October, 2001 Fan of the Month: Carol Gerber
Congratulations, you've won a signed Southside Johnny poster!

I remember liking the Jukes for almost as long as I can remember caring about music, but I think that it was the luck of hearing the right music, at the right place, in the right time that turned me from a casual listener to a serious Jukes fan.  When I was growing up in northern New Jersey in the late '70s and the early '80s, the Jukes' music was everywhere.  The Jukes first few albums were staples on FM radio, and "Havin' a Party" was played at least twice during every keg party in my death-before-disco town.  My little brother and I sang along to the Jukes' Miller Beer commercial, and he swears that we stayed up late to watch the band on "Don Kirshner's Rock Concert".  Unlike most of what I heard on pop radio at the time, this was "real music" that somebody cared about writing, and playing, and singing, and you could hear the difference.  The songs were complex and beautiful, and they conveyed a real excitement that made me painfully aware of the nightlife, crowds, alcohol, and everything else good that I would miss out on until I turned 21.  Frustrating, yes, but I loved it anyway.  If all of that wasn't enough to make a Jukes fan out of me, I started playing trumpet in 1977 and relied pretty heavily on the Jukes' horn section to counter the serious geek factor that attached to eleven year old, trumpet-playing girls at the time. 

My pre-adolescent self-esteem issues aside, a solid foundation for serious Jukes fandom was in place by 1985 when I saw my first Jukes show.  I really don't know why I hadn't seen them earlier, but when I heard that the Jukes would be opening for George Thorogood at Brendan Byrne Arena I absolutely had to go.  Although I remember almost nothing about my first Jukes show, I do remember that I loved it.  In fact, it's been the extremely rare Jukes show when I haven't been completely caught up in the music and in the energy created when the band is playing, and the fans are screaming, and the joint is jumping.  If you've been to a Jukes show (and I'm guessing you have) then you know what I'm talking about. 

I was a fairly reasonable Jukes fan in the beginning; a Ritz show here, a Garden State Arts Center show there, nothing drastic.  Once I met Linda T. (Jukes FOTM for July), however, things got bad in a good way.  Since my first road trip with Linda T. in the spring of 1988, I've seen many, many Southside shows.  I stopped counting at 100 shows in fifteen states and three countries.  It seems like a lot, but everyone needs a hobby, right?  And I can't have gone that overboard, because during that time I managed to graduate from college, work, graduate from law school, work some more, and get half way through another graduate degree without ever failing a course, losing a job, or missing a mortgage payment because of my Jukes habit.  Most importantly, I've had a blast seeing the Jukes for the past 16 years, and I'm still having a great time.  The Jukes sound really great these days, and they get better all the time.  

I could go on for days, but here are a few highlights from my checkered past with the Jukes that are especially memorable for me:

• In the spring of 1987 I was spending my junior year in Rome, and I took a spring break trip to see the Jukes at the Rex Club in Paris with some Italian friends from the international Bruce community. There was some kind of problem at the club, either the show was sold out or I was too young to get in, because my friends had to smuggle me in before the show as the translator for their interview with Southside for the "Lost in the Flood" fanzine.  Never mind that my friends' English was excellent, and my Italian was barely good enough to order espresso at a coffee shop; this scheme would get me into the show, and I would get to meet Southside to boot!  This was a big-time adventure for a sheltered, suburban kid like me.  We're talking underage jaunts across international borders, interviewing rock stars, and sneaking past foreign bouncers, all for the sake of New Jersey Rock & Roll!!  It was way too much fun.
• A few years later (1989, maybe?) Linda T. and I were talking with Southside after a show about a potential scheduling conflict that might have left the Jukes without any trumpet players for their next show.  To my horror, Linda T. said, "Carol plays the trumpet," and Southside called our bluff.  The next weekend, there I was on stage with the Jukes at the Chestnut Cabaret in Philadelphia playing the song that had become my personal credo, "I Don't Want to Go Home."  I completely choked and sounded so bad that the sound guy (thankfully) turned off my microphone, but who cares!  It was a complete and total thrill to have played with the Jukes.

• I was pretty sure that no experience could top playing trumpet with the Jukes, but I was wrong.  This past Memorial Day during the Jukes show at the Stone Pony, Southside pulled me up on stage with him, Bruce, and Graham Parker during "Havin' a Party."  I got to hold the mic stand out over the audience for the sing-along and everything.  I've been a big Bruce fan for almost as long as I've been a Southside fan, and being up on stage singing along with the two of them and the Jukes was literally a mind-blowing experience.  I actually heard the last synapse in my head go *pfffft!* at one point and the rest is all a shaky, happy blur until I was down off the stage jumping up and down and screaming with my friends.  (Yes, jumping up and down and screaming.  You try dancing with Southside and Bruce without jumping up and down and screaming.  It's impossible.)

I'd like to close by thanking all of my Jukes pals with whom I've shared so many plane, train, and automobile trips in our constant trek for the two-hour adrenaline rush that we all get from Jukes shows.  I'd list all of you here, but a) there's too many of you, and I've already taken up more than my share of bandwidth; b) you know who you are; and c) at least one of you (let's just call her D-Lo) would probably hurt me if I named her here.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.  Who's next?