Makin Waves Song of the Week: "Check the Calendar" by Dentist

By Bob Makin

originally published: 09/02/2022

Dentist’s latest single, “Check the Calendar,” from their brand new album, “Making a Scene,” is the Makin Waves Song of the Week. PHOTO BY GARY STRACK

The Asbury Park fuzz-pop trio Dentist has released their fourth album, “Making a Scene,” their second for the L.A. indie Cleopatra Records.

The beloved band’s latest single, the 12-song LP’s lead off track “Check the Calendar,” is the Makin Waves Song of the Week.

As the Makin Waves Song of the Week, “Check the Calendar,” also can be heard between 6 and 8 p.m. on Sept. 2 on “Radio Jersey” at ThePenguinRocks.com. If you miss it, you also can tune in any time in the archives at Radio Jersey or MixCloud.

According to the band — vocalist-bassist Emily Bornemann, guitarist Justin Bornemann, and drummer Matt Hockenjos — “Check The Calendar” is about “a summer fling that is beginning in the dead of winter. We were picturing a New Jersey winter where the energy of youth couldn’t be contained even though most people are hibernating. This was one of the last songs written for the album but one of our favorites.”

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Emily added, “Covid definitely played a role in the songwriting process and the timeline that everything got done. We wound up with different songs and a different album than we would have otherwise, but believe that it’s better than what we were working on prior to the pandemic. That’s the silver lining that we try to see about the unfortunate situation.”

Recorded at Lakehouse Recording Studios in Asbury with production by the band, engineering by Nick Semanchick, and mastering by Jurgen Engler of Die Krupps, “Making A Scene” touches on love, loss, grief, anxiety, and nihilism — expressing that no matter what happens nothing really matters.

Other singles released prior to the album are:

* “Don’t Let Me Catch You,” which chronicles how hell hath no fury like a woman scorned

* “Let Me Let Go” about a partner so terrible in a relationship that they actually did the other person a favor by making it so easy to let them go

* “Spilled Coffee,” one of the LP’s earliest songs and a live staple.

Speaking of live, the ever-busy Dentist will be one of the few Asbury bands participating in the star-studded Sea.Hear.Now Festival featuring Green Day, Stevie Nicks, My Morning Jacket, Billy Strings, Cage the Elephant and much more on the beach of the City by the Sea. Dentist’s set will be on the Sept. 17 date of the weekend-long adventure. The other Asbury acts are Lost in Society, The Vansaders, and Dogs in a Pile. Visit Sea.Hear.Now Festival.

Dentist also will play Oct. 22 at Windjammer in Brooklyn. For more about the band, click www.dentistband.com.

Bob Makin has produced Makin Waves since 1988. Follow Makin Waves on Facebook and contact Bob at [email protected].

About the author:

New Jersey Stage is proud to be the home of Bob Makin's Makin Waves column since 2017. His Song of the Week column comes out every Friday. He also writes an Album of the Month and Interview of the Month as well.

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