Bring Back the ’80s

The music of Trenton’s punk/New Wave palace will return for a night at Hope Hose Firehouse in Bordentown.

By: Susan Van Dongen
   It was the combination of moshing and the new age of litigation that most likely brought down City Gardens, known throughout the ’80s and ’90s as the punk/New Wave/alternative venue of choice in Trenton.
   Longtime DJ/promoter Randy Now says lawsuits took all the fun out of a typical live show at City Gardens. People would be slam dancing and stage diving with glee by night, then wake up the next day and realize they were hurt and call their lawyers. Or rather, the person they slammed into would make the legal move.
   There were other reasons the club closed its doors in 2000, too. For one thing, the college kids who once flocked to City Gardens sporting spiked leather collars, vinyl trousers and Mohawks got older, got jobs, got married — and that was the end of coming out to drink 90-cent beers and listen to the Bush Tetras.
   But those times have returned, at least for one night.
   Mr. Now and DJ Carlos, another City Gardens alum, have invited friends, bartenders and even the doormen from back in the day to City Gardens 2005! — a reunion celebration at Hope Hose Firehouse in Bordentown Nov. 19.
   The event hopes to recreate the feel of those grungy good old days. Mr. Now, a Santa Claus without the beard, enthusiastically challenges former patrons to burn up the dance floor once again, which could be quite a challenge considering folks from that age group are well into their 40s.
   And you’re invited to dig your skinny ties out of the drawer and don your best black straight-legs to dress the part. To make the setting complete, Jolt Cola will be served along with a Trenton delicacy known only as "Tutdogs."
   Mr. Now hasn’t decided exactly what he’ll play, but it’ll probably include The B-52s, Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe and other groups from the Stiff label — enough to make you feel like it’s 1980 again.
   That’s when he started at City Gardens, after he and his Talking Heads records had been ejected from quite a few other clubs in the area.
   "I went in there one night, said I was a New Wave DJ and the guy said, ‘A what?’" Mr. Now says. "I’d been all over Mercer, Burlington and Bucks counties, lugging my records around, playing this music at clubs and getting thrown out — even spit on. All anyone wanted to hear back then was ZZ Top, the Knack and Aerosmith. One night I even announced, ‘Here’s the new Led Zeppelin,’ and played The B-52s instead.
   "But I guess I was on to something," he continues. "That first year at City Gardens I had a business card that said, ‘Randy Ellis, New Wave DJ — no Bee Gees, no disco.’ Someone at ‘New Jersey Monthly’ picked up on it and put a blurb (about the club) in the magazine, something like, ‘What do you wear to a punk rock wedding?’"
   He says he’s always been a music fan, even spinning little yellow Disney discs as a kid. In the mid-’70s, Mr. Now had been listening to a lot of highly produced, technically challenging British progressive rock but tired of "all those 15-minute Yes songs," he says. "Instead, I started to listen to British pub rock, like Brinsley Schwarz. Then I heard about the Elvis Costello record Nick Lowe produced for Stiff and tried to find it. In 1977, you couldn’t get artists like Elvis Costello around here.
   "I used to go to Third Street Jazz in Philly to buy records," he continues. "They had a whole section just for the Top 40 punk rock 45s — Sex Pistols, Buzzcocks, Talking Heads, X-Ray Spex. I’d just buy them all. Now they’re worth a lot of money."
   City Gardens opened in March 1980 at 1701 Calhoun St. — a former car dealership and warehouse and, some say, a Bible factory at one time. The club didn’t have any direction, however. Owner Frank Nalbone tried blues for a while and it even had an incarnation as a disco named "Chocolate City."
   Fate was cast when punk and New Wave started to get big in New York and a handful of New Jersey bands began to reach out to Mr. Nalbone, inquiring about live shows there. Then Mr. Now showed up.
   "They bugged Frank about playing originals there, which was unusual because everybody did covers back then," Mr. Now says. "So we were thinking about promoting some live shows and finally did one, with this British punk band 999."
   With its location between New York and Philadelphia and the punk rock/New Wave love for simplicity, playing a former warehouse in a blue-collar section of Trenton appealed to bands touring the East Coast. After the concert with 999, Mr. Now says he hardly had to make the effort — agents were calling him about staging their groups at City Gardens.
   "I’d hear from agents asking me if I wanted to have Tom Verlaine at City Gardens or the Fleshtones or the Bush Tetras," he says. "That’s what I loved about the time. No computers, things just got around by word of mouth. Next thing I knew, an agent was calling me asking if I was interested in this band called Bauhaus, or this other one, New Order, which had just changed its name (from Joy Division) because the lead singer committed suicide."
   Even bigger names followed. Mr. Now says punk stalwarts the Ramones played at City Gardens 25 times. Nirvana was there in September 1991. R.E.M. performed there too, in November 1982.
   "We charged $3 to get in and that was a big deal because it was usually only $1," Mr. Now says. "Actually there were less than 50 people but I must have met 500 people who say they were there. Bauhaus was our first $4 show."
   In addition to spinning records, booking and promoting shows at City Gardens, Mr. Now was a letter carrier in Cranbury. For a while, he co-owned a record store in New Hope, which is where he sold some of the vintage vinyl he acquired. He still has about 3,000 records in his collection.
   Plagued by a bad case of vertigo for the last five years, Mr. Now had to leave the postal service as well as curtail his musical activities. Since surgery, he’s been able to do more and recently started a radio show on WTSR-FM 91.3, Thursday nights from 6-9 p.m. He calls it The Randy Now Project: Music You Can’t Hear on WTSR, spotlighting garage rock, ’60s nuggets, one-hit wonders, surf, rockabilly, old-school punk and the occasional novelty song.
   Mr. Now says he’s curious to see how many people show up to the reunion in Bordentown and wonders if it might turn into more than a one-time event. Live music and dance nights at City Gardens had a huge following and a mailing list that stretched from New York to Maryland. In its heyday, "Thursday 90-cent Dance Night" regularly drew more than 500 people in all, he says. And the folks were from all walks of life.
   "We had punk rockers, reggae and ska fans, bikers, hippies, grunge fans, a gay (contingent)," Mr. Now says. "Everyone got along great."
City Gardens 2005! features Randy Now and DJ Carlos at the Hope Hose Firehouse, 150 W. Burlington St., Bordentown, Nov. 19, 7 p.m. Admission costs $5. For information, call (609) 291-0112. On the Web: www.randynow.com