Here's the Story
Here's The Story: Ten Years On the Road - Part 2
Season 2021 Episode 4 | 29m 29sVideo has Closed Captions
Ten Years On the Road, Part 2 spotlights the performers and performances from the series.
Here's The Story: Ten Years On the Road is a look in the rearview mirror at all the miles and moments from the hit, Emmy Nominated NJPBS series. Part 2 celebrates the performers and performances that have entertained and inspired audiences over the ten-year-run of the series.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
Here's the Story is a local public television program presented by NJ PBS
Here's the Story
Here's The Story: Ten Years On the Road - Part 2
Season 2021 Episode 4 | 29m 29sVideo has Closed Captions
Here's The Story: Ten Years On the Road is a look in the rearview mirror at all the miles and moments from the hit, Emmy Nominated NJPBS series. Part 2 celebrates the performers and performances that have entertained and inspired audiences over the ten-year-run of the series.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship[Birds Chirping] [Playful Flute] - We've been working like mad men out here, so it's a real mess its a lot of wires everywhere you know.
[Playing Xylophone Instrumental Music] - We've got a bunch of wrenches from my grandfather, like whole tub full of wrenches.
Then I went to Collins with auction.
I'd probably bought like the another, like 15.
If you need to pitch it up it takes them off the end so this one needed to go up.
- You can actually tune the wrench - Like a quarter Tonia.
This one needs to go up a quarter tone and luckily it was already broken so I just ripped the rest of it and made it perfect.
[Instruments Playing] Psychedelic, progressive funk rock.
If that's a thing, that's, that's what we play.
It's really just like loud and fast and really intense the whole time.
- [Instruments Playing] Cody , how would you describe Karmic Jagger?
- Really lame, stoner rock, under rehearsed, and pretty terrible.
- That's the way I feel about it too.
- [Instruments Playing] - I'm Cody MacCory, I play bass and [inaudible] with Kevin GV-Caffrey and Randy Precedent.
I also lead a band used to be called the 'Pressed [Instrument Playing] - I'm a musician I'm a writer I guess, engineer as well and I do a lot of fun things with fun people.
[ Piano Playing] - Can you get that Cody - What's the most beautiful thing you ever saw?
- The most beautiful thing I've ever seen, I don't even know if I can answer that.
- [inaudible] but David Lynch in a big movie theater.
- Everything's beautiful you know - What's one thing you know for certain is true.
- Does nothing count?
- Is nothing a valid answer.
- Existence, as we know is just in each other's eye and what you see and what I see are two different things.
So it doesn't necessarily mean that, doesn't necessarily mean it's, it's real.
It could be all fitting in my imagination because I don't see what you see.
- Music.
Yeah, I know for certain music is true.
- [Instruments playing] How do you define love?
- Wow.
- What's up with the heavy questions.
- Thought might get those out of the way first and then I'll ask what your favorite color is.
- When I was a kid I was much less skeptical of everything.
And I had a lot more faith in myself and other people.
This is coming from a total missing; for some I'm the wrong guy to ask.
- No, no, I'm right there with you.
You want to have faith in other people.
You want to believe that you can connect to everyone else.
And you want to instill that whole feeling of one other person said you don't feel loved.
- Just total, total lack of self, maybe you just give, give like everything to the point where like, you don't eat, you don't sleep, you don't drink water, next thing you know, it's been like four days.
I think that would do it and maybe it's got something to do with it anyway, maybe that's not the whole thing; it's got something to do with it.
- It's what you believe it is what each individual person believes it is.
My definition is if it makes you happy, you love it makes you truly, truly happy, then, then that, that is love.
[Lighthearted violin Music] - And then the curtain starts opening in and this sound of, it's like, its like not it just open this door in the ground and the sound of hell rising up it was and somewhere at like fire, like a fire rock or something, I mean, I'm like ouuuuhooo and then crash crash; and I'm like, its got to get out of the way because the kids are finally zoom in; and it was just, I remember somebody of course called the police and there was smoke everywhere, like fireworks have been going off, and the cops arrived and one of them was a woman and she walked out [inaudible] He walked in and went; Oh no we're not having this.
[Rock Music] - Throughout our 10 years of wandering, there was, there is perhaps no other community that was more consistently inspiring, giving or honestly more fun to spend time with them then the artists, the performers, the music makers, the dancers and singers and maybe it has something to do with the fact that just like us, they create not for recognition or because they make millions of dollars doing it but because they're compelled to do it because they love what they do.
That's the glue, lovers stick together.
- I find a music way to just escape from the outside world because sometimes I get really angry and I don't really know what to do; so I just grab my headphones at home and I plug them into my mom's phone, and I just feel like playing and like I'm the only person in the world.
[Singing] ♪ Why why he's holding her hand when he's ♪ ♪ Supposed to be mine.
♪ ♪ - Judy left the same time, okay nobody moves, ♪ ♪ one, two, heads up, "Nobody know where my Johnny ♪ ♪ Has gone he truly left the same time... ♪ - It just makes you, makes me feel like I'm just, it's hard to describe because it's just an amazing feeling.
The fact that you know, that people are clapping for you and loving what you're doing.
I just love knowing people are happy with something I did.
- A little bit of my way.
Now One, two, ready.
And now the end it near, - Ohhh - one, two.
Ready go.
[Singing] ♪ And now the end is near ♪ - Keep going.
♪ And so I face... ♪ - Was that difficult to get up and to, to do additional like that for you - At first it was but then it turned out to be fine.
- What made it turn out to be fine?
- At first, I thought they would make fun of me, but they didn't.
♪ so now the end is near ♪ ♪ so I face the final curtain ♪ - Are you more comfortable singing by yourself, or in a group?
- In a group.
- Okay.
I appreciate your honesty that the - He said before the auditions, you can like call out or saying things or comments to them, her phone.
- And that helps.
- Yeah.
- Think you have a lower range.
Okay, so I'm going to put a little note here, lower range so that when I try to place a part, I'm going to pick a song that's low, right?
You can go sit down, great job.
It happens all the time.
You never know who's going to step forward.
You never know what, what, what music is means to somebody or what it's going to do for a child.
I have, I get emails all the time from parents who, who, who thanked me for, for bringing music into the child's life because sometimes it's, it's the one subject area that they really, really Excel in, and they're having such difficulties in their academics and music really is, is an outlet for them and, and that student sometimes ends up just shining in the concert.
They might have a solo or a speaking part; It could be and that's very meaningful for me.
And the shy; sometimes we have very, very shy students, they don't utter a word in class, but then they volunteer to, to try for a singing part and they sing like a bird and it's beautiful and, and absolutely that child gets a part in the concert, and usually when we do our, our dress rehearsal for the school, the day before, some of the teachers are absolutely shocked, some teachers have had that student in a previous year, or if they've changed their grade level, they have them, you know, and they just can't get over it, and that's very true with our special ED students too.
We have a lot of students who you would never, ever suspect that they can sing, or they can play an instrument that like they do, and it's just such, it's just such a moment.
You know, lots of tears in the audience, lots of tears from the parents of that child, who is so excited to see their child participating with typical peers and, and just rocking it.
[Choir Singing] - Thanks for watching the Point Jersey shores music channel [inaudible] New Jersey, [inaudible] Nice to meet you by the way.
- Yeah - Funny, you should ask me about rock and roll.
- Here, that's why I'm here asking you, because - Here's what I'm going to tell you my take on rock and roll is I grew up at the Jersey shore, loved Bruce Springsteen, loved Bon Jovi, love all the eighties rock bands everything right.
And I thought, well, that was cool.
Now I have a child that's 11 years old, who despite me wants to be a rock and roll star.
And he's a musician and he's really talented.
And now I go to a concert and I picture my son on the stage.
I have a whole different take on what rock and roll is when it involves my son becoming a rock star.
- Is it not as positive?
Or is it just different?
- It's a little scary.
You know, as a parent, you want to give them a fallback plan, but like maybe be a teacher and do gigs on the side, but there is something to be said for a kid that grows up at the Jersey shore, knew who Clarence Clemons was and took up the saxophone for that reason and knew Max Weinberg and took up the drums for that reason, and now on his very own merit, he's performing with bands and he's not even, he's barely a teenager.
So I do love that the history seems to have grown in him, just from hearing my music.
So if rock and roll can stay rock and roll and spread to other generations like that, I'm all for it.
To me, it's a raw energy, you know, there's pop music and there's so many genres that are great, but there's something about a raw voice and a loud guitar and somebody wailing on a drum set and you just put it all together with some really cool dudes and females too, I don't mean males necessarily, but people that don't exude the standard beauty that you see on a magazine cover, but that they're just using their raw, unique energy and they're not perfect, but when they come together as a band, it is perfection.
That's what it is to me.
[Rock Music] ♪ I fly like paper, get high like planes ♪ ♪ If you catch me at the border ♪ ♪ I got visas in my name ♪ ♪ If you come around here, I make 'em all day ♪ ♪ I get one done in a second if you wait ♪ ♪ I fly like paper, get high like planes ♪ ♪ If you catch me at the border ♪ ♪ I got visas in my name ♪ ♪ If you come around here, I make 'em all day ♪ ♪ Sometimes I think sitting on trains ♪ ♪ Every stop I get to I'm clocking that game ♪ ♪ Everyone's a winner, we're making our fame ♪ ♪ Bona fide hustler making my name ♪ ♪ Sometimes I think sitting on trains ♪ ♪ Every stop I get to I'm clocking that game ♪ ♪ Everyone's a winner, we're making our fame ♪ ♪ Bona fide hustler making my name ♪ ♪ All I wanna do all I wanna do all I wanna do ♪ ♪ is take your money All I wanna do all ♪ ♪ I wanna do all I wanna do is take your money ♪ ♪ All I wanna do all I wanna do all I wanna ♪ ♪ Do is take your money [instruments Playing] ♪ - What is it about music to you that inspires you that, that makes you in your free time do that instead of some of the many things that other people do, you spend a lot of time playing around with music, working on your own solitary, et cetera.
What is it about music that, that does that for you?
- The good thing about it is is that there is something on, it's not definable.
It's a quality that we, why do we even do it?
Doesn't make sense.
You know, there's, there's no reason that it should make us feel the way it does, but it does and you don't have to be educated, you don't have to be involved in it.
Every culture has music.
That's not an accident.
There's something primal, There's something visceral.
It's beautiful.
It's upsetting, it's a release.
It unifies us in a way that very few things do.
There's in my opinion, there's two things that really do.
And that's music and silence.
- Music and Silence.
- We can appreciate both and I think there's a lot of depth in both of those things.
I think I learned that more during lockdown than I previously had.
[Singing] ♪ ...brought all lights and broke all the rules ♪ ♪ And baby I brought them all for you ohhhhh ♪ ♪ Because even when I was flat broke you made ♪ ♪ Me feel like a million bucks you do ♪ ♪ And I was made for you, you see this life... ♪ - Well, it's a combination of dedication to what you're doing, you make up your mind, you want to do theater, you enjoy it.
So many people forget that there's an enjoyment in performing or directing they think of the money, they think of how the billing, they think of all these other things that are, I guess, important to them, but what's important to some of us is the work we do that it's recognized and it's appreciated and it's respected by our peers in the business.
And I think that is the fulfillment.
I get a fulfillment when I know young kids that have worked at surf light that I've directed or students that I've taught, when I see them develop, like yourself, move along to other things and out of having met me, say, or learnt their craft for me, it is able to them to go on into the business and I get a big thrill when I see someone that I remembered back when move on and become a very important actor, musician or producer, young fellow that I taught in 2000 was a young intern up at Weather Vane is now producing on Broadway.
He's in that short period of time, he has moved on and he still says, Gil, you taught me so much.
So what do I teach them?
I teach them my experience, what I've gone through, but most important, it is something that you vow to yourself that is something that you love doing and its something that you will never stop doing and I think it's that approach; it's, it's also Stubbornness.
I'm not going to let rejection stop me.
I'm not going to let some praise stop me.
It's always moving on to the next experience and you can never put a lid on it, you know, you can never, if you put a lid on it and you say, if I don't make it in five years on through with the business, but then you don't belong.
There, it's an open-end thing at any age.
It's the beautiful thing about theater.
You can start at 18, 19 years old and you can work until you drop dead on the stage.
Like many actors have Chester Maurice dropped dead at the Bucks County Theater.
Tyrone Howard dropped dead in the shoot and shoot.
I mean, it's, you never end, unless you say I don't want it anymore and I love it.
I absolutely love it.
Even the hard parts of it, the challenges the disappointments, I love that part of it because it makes me better.
It, I learned from all of that.
It's a learning thing.
Anything that happens to you in the business to me is a learning thing and it never ends to the day you stop, you never stop filling up more inside of you about what you have to offer.
Would you have to give.
- Gil, can I ask you to do something from the theater?
Can you, can you recall a piece of a soiloque or some dialogue from favorite piece that you've done?
- Oh wow, That's how I, I haven't done anything for a while.
- A line from the song, something that comes to mind.
- Yeah, I can.
Well, I call it my signature role because I've played it so many times and it's a show that I know, like my heart and I, and it's from a show called the Fantastics and I've done it here on this stage directed it and played the role about Gayal.
And at that time, the musical director that I hired in New York was Jason Robert Brown, who is now a very top composer, having done a parade and other shows on Broadway, he's gone on, and I can do a little bit of, ♪ try to remember the kind of September ♪ ♪ when the life of slow and all so mellow, try ♪ ♪ to remember the kind of September when grass ♪ ♪was green and green was yellow.
Try to remember ♪ ♪the kind of September when you were tinder ♪ ♪and shallow.
Try to remember and if you remember ♪ ♪then follow, follow, follow, follow.. deep in ♪ ♪December its nice to remember all the snow ♪ ♪ With hallow deep in December its nice ♪ ♪ To remember all the hurds the harvest hallow ♪ ♪ Deep in December its nice to remember the ♪ ♪ Pile September that made us mellow ♪ ♪ Deep in December are hearts should remember ♪ ♪ And follow, follow, follow, follow, follow... ♪ ♪ - harmony, follow... ♪ - Ladies and gentleman, Gil Fishor [Clapping Hands] [Car On Road] [Rock Music] [Singing] - Thomas Listern is sort of like the, like the embodiment of friendship and the feeling of growing up with people that you knew very well, you know, the good times you had and the good times to come, and I think a Thomas Listern I just think of the undying bond of friendship that you can make with people.
[Singing] [Instrument Playing] - In his poem ode, Arthur O'Shaughnessy dedicates his work to the artists and musicians, the performers.
It's a Monday muddled up constructed world.
We live in folks but take comfort in the hopeful message of his Ode and take shelter in the sound and song, no matter how bad things had gotten over the last 10 years, it's always been the performers and their perspectives that have lifted our spirits and made a stance.
We are the music makers and we are the dreamers and dreams wandering by lone sea breakers and sitting by desolate streams, world losers and world foresakers on who The pale moon gleans.
Yet we are the movers and shakers of the world forever it seems.
[Instrument Playing] - Bam - Cool.
♪ We are exactly what you see bruised and ♪ ♪scrapped knees still we find our way ♪ ♪ I saw them come as quickly as they go ♪ ♪ Some chose their own roles ♪
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