GREETINGS FROM ASBURY PARK, PART 2:

Meet Anthony Walker, The Artist Formerly Known As Fiumano

By Jim Testa

The Artist Formerly Known as Anthony Fiumano formerly announced to his fans in mid-June that he’d henceforth be known as Anthony Walker. And with that announcement came the release of a new 3-song EP, “The Sea Goes On Forever.” A full-length album, paid for in part by fans through the Kickstarter program, will follow later this year.

Barely out of his teens, Anthony began performing locally as a singer/songwriter just a few years ago. In short time, he picked up a sizable number of admirers – not just fans (and music writers,) but fellow musicians, which allowed him to put together a permanent backing band, which he calls The Medicine Chest. Anthony & The Medicine Chest gig regularly in New Brunswick, where he lives, and throughout New Jersey and New York City. He’s performed at the SXSW Music Festival in Austin and has done several national tours. But he’s best known as one of the rising young talents in the Asbury Park music scene, working closely with Nicole Lipman’s Hey Cole management company and local promoters like Billy O’Brien of Shore Alternative.com and Scott Stamper of The Saint. We asked Anthony about how he came to play in Asbury Park, what he likes about the scene there, and what he’d like to see change.



Q: Why the name change, and why now?

I've actually been thinking about going under a pseudonym for a long time. And have been seriously considering it for a while. Having two new records waiting in the wings, with high expectations for them, this seemed like the best time to do something like this.

I'm coming off of the most prolific couple of months that I've ever had musically, and while I didn't make the name change to disassociate myself from the work I've done in the past, I do feel like there has been a new direction and outlook. So again, changing my name felt like the right move to make.

Q: Where did you grow up, and how did you wind up living in and performing in Asbury Park? Where there any performers who acted as mentors or gave you guidance that helped your transition into the scene?

I was born in Brooklyn and spent the first years of my life pretty much living as the typical “Brooklyn kid,” long before it was a trendy or hip place to live. That’s where I was introduced to music. My family moved to Central New Jersey and I began playing guitar. After starting a band in high school, we began looking for gigs and The Saint in Asbury Park was pretty much the only place that would book us initially. That band broke up and I began playing all over New Jersey with an acoustic guitar, but things always tended to funnel back to Asbury Park, so I ended up playing a lot of gigs around town, and The Jersey Shore in general. I felt very embraced by the Asbury Park music community right off the bat. It was a time that there were a lot of bands forming and a lot of young talented musicians starting to break through. In that very early part of my career I met George Wirth, April Smith, Frank Bressi, Rick Barry, and many other musicians that were already a part of what was going on in Asbury Park (some of them were already years deep in their music careers) and felt very encouraged by the mutual respect I found with those people. A lot of those musicians supported me and extended whatever they could to help get me moving.

Q: Big question: What do you like about Asbury Park? What's good about being a performer there? Venues, audience, promoters, the beer... the proximity to NYC and Philly... whatever.

There’s a lot of things that are good about Asbury Park. I’ve been playing there a long time and I’ve also spent a lot of time there watching music as well. I’ve made some lasting friendships and have many great musical memories of Asbury. Personally, one thing I can say is that every time I drive down Asbury Avenue and hit the intersection of Main Street, I get a very “at home“ feeling. I feel very welcome as a musician there. From playing so many gigs and being so supported there over the last few years, I think I probably know my way around Asbury Park better than I know my way around some parts of New Brunswick. And I live in New Brunswick.

Q: Bigger question: What is wrong with Asbury Park? What's the first thing about the city you'd change if you could?

I think there’s a lot of things that are “wrong” with Asbury Park, but I don’t think that those things are unique to the city in particular. Because of it’s history, a lot of people expect Asbury to be this Mecca of live music. Bruce Springsteen, Bon Jovi, etc. etc.

I’ve played cities like Austin and Nashville which really are cities that revolve around music. You can see more live music on a Monday afternoon in Nashville than you would see in Asbury Park in weeks. Obviously, Nashville is a major city, but the mindset is also way different. The music of that city defines it, in a very big way.

There’s always a lot of murmuring about Asbury not living up to it’s full potential as a “music city.” The reality is that live music is suffering everywhere. At some point there was a shift in our culture that de-emphasized live music and the support of the local Asbury music scene suffered, but that’s happening everywhere. I’ll use New Brunswick for an example because that’s where I live. New Brunswick, at one time, had a vibrant local music scene. Now, on most nights you can’t even find a band playing. There’s no venue for it. Maybe on a Friday or Saturday night a restaurant moves some tables out of the way for a band to set up, but for the most part, that’s as good as it gets. This is an urban atmosphere, and a huge college town, with a huge “night life” scene, yet live music is virtually non-existent. New Brunswick is also much, much bigger than Asbury Park. There’s bars and clubs everywhere, but on a night that there‘s only one or two bands playing in the entire city, you‘re lucky. Yet, if you go to Asbury Park on a Friday or Saturday night, there is comparatively a huge amount of music happening within just a few square blocks. Very few cities in New Jersey can still say that.

If there was one thing I could change about Asbury Park, it would be for people to stop scrutinizing it for (in their eyes) not living up to its musical/artistic standard. Some people over-romanticize the city because of it’s history and reputation. I think we should look at it for what it is, a great city with a wealth of musical talent and a bunch of great places to go and see live music. Nowadays, that’s special enough.

Q: Clearly Asbury is a city with a storied past that's been mired in a sort of murky present for a long time, with (supposedly) a bright future. I am reminded of Hoboken. Musicians and artists flocked there in the Eighties because the town was a dump, but a cheap place to live and a great place to be a musician. Developers moved in and then it became not-a-dump but a modern commuter city, but the rents were no longer cheap and it wasn't such a great place for musicians and artists. So: Can urban development and gentrification come to Asbury Park and NOT wipe out everything that people in the music scene like the place? Is there room for a "new" Asbury that leaves room for the Wonder Bar and Asbury Lanes and the Stone Pony?

I spent a lot of years living in East Brunswick, which is mostly a middle-class suburban wasteland. You can sum the entire town up pretty easily. A whole ton of houses that all look the same, and then a bunch of Burger Kings, McDonalds, 7-11’s, Kohl’s, the mall, etc. etc. Absolutely no culture, and for the most part nothing unique. I’ve been on every street in that town and there’s not even a bar. The closest you can get is the Applebee’s. 50,000 people and not one bar! Needless to say, on any night of the week, there is absolutely zero live music happening because the local culture doesn‘t support or demand live music.

That’s because the culture and mindset of those 50,000 people, generally, value different things. They care much more about their Starbucks and Whopper with cheese than artistic contributions to the society they live in. Or the people who make them.

So, the culture of a any city is going to determine the opportunity for the artistic lifestyle. That being said, I’m not one to speak because I don’t live in Asbury Park. There’s lots of local politics happening over recent years in Asbury, but at the end of the day, as Neil Young said, “Rock n’ Roll will never die.” No development or gentrification is going to kill Asbury Park’s music. As long as people still want it, there will be places and musicians to provide it for them. Regardless of how much they “sweep up” and regardless of how many buildings they build, I don’t think Asbury musicians are going anywhere.

I’ll also say that from my experiences recently, it seems that some of the development in Asbury Park has actually provided greater opportunities for musicians. The reputation of Asbury has changed a bit in recent years and I think people from out of town are more willing to spend time there. There’s also some newer venues for live music.

Q: Pretend I am a 15 year old kid in Nebraska reading this and all I know about Asbury Park comes from the lyrics of a Bruce Springsteen song. What is the most important thing you want to tell me about your city?

If you’re a 15 year old kid in Nebraska reading this, go find some local music that you dig in Nebraska.

Q: You just finished recording not one but two albums, and they were partly financed by your fans using Kickstarter.com, where people can pledge donations to help artists fund their next projects. April Smith successfully did the same thing to help fund her latest album. What did you think of the experience and do you think this is the wave of the future?

We were able to afford getting into the studio much quicker to record the next full-length record because of all the help from our backers on Kickstarter. Not only did we raise the money, but I was profoundly encouraged by all the support we received from all the people who contributed, and also those who weren't in a position to. We raised over $5,300, which is a really huge head-start in the right direction.

People donated from all over the country, I even had backers donate from outside of the country, so it was, I guess, somewhat global. But a good chunk of the backers were from New Jersey, specifically Monmouth and Middlesex county.

I recorded two albums. That was the plan all along. The funding we recieved from our Kickstarter project all went into the making of the full-length album that I'm shooting to release early in 2011. But I also recorded a shorter acoustic based EP that will be released on June 27th in Asbury Park. The songs on the EP are a little too delicate for a full band, so we left them stripped down and added in some really different kinds of arrangements. Just about every instrument on the album is something that I've never incorporated before, so there was a lot of new territory explored during the making of this record and I think the direction of the EP will really surprise people who have been familiar with my music up until now. It was an experiment, and it worked.

www.anthony-walker.com

www.myspace.com/anthony-walker

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