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March, 2002 Fan of the Month: Jackie Sheehan I am honored to
be named Fan of the Month and thank everyone who nominated me!
I’d also like to thank Linda Thebold for this opening
line. I read this
section of the digest each month and really enjoy hearing the
stories that each person offers.
I was delighted to be a fan of the month as a Jukestock
attendee and figured that to be my moment.
In response to this nomination I replied to Michelle with
the line often repeated by Wayne and Garth of
“Wayne’s World”, “I am not worthy”. I, like many
others, found out about Southside and Juke’s through
Springsteen. I
believe it was an interview and Bruce mentioned that his
favorite band was Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes.
I said to myself, “this I gotta check out”…(Did I
mention I was from Boston ...too bad you can’t hear a big
Boston accent in an email message)… My wife Gail had heard
that they were being broadcast via the Westward One Radio
Network and being aired on WBCN, which at the time was the big
local station. It
was in the early 80’s and I’m guessing 1984.
It was a live broadcast and what caught my attention was
the way that Southside talked to the fans near the stage.
During this show he said something teasingly to some fans
near him. I can
only imagine what was going on but I got the impression that
these people were being handed drinks and he asked them “Do ya
have something for the South?”
This interaction gave me the feeling that I was present
at some intimate show and sharing the moment with everyone
there. I guess
that’s why the band is known as the “World’s Greatest Bar
Band”. I really
look forward to seeing him teasing people near the stage and
I’ve often imagined that I was the target of his fooling
around. This past
August at the Hampton Beach Show I got my wish.
I had purchased 8 seats front and center and was wearing
my Jukestock Tee. I’m
sitting next to my 23-year-old daughter, Danielle, and Gail is
sitting across the table and really not close to me at the time.
Doesn’t South come over before starting a song and slap
me five and begin teasing me.
He looks at my daughter and then looks back at me in head
tilted; eyebrows raised kind of way and say, “Is this your
wife?” To which I
begin to say no and offer an explanation and after hearing
“no” he raises his hands to his head and walks away leaving
the impression that he’s opened up a can of worms.
People are laughing and he begins the next song.
My group of friends is laughing and joking and then in
the middle of the song South comes back over and asks me for the
“rest” of my story and when I tell him that it my daughter,
He quickly stops the song and announces to the crowd that
“It’s his DAUGHTER!”
The crowd is laughing and cheering and I am left with the
best memory I could ever imagine having at a Juke’s show.
Sometimes you do get what you wish for!
Now if someone has a recording of this show I’d be one
happy camper. I’m guessing
the reason for this nomination is most likely due to my recently
turning my PC into the new Juke’s FTP server (ftp://jukes@61.31.46.78).
I’m simply having fun playing sysop and building this
server for the sharing of this great music.
So far there has been a great response and the server is
almost always full with fans downloading and uploading shows.
If you’re not a computer expert, this server has been
set up to be very easy to use.
There are step-by-step instructions on downloading the
music without the need of using FTP software.
A new Yahoo Group has been started (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/southsidejohnnyandthejukes/)
and here you will find the help document as well as a Database
of the shows that are present on the server.
So far we have over 30gig of great shows from 1976 to the
present as well as some other rare things.
Just this past weekend we had 471 user logins, 60 files
uploaded, and 1382 files downloaded.
This is pretty impressive because these are not small
files. I’ve really
enjoyed sharing the Juke’s music and participated in many of
the trees that have been run from the digest.
I also kind of did my own tree like distribution of the
Ruff Stuff/More Ruff Stuff CDR. In the spirit of sharing music
and giving I posted that I would mail out copies of the CDR to
people who responded to me via email.
Well when I was done I had mailed well over 60 CDRs with
artwork. I have
frequently asked Southside via Posts, emails, questions, and
even at Jukestock in person, if he would someday create a
Christmas album. I
tried to explain that my folks had their favorite crooners
create these classic albums that we all grew up listening to.
These songs have become a definitive image of the whole
holiday experience. It’s
my hope that I could have such an album with the South’s voice
and personality doing some choice traditional Christmas music.
With this in mind, earlier this past year I began looking
for past recordings of the Juke’s doing Christmas music to see
if there was enough material to create a CDR. With a great deal
of help from my friend Stan Lisowski, who also tapped Danno and
Maggie to name a few, we managed to come up with 20 songs and a
little over 1 hour of Christmas music.
I am most proud of the artwork that I created for the
CDR, using a Christmas Elf theme; I created an elf for each of
the present members of the Juke’s.
Originally we wanted to do this project as a fund-raiser
for the victims of 9/11 but after much thought, and after
seeking advice, I decided to simply give this CDR as a Christmas
gift. Unlike the
Ruff Stuff CDR giveaway I don’t want to tell you how many of
these CDRs that I gave away as early Christmas presents.
I was most pleased when I gave Jeff Kazee a bunch of the
CDRs at the Harper’s Ferry show.
And Jeff was nice enough to tell me on his message board
that the guys in the band got a kick out of the project.
I hope I have planted a seed for an official offering
from them sometime in the future.
This project is also available for download on the new
FTP server.
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