While listening to the radio, Jon Caspi – legendary frontman for the punk-indie band Jon Caspi & The First Gun – heard a story about a tribute party for a singer-songwriter that recently died. His local music scene came together for a night of performances to pay homage to him which entailed performers each singing one of their fallen mate’s tunes. “I can’t remember the name of the guy or what town that was,” says Caspi, “but I was taken by how each person interviewed said how much that guy would have loved being there to watch his friends play his songs.” Caspi thought it was sad that the deceased performer missed out on what would have certainly been a memorable and moving night for him. “That’s when I thought, I don’t want to miss out on a night like that. I should do this now, before we are dead.”
This story inspired the idea to throw a ‘we pay tribute to us’ party. Taking a very tongue-and-cheek approach, the band sees this as both a fun and funny theme for the evening. “Not that we deserve it,” jokes Doug Lane, the band’s bassist, “We’re just being cute.” Pete Jager, the band’s guitarist, laughingly adds, “Well, we are awesome.”
To be clear, no one is dying or had died. The idea arose while the band was planning their release party for a new album called Hanging Around. It will be the band’s fourth release and the second on Brighton Bar Records. They invited some friends to play on the lineup, requiring that they each perform at least one Jon Caspi & The First Gun tune. The idea really caught on with local bands. “We were pleasantly surprised by how excited other performers were to be involved in this,” says Jimmie Mizell, the band’s high energy drummer. Caspi adds, “I received a ton of emails from bands asking to be on the lineup because they wanted to play one of our songs. That’s hugely humbling .” As a result the band is compiling and releasing a companion compilation album of acts doing all Jon Caspi & The First Gun songs. It is expected to be released this summer.
Despite poking fun at themselves, the enthusiasm of other bands to cover one of their songs should not be a surprise. Jon Caspi & The First Gun have been a longstanding and active part of the local scene, and they have enjoyed some success with international radio play, awards, all their albums appearing on “best album of the year” lists, and invitations to open for many well-known touring acts from LA punk rock legends ~X~ to New Jersey heroes The Bouncing Souls. They also have a particularly dedicated following which attend most shows and sing along to the band’s catchy songs.
The tribute party is taking place on Saturday April 25th at the Asbury Park Yacht Club, located on the boardwalk in Asbury Park. All are invited and there will be no cover charge to get in. Also performing are New Jersey favorites The Extras, Inc., Humongous, and Tri-State (acoustic), and an upcoming young band from Delaware called The Bomb Shelter Dropouts. For more information, visit www.JonCaspi.com
