Seemingly overnight, “the strip” in Sea Isle turned into something out of, well, Wildwood, with rowdy nightlife that attracted throngs of sunburned twentysomethings eager, in the immortal words of the Beastie Boys, to fight for their right to party.
My brother Pat had just gotten married, and he, his wife, Jean, and I became sort of club-hopping three musketeers, children of the summer Shore who were young enough to blow off a good head of steam when we were out, yet old enough to know how to prevent the hangover that surely should have followed—most of the time, anyway. One Saturday night we walked into the Ocean Drive, one of those archetypal Shore bars—sawdust on the floor, shuffleboard bowling, bar stools in need of a good reupholstering—to listen to the Eastern Standard Band.
The ESB, as we came to call the band, was the Shore’s answer to Fleetwood Mac, or at least that’s how I always thought of them. The ESB did covers of basic, danceable rock, and although I can’t remember exactly how many members there were, there were a few, including a girl with long blonde hair down her back who always wore a headband. In those days the band alternated sets with a duo called the Secret Service Band, whom Pat dubbed “the guys with the chuh-chuh machine” because of the jackhammering backbeat they used in every song.
The music at the O.D., as it’s still affectionately known, wasn’t inventive or even particularly memorable. But it was fun—amazing, rollicking, we’re-here-for-the-weekend-and-nothing-bad-can-happen-to-us fun. And that was all we asked of a Shore bar: cold beer, air conditioning, and music that made you want to sing, dance, or both.
That’s the promise, the specialness of music at the Shore, whether it’s at Bar Anticipation in South Belmar (now the gentrified Lake Como), Jenks in Point Pleasant Beach, Nardi’s Tavern in Haven Beach on LBI, Joe Pop’s in Ship Bottom (regular stomping ground for the Nerds, a longtime favorite Shore band), or Fred’s Tavern in Stone Harbor. It’s that indefinable feeling you get from hearing a great band singing great songs in a great atmosphere, with a communal nod to your fellow listeners that no matter where you are, this is our place and our music and our Shore. The music is the soundtrack of our collective Shore experience, the thread that helps us be, as our friends at New Jersey 101.5 might say, not Rehoboth, not the Hamptons, God forbid, but proud to be New Jersey.
Alas, time marches on even on the sand, and it has marched right through the O.D., where our beloved ESB is no more. But 21 years later the Secret Service Band is still there, still rocking the house with covers of Billy Joel and Billy Idol and a host of Billys in between, along with the O.D. Stomp, a sort of rowdier version of the hokeypokey that started as a lark about thirteen years ago and is now part of the official O.D. experience. “It’s a miracle,” says Dominic Albanese, who with his partner Craig Phillips makes up Secret Service, when asked him how the duo has lasted so long as Sea Isle’s answer to Jimmy Buffett. “A stupid miracle, but a miracle.”
Albanese, who turns 50 this July—“as old as sin,” he laments—says that what defines music at the Shore is the people who come out to listen to it—hardworking, hard-playing regular folk who truly love the Shore in a very deep, very real, very personal way. They feel happy when they’re there, and they want music that reflects that. “And they listen to everything, from country to punk to rap, so you have to cover everything,” Albanese says. “So when you’re at the Shore, that’s what you get. Plus, there’s just something about a musty-smelling bar. They sit idle all winter long, and they flat out stink by the time they open up again.” He pauses. “It’s a wonderful thing.”
Because I experienced it firsthand, I know exactly what he’s talking about.