”. From blues to funk to rock to jazz, Melvin Seals serves up a tasty mix with a little R&B and gospel thrown in to spice things up.

The Interrupters

with Masked Intruder and Ratboy

Tickets: $24 in advance (plus applicable surcharges), $26 at the door

The third album from L.A. ska-punk band The Interrupters, Fight the Good Fight gets its title from a piece of graffiti spray-painted outside the studio where they made their debut. “It’s a phrase that’s followed us around for years, and it kind of embodies the message of this album,” says guitarist Kevin Bivona, whose bandmates include singer Aimee Interrupter, bassist Justin Bivona, and drummer Jesse Bivona. Aimee adds: “There’s a lot of darkness in the world right now, but we’re trying to drive that out by making our music the light. We’re fighting through everything with a smile on our faces.”The follow-up to their 2015 album Say It Out Loud, Fight the Good Fight finds The Interrupters delivering their two-tone-inspired, powerfully melodic, punk-fueled sound with more vitality than ever before. Working with Rancid frontman and Grammy Award-winning producer Tim Armstrong (who’s now produced all their albums) and Grammy Award-winning mixer Tom Lord-Alge, Aimee and the Bivona brothers channeled that raw energy in part by recording almost entirely to tape. “There’s a certain feeling you get from that process that you can’t really get digitally,” says Kevin. “There’s no overthinking anything—everyone’s got to be fully present and committed. It was definitely high-pressure, but also really fun.”True to the album’s theme of persevering through hard times, Fight the Good Fight opens with “Title Holder”—a fast-paced anthem that celebrates the notion of “taking all the bad things you’ve overcome and turning them into a beautiful part of your character,” according to Kevin. On “She’s Kerosene,” The Interrupters slip into a more intense but still-triumphant mood as Aimee reflects on breaking free from narcissistic abuse (“I really hope when people listen to that song, it helps them feel empowered to leave a toxic relationship,” she says). Aimee also brings her fearlessly honest storytelling to “Gave You Everything,” an aching but glorious, no-regrets ballad she describes as “a true story, and a story as old as time.”One of the most exhilarating tracks on Fight the Good Fight, “Got Each Other” offers a message of street-punk unity and features vocals from all four members of Rancid (including Armstrong, bassist Matt Freeman, guitarist Lars Frederiksen, and drummer Branden Steineckert). “It was always in the cards for all the guys to be on that song, but we were getting nearer and nearer to deadline, and a few of the verses were still empty,” Kevin recalls. “We ended up having Jesse and Justin drive up to the Bay Area in our tour van with a mini studio in the back, record Matt and Lars, and then drive back down again. It was like the third act of Goodfellas, where the clock was totally working against us, but somehow we made it happen.” In another moment of collaboration, the brash and bouncy “Broken World” was built from a riff and melody passed on by Billie Joe Armstrong while The Interrupters were on tour with Green Day. “Billie Joe played us that riff and melody and told us, ‘If you guys wanna take that and make a song out of it, go for it,’” Kevin remembers. “I think it’s the first ska song he’s ever been a part of, which is a cool thing for us.”
Formed in 2011, The Interrupters got together soon after the Bivona brothers’ former band appeared on bills with Aimee during a 2009 tour. With their self-titled debut arriving in 2014, the band soon shared stages with bands like Rancid, Blink 182 & Bad Religion. In support of Say It Out Loud, they toured all around the world headlining their own shows as well as supporting Green Day in Europe, Australia and South America.Proving their irrepressibility as a live act, the Say It Out Loud run included a Salt Lake City date where Kevin broke his arm after falling off the stage, then immediately duct-taped his fractured limb and completed the set. As they gear up for the release of Fight the Good Fight, The Interrupters hope the album provides some solace to anyone feeling disillusioned. “Music’s gotten me through the toughest times in my life, so now my mission is to give back what I’ve been given—to help other people know that if they feel defeated or not good enough, they’re not alone,” says Aimee. And with appearances at festivals like Punk In Drublic and Warped Tour planned for spring and summer, the band’s especially thrilled to achieve an up-close connection with their audience. “The only time we’re not worrying about what’s going on in the world is when we’re onstage,” says Kevin. “It’s this beautiful escape where it’s just us and the crowd, and everyone’s dancing and having a good time, and hopefully we can all forget about our problems for a while.”

Buckethead at The Stone Pony on Wednesday, April 10th, 2019

Tickets: $25 in advance (plus applicable surcharges), $28 at the door

Buckethead is a virtuoso guitarist and multi-instrumentalist who performs within many genres of music. He has released over 300 studio recordings, way more than anyone else in the history
of music. He released 178 “pikes” in the 2014-2015 period alone. He has also performed on over 50 more albums by other artists. His music spans such diverse areas as progressive metal,
funk, blues, jazz, bluegrass, and avant-garde music.
When performing in his theatrical persona, Buckethead used to wear a KFC bucket on his head, emblazoned with an orange bumper sticker that reads FUNERAL in capital black block letters,
and an expressionless plain white costume mask. More recently, he has switched to a plain white bucket no longer bearing the KFC logo. He also incorporates nun chucks, robot dancing, and toy
trading into his stage performances. Buckethead’s persona represents a character that was “raised by chickens”  and has made it his “mission in life to alert the world to the ongoing chicken
holocaust in fast-food joints around the globe.”
An instrumentalist, Buckethead is best known for his electric guitar playing. He has been voted  No. 8 on a list in GuitarOne magazine of the Top 10 Greatest Guitar Shredders of All
Time as well as being included in Guitar World’s lists of the 25 all-time weirdest guitarists and is also known for being one of the fastest guitar players on planet earth. He’s also a kick ass bass
player and an over all amazing live performer.
Buckethead has most recently performed as a solo Artist although he has collaborated with many high-profile artists such as Bill Laswell, Les Claypool, Bernie Worrell, Iggy Pop, Serj Tankian,
Mike Patton, Viggo Mortensen, Brain, and tons more.