REMEMBERING JIM RENSENBRINK
One of a kind founder of the Aquarian Weekly
By Jim Testa
Photo by Cathy Miller
 New
Jersey was a very different place in the late Seventies.
With a legal drinking age of only 18, nightlife had blossomed
into one of the Garden State’s major industries. You
could stay up till dawn listening to the jazz guys blow
tunes in Asbury Park, or cruise up Route 17 to the Showplace
in Denver and catch all the hottest punk bands from CBGB.
There were bowling alleys and discos, roller rinks and rock
clubs in every town, it seemed, all serving alcohol to the
tail end of the baby boomer generation. And the Aquarian
Weekly took full advantage, filling its pages with
advertising from bars, clubs, and discos; it was as fat
as the yellow pages every week, a magical guidebook of where
to go to see a band, get a drink, take a date… or
just hang out and hope to hook up.
Founder Jim Rensenbrink had started the Aquarian Weekly
in the late Sixties, and much like its West Coast counterpart
Rolling Stone, its early issues resounded with hippie idealism:
Anti-war, free love, casual drugs, and rock ‘n’
roll. As the paper grew, fueled by the abundant lifestyle
advertising of the era, so did its coverage. You could not
only read about politics, drugs, and music in its pages,
but movies and theater too. And that’s where I came
in.
My four years at Rutgers – most of them spent publishing
the Daily Targum - had taught me basic journalism skills,
but I also had a deep love of the arts. Our college class
created the Targum’s first weekly arts supplement,
and my friends and I would write about the latest records,
plays, books, and movies.
Our photography editor had a brother who worked at the
Aquarian (which at the time, to a kid who had grown up
in Jersey, seemed like Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, and The
New York Times rolled up into one big weekly dose of counter-culture.)
Through that connection, I submitted a few record reviews,
but once I graduated (with little hope of a full-time job
in journalism; it was the Ford recession), I approached the
Aquarian with hopes of doing a lot more. I wound up connecting
with the Film & Theater Department (“Everynight”
Charlie Crespo and Mike Greenblatt had the music beat sewn
up,) and I started writing for them almost every issue.
I still vividly remember the first time I took the bus out
to Montclair, walked to the Aquarian’s offices,
and met the owner, publisher, and my future boss, Jim Rensenbrink.
He was a big bear of a man, with a wild unkempt beard and
a big bushy head of tousled hair. He looked like he’d
slept in his clothes for a week, and his office was buried
in tons of old newspapers, cigarettes, books, records, and
magazines. I honestly couldn’t imagine how anyone
could get any work done in that mess. But he did.
It was a long time ago, but I remember Jim Rensenbrink
being kind, generous, and very supportive to this young
writer. After I had freelanced for a few months, he called
me back to his lair and announced that he was promoting
me to Contributing Editor. I’d still be a freelancer,
but I’d get paid a higher rate for every story.
Since I was living with my parents, and my only real source
of income at the time was cashing in the savings bonds my
grandparents had given me every Christmas and birthday,
that meant a lot.
I won’t pretend that I was at any time the Golden
Boy of the Aquarian bullpen; far from it. I was the third-string
interviewer and reviewer, which meant I’d get assignments
nobody else wanted. But boy, did I get some plum ones. Nobody
cared about science fiction in 1977, so I attended the premiere
of Star Wars: A New Beginning (yes, the first one)
and reviewed it. Same with First Encounters Of The Third
Kind. When Harrison Ford followed up his Star Wars
debut with a forgettable World War II romance flick, I interviewed
him too. The Smokey & The Bandit flicks with
Burt Reynolds ruled the box office at the time, and my editor
sent me to talk to Reynolds’ comedy party, Dom DeLuise.
In my household, that was like interviewing Bob Hope. DeLuise’s
Italian chef routine on The Dean Martin Show (“save
it for da end!”) was beloved by my parents and grandparents.
And Deluise himself was as gracious and funny in person
as he was on screen. I also attended Broadway openings and
reviewed shows like” The Wiz” and “The
Best Little Whorehouse In Texas.” (I brought my mom
to that one. Probably a mistake.)
Who knows what might have happened if I had pursued that
path and stuck to film and theater? But then a funny thing
happened: Punk. I started spending more and more of my time
at CBGB and Max’s Kansas City and, starting in 1980
or so, at a new club in Hoboken called Maxwell’s.
I started writing about those bands for my friend Howard
Wuelfing’s fanzine Dischords, and when that folded,
I decided to start my own music fanzine and call it Jersey
Beat. The Aquarian didn’t take kindly to
competition (even though I was only publishing a 12-page
homemade zine every couple of months at the time,) so that
was the end of my days there. But they were good ones, and
I wouldn’t be the writer I am today without them.
Of course, hundreds of other writers passed through the
Aquarian's ranks since then, including DJ Vin Scelsa, author
Jeff Tamarkin, and Star Ledger music editor Jay Lustig.
And the paper continues to be that invaluable first job
for new generations of wanna music journalists.
So thank you, Jim Rensenbrink. You might have been a rumpled
hippie lunatic baying at the moon to some people; but to
me, you were always a mensch.
JerseyBeat.com
is an independently published music fanzine
covering punk, alternative, ska, techno and garage
music, focusing on New Jersey and the Tri-State
area. For the past 25 years, the Jersey Beat music
fanzine has been the authority on the latest upcoming
bands and a resource for all those interested in
rock and roll.
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