3. The FeeliesCrazy Rhythms

I’m not really from New Jersey – I mean, I sort of am, and I’m sort of not – but I grew up in the suburbs of New York and The Feelies grew up in New Jersey. But for both of us New York/Manhattan was the star that you orbited around when I started going to CBGBs to see bands. Although I never saw The Feelies there, I actually missed them the first couple of years they were together, I saw them not long before Crazy Rhythms came out. They’d had a little bit of a personnel change along the way, a different drummer, so by the time I saw them they were a band with a reputation that I knew I should see. But that first time I saw them at rock disco Hurrah, it was a pretty magical set of songs. Essentially what they were doing for the first few years when I saw them play and hearing them go from Raised Eyebrows to Crazy Rhythms was and still is, one of the most exciting things.