Now that your taxes were paid you could sit back and relax and see what money you had left to use for that wonderful musical holiday that they call “Record Store Day”. At this stage of the game in music purchasing I am guessing that it should be called either “CD Day” or “MP3 Day” when you think about it. Of course there are vinyl releases coming out every now and again these days but they are no longer the ruler of the musical roost when compared to the dominant mediums. The fun today would take place at J&R Music World where we have covered a number of in-store appearances and intimate performances in the past and among the many that were taking part in the day would be Folk legend Judy Collins and Brooklyn’s own ZO2.
We’ve supported the adventures of the boys in ZO2 for a couple of years now and if you are just jumping board when it comes to what they do, please understand that they are very simply a Hard Rock band with a lot of soul and three recordings under their belt. Oh yeah, and they have a television show as well that airs on IFC and is called “Z-Rock”. As a band the guys have had a long standing relationship with J&R and the store has been carrying their releases for years. By the time that they hit the stage there were about 100 people present and ready to rock. The band would perform a brief set and then do a signing of any of their CD’s and the first season boxed set of the television show. As the band began, lead singer Paulie mentioned how much money he has spent on CD’s and in this place along. He mused aloud at how he was confident that his actions have put at least three kids through college with these purchases. Their opening staple seems to be “Isolate” but since they have a new CD in “Casino Logic” they would make sure to deliver a couple of numbers from that one for good measure. “Painted Lady” would be the first from the new CD and after the rousing “If You See Kay” the guys would get their Prog on and deliver their version of Rush’s “Tom Sawyer”. They manage to do this one rather close to the original so I always enjoy hearing them do it. Bassist Dave Z. sings for this one and does show how he has a decent voice himself. All of the guys sing actually, but for the most part they provide backups to Paulie’s lead.
They dedicated “Ain’t It Beautiful” to the crowd and told them how the band was always about groove. Paulie gave us a demonstration of his screaming powers and held a soaring note for quite a long time. The song “Show Me” was the last of the new numbers to be done and this one has a great chorus and is one of my favorites from the album. They were planning on finishing it there but they decided to stick around for one more and dedicate it to the store’s manager Charlie Bagarozza. They’ve known him for awhile and since they share a mutual interest in KISS they would dish out a quickly rehearsed “Detroit Rock City”. That’s one of the true Hard Rock classics and since two of these guys were once members of KISS Nation I am pretty sure that it didn’t put them out all that much in terms of their brushing up on it.
After the eight songs the guys stuck around for about an hour and did the autograph signing thing and posing for photos. Their television show finished its second season a couple of months ago by my recollection and its DVD set is coming out soon. I don’t know if it has been renewed for a third and since a lot of their fans love it, I hope for their sake that it returns. It’s definitely a strange program at times but it has some charming moments and its fun to see bands you have caught on the circuit reaching some larger success. Thanks again to ZO2 for doing such a great job and thanks to J&R Music World for holding events like this in the first place. The next gig that we learned ZO2 would be a part of would be the Fozzy gig over at B.B. King’s. The singer of Fozzy is wrestler Chris Jericho.
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Official Web Site: www.zo2.com
