(On the corner of Church and Spring, was a cellarful of noise...)
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The Beatles had the legendary Cavern Club in Liverpool. The Smithereens had the Court Tavern in New Brunswick, New Jersey. The connection? Both bands performed long hours, and between buckets of sweat and barrels of beer, honed their musical skills and went on to become local - and world-wide - celebrities. True, the Smithereens played numerous colleges, plenty of bars and countless night clubs in the early days (The Dirt Club in Bloomfield, N.J. and Kenny's Castaways in New York City, to name just two). But the Court became their unofficial "home." And our favorite foursome from Carteret (and Scotch Plains) New Jersey weren't the only up and coming musicians to use the Court as a springboard to mainstream success: Early incarnations of Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Spin Doctors and Blues Traveler are among the many national acts - and countless local ones - to have rattled the walls in the basement in the George Street building that was once a lawyers and doctors office. The Court Tavern's original site on George Street was built in the mid-1800s and had been a speakeasy during Prohibition. The Albert family took over in 1961 and the establishment moved across the street to its present site in August 1981, current owner Bob Albert Jr. told Dave's Smithereens Page. During the summer of 1981, Bob started working the night shift at his father's bar. Although his father had brought in the occasional polka band, the tavern's main business was for the lunch-time crowd from the nearby Middlesex County Courthouse. Bob realized that there would be a viable market for nighttime musical entertainment that catered to the local teenagers and nearby Rutgers University students. New Brunswick's permanent population of 41,711 reportedly grows to about 67,000 during the school year. After initially testing the water with some folk and blue-grass acts, the Court received a call from a certain local band - whose guitar player owned a local record shop ("Flamin' Groovies") - looking for some work. "I was familiar with them," Bob said, since "there was always some kind of music scene in New Brunswick." After working out the details with the Court's booking agent and advertising in the Aquarian (the New Jersey-based music newspaper that played an integral part in hooking Pat up with Dennis, Mike and Jim) the Smithereens first performed at the Court in late 1982 or early 1983. "When they first started playing here, all they had out was a 7-inch (GIRLS ABOUT TOWN) which they sold" at the shows, Bob said. At first playing only a few shows, the band eventually played the Court a few nights a week. "They always drew people. And even though all bands do well on weekends, every time they played here, it was packed! I just ended up giving them EVERY Saturday night" by the summer of 1983, Bob said. Pat or Dennis usually worked out the details and other arrangements, and Bob recalls one of the band members usually booking the dates up until the late 1980s. "We didn't have a (full-length) record out, (yet) we packed the place every day on the weekends," Pat recalled to the Newark, N.J., Star-Ledger in 1996. "We refused to do the standard covers of the day - and people came out to see us." Bob said he left the actual set lists of those early shows up to the band. "We did a lot of Kinks and The Who, some Yardbirds...and some Buddy Holly and Elvis, not just British invasion stuff, whatever we thought was good," Jim told the Gannett News Service in 1995. Bob also remembers a lot of Dick Dale, Beatles and various cover tunes ("Louie, Louie") thrown in. And Bob said he recalls that their original music fit in perfectly with the classic songs they were performing. "They never tried to be trendy," Bob said, noting that the music of the early 1980s was full of synthesizers and pompadours. One of the things he especially cherished about the Smithereens was that there was "no big hair." "They never just played one set. They always played three," Bob said, noting that one of the most memorable nights was when the band backed legendary songwriter Otis Blackwell in October 1983. By the time "BEAUTY & SADNESS" was released, and the band ushered in 1984 at the Court, Bob "had a feeling they were getting too big for this place," which has an unofficial capacity of 200 people. Bob also noticed the increased attention the band was getting. More print-press coverage, an occasional TV appearance and a buzz among those on the music scene. "There seemed to be a lot of labels hanging around them," Bob said. From that time on, the increasingly longer tour schedule took the band overseas - and far away from the Court. After the band signed with ENIGMA and released "Especially For You," shows at the Court were few and far between. From those early years up until 1986, Bob estimated that the band performed at least 40-50 times at the Court, but he doesn't have an official record. Lots of cherished memories of good times and a packed house, but no itemized tally of how many times the Smithereens performed at their "home." In recent years, the band has still popped in on occasion, for example, playing a surprise live preview of "Green Thoughts" in 1988. The band kicked off its 1994 tour with the fund-raising "A Date With Joe Burke" (a late Court bartender and friend who needed a heart transplant). The Jim & Dennis-backed "Don Wands" (before Buzzed Meg) appeared in March 1996. Jim also has appeared with the Glenn Burtnick-led "Slaves Of New Brunswick." He's also been known just to drop in for a drink, too. And a few years ago, Jim walked in one night with a special thank you for all of the Court's help in the early years, Bob said. Jim presented the Court with a RIAA Gold Record award for "Especially For You," which is currently mounted on the wall behind the bar. It draws curious stares, numerous questions and even attracts a souvenir snapshot or two. "It's not something you always see in a bar," Bob chuckled.
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