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Rye Coalition Rides Again
by Jim Testa
Photos by James Damion
 They
used to call themselves “The Hard Luck 5,” but
Rye Coalition looked like five – make that six –
of the luckiest guys to ever crawl out of basement and start
a band, as they reunited at a sold out show at Maxwell’s
on Saturday, February 19.
As lead singer Ralph Cuseglio joked, they also had a reputation
for staying on stage much too long – once even leading
them to being banned from Maxwell’s for years. But this
show went by much too quickly. Jack Leto, the man of the hour
(and father of Rye Coalition members Dave and Gregg Leto),
got to see his 70th birthday wish of one more Rye Coalition
come true and then some, as the band chronologically recapped
its entire career.
They looked as if the last five years had never happened,
picking up where they left off with an astonishingly tight
set of explosive rock ‘n’ roll. Jon Gonnelli snarled
and sneered and wielded his ax like a weapon, Cuseglio barked
and screamed into his mic with undiminished ferocity, and
the rest of the band played flawlessly.
They started things off with a barrage of angry, intense hardcore
from their first demo, “The Dancing Man.” “If
you didn’t recognize any of those songs, it’s
because we wrote them when we were 17 and 18 years old,”
Cuseglio explained. “We’re here tonight because
Jack Leto is turning 70 and he was 52 when we wrote those
songs.”
The band blazed through early anthems like “The Higher
The Hair, The Closer To God” and “We Ride”
from 1999’s “Hee Saw Dhuh Kaet.” For songs
from “The Lipstick Game,” Dave Leto moved from
drums over to bass and his brother Gregg (who had joined the
band for that release after Morey had relocated to California)
played drums. At other parts of the set, the crowd was treated
to both Leto brothers playing separate drum kits on stage
together. The crowd roared along to the seductive “Puuuuuush!”
in “The Lipstick Game” and threw fists and forked
fingers into the air for the chorus of “Thanksgiving
Day For Cats.” “I was a hater back then,”
Cuseglio admitted. “I was a pretty angry dude.”
By the time the band got to songs from 2002’s “On
Top,” the “Jersey Girls” EP, and their final
star-crossed album “Curses,” the full Rye Coalition
was in full effect – Gonnelli’s epic solos, Cuseglio’s
wailing vocals, Justin Angelo Morey’s throbbing basslines,
and Herb Joseph Wiley V’s powerful rhythm guitar and
backup vocals. At their peak, Rye Coalition invented an unholy
mix of hardcore, punk, blues, Zeppelin, metal, garage, AC/DC,
and post-punk that’s never really been equaled or duplicated.
They borrowed from everything and everyone and made a glorious
noise that was uniquely their own, five guys from Jersey City
who got to see the world and play in front of audiences all
over the country before the van (and their career) ran out
of gas and they all moved on to other things.
Today, half the band plays in the Mod-psyche-garage combo
Black Hollies, while Ralph and Dave have recently launched
a new band called Cold Fur. And after one last glorious Saturday
night, Rye Coalition belongs to the ages.
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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