On the Road
The Saint has been presenting live music in Asbury Park for 25 years
Scott Stamper, owner of The Saint music venue in Asbury Park, is celebrating 25 years of presenting live music at his club
Doug Hood, Asbury Park Press
S0ulfood, aka Aziz Finney of Cliffwood Beach, has a song — and a poem — for you.
Finney’s nominated in the Spoken Word and Soul/R&B Artist of the Year categories at the renewed Asbury Music Awards, which returns Friday, Feb. 20 at the Stone Pony in Asbury Park.
S0ulfood will perform at the ceremony on Friday.
“I’m filled with wonder — I feel like a little kid,” Finney said. “Everybody knows the Stone Pony and it’s just like such a cool thing to be able to say in my lifetime I got to touch that stage.”
The night is hosted by funny man Taylor Allen and Des and the Swagmatics, the Gay Blades, Sunshine Spazz, Gods, Heather Mills, Blaise, Geenetica, Williams Honor, Emerson Woolf, Rachel Ana Dobken, Nick Francis, Renee Maskin, and Joseph Alton Miller will also play.
Awards in more than 30 categories will be given out for the musical year of 2025 and the “gap years” of 2019 to 2024 when there were no awards.
Musically, S0ulfood’s warm, soul blossomed R&B draws the listener in like a cool wind at sunset. Their 2025 single “Kim Marie” is a mid-tempo mover that’s layered with goodness.
Finney’s poetry stems from the moments between songs during the live show, making it a mixed media affair.
“For me, I have trouble actually speaking during those moments,” Finney said. “So instead of trying to come up with a way to connect the crowd to the song and tell what it’s about, I read them a poem which allows them to have their individual experience and choose how they want to interpret the song.”
The Asbury Music Awards were founded in 1992 as the Golden T-Birds Awards by Scott Stamper and Pere Mantas of the former city club of the same name. The awards, which bestowed honors on Jeff Buckley, Ween, Evelyn Forever, Nicole Atkins and many more, were staged in various area venues until they were halted by Stamper, then the co-owner of the Saint nightclub, in 2018 without explanation.
The Saint closed its doors in 2022.
The Asbury Park Music Foundation is overseeing the return of the awards with new categories, including Rapper of the Year and Hip-Hop Performer of the Year, to better represent the diversity of the city’s music scene.
“What I like seeing is that there was solid mix of artists who had been around since 2018 are still putting out new music and brand-new artists who have moved to the Asbury Park area,” said Jim Lenskold of the Asbury Park Music Foundation. “That’s what keeps it exciting.”
City music makers are artistically moving forward, Lenskold said.
“Blush has this nice, poppy high-energy music, you got Third from the Sun, which is a little harder but still has good grooves in it,” Lenskold said. “I feel like it’s a nice mix of styles.”
City music venues, and spots that are associated with music, such as the Lakehouse Music complex and the Transparent Clinch Gallery, are providing creative outlets for musicians, and the annual Sea Hear Now festival on the city’s North Beach gives city bands stage time in front of thousands of music fans each September.
“There are bands getting traction outside of Asbury because of all that energy,” Lenskold said. “Surfing for Daisy is doing real well with their tours, Emerson Woolf is really strong in town and spreading across the East Coast, so that’s a good feel, too, A strength of Asbury Park compared to other music towns is it’s large that there’s plenty going on but it’s small enough so it’s very connected. Everyone will get to meet everyone sooner or later. That network creates opportunities.”
The Asbury Music Awards was created to be a unifying event, Mantas said.
“We are so lucky to have a music scene that many cities and states do not have and we have to keep it alive — that was the original idea,” said Mantas, now the entertainment director of the Palmetto Southern Kitchen and Low Dive venues on the city’s boardwalk. “We’re lucky. How many road bands do we see who say ‘Hey man, we got one club and we have to drive four hours to get there’. Asbury Park’s very lucky for what we have. We don’t have as many (nightclubs) as we used to, we have to work on that, but we’re lucky to have a fertile playing field and artists that these young kids can look up to. They can play in Asbury Park and they can chase their dreams because someone before them got the golden ring.”
Go: Asbury Music Awards, 6:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 20, Stone Pony, 913 Ocean Ave., Asbury Park. $35. www.stoneponyonline.com.
Subscribe to app.com for the latest on the New Jersey music scene.
Chris Jordan, a Jersey Shore native, covers entertainment and features for the USA Today Network New Jersey. Contact him at [email protected]
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.app.com ’
