Maxwell's
Address:
1039 Washington Street,
Hoboken, New Jersey, USA
When: Oct. 28, 1994
Maxwell's is a music club in Hoboken, New Jersey that also has a restaurant and bar. The intimate venue often attracts a wide variety of acts looking for a change from the New York City concert spaces across the river.
History
The club was opened in August 1978 by Steve Fallon. When the Fallon family bought the corner building in uptown Hoboken with its street-level tavern, Steve's sisters Kathryn Jackson Fallon and Anne Fallon Mazzolla along with brother-in-law Mario Mazzola were interested in turning the factory workers' tavern (General Foods' Maxwell House Coffee factory was a block away on the Hudson River[) into more of a restaurant. The Hoboken band "a" (featuring Glenn Morrow, Richard Barone, Frank Giannini, and Rob Norris) asked if they could rehearse in an unused back room and play a few gigs in the front for the restaurant's patrons. The live music quickly caught on and Steve started booking bands into the back room. Over time, Steve's booking taste, freewheeling personality and respectful treatment towards musicians made Maxwell's and Hoboken a looked-forward-to stop on many bands' tours. By making the blue-collar mile-square city with a rough-and-tumble reputation a cultural gathering place, Maxwell's was instrumental in sparking Hoboken's first wave of early 1980s gentrification — the artists and musicians. In that light, it is also believed that Anne and Mario may have offered the first successful Sunday brunch in Hoboken.
Maxwell's having become so successful that it spawned not only Pier Platters, an independent record store near the PATH train station that Fallon invested in, a whole music and cultural "scene" epitomized by the Hoboken Sound (which was featured in an hour-long television special on a local NYC station), and Fallon's own record label Coyote Records, Steve hired Todd Abramson to take over the booking of the acts in the mid-1980s. Abramson has, essentially, been booking the venue ever since (except for a short period in the late 1990s after Fallon sold the club and Maxwell's was converted into a short-lived brew pub.)
At a time when one of the Fallon siblings wanted to divest of their interest in the business, Peter Buck (guitarist for R.E.M.) bought their piece to help his friend Steve Fallon keep it open as a resource for enthusiasts of new music. Later, Bob Mould of Hüsker Dü, Sugar and a solo career bought out Buck's ownership for the same reasons.
Sadly, when Steve wanted completely out, he and his partners sold Maxwell's to William Sutton in December 1995 who then planned but failed to turn it into a brewpub. Booker Todd Abramson,[2] Steve Shelley (drummer of Sonic Youth) and Dave Post of the Amazing Incredibles and Swingadelic arranged to bring Maxwell's back, and re-opened it on July 26, 1998.[1] While some longtime patrons miss the more free-wheeling Steve Fallon days, Maxwell's is now as vital a part of the independent music community as it was in the 1980s and 1990s.
Bands
The first band to play at Maxwell's was "a" which included three future members of The Bongos (Richard Barone, Rob Norris, and Frank Giannini, who was Maxwell's cook and devised their first menu), fronted by Glenn Morrow (later of The Individuals and founder of Bar/None Records). The Bongos were the first band from the 1980s Hoboken scene to be signed to a major label, RCA, after a series of British singles and tours. In the mid-1980s R.E.M. played there on a frequent basis. The club was important to emerging trends as diverse as punk, grunge, and indie rock of the 1980s and early 1990s. Bands like Husker Du, fIREHOSE,the Meat Puppets, Sonic Youth, Fugazi,Archers of Loaf, The Cynics, Dinosaur Jr., Sebadoh, Neutral Milk Hotel, The Juliana Theory, Mudhoney, Fire in Cairo, Tad, the Melvins, Mod Fun, Mystic Eyes, Nirvana, Hole, The Afghan Whigs, The Smashing Pumpkins,and G Love and Special Sauce all have played there. Buzzcocks, Blue Öyster Cult,[16] The Fall, the Minutemen, The Mess Around, Robyn Hitchcock,Katrina & the Waves, Flipper, Rain Parade, The Cowsills,Wire, The Pogues, Pylon, Rufus Wainwright, Martha Wainwright, John Cale, Snakefinger, David Byrne, The Slits, The Stations, The Strokes, Matt Nathanson, John Doe, Mary Lou Lord, Electric Six, and The Ataris also made appearances on stage at Maxwell's. The Bongos, The Cyclones, The Individuals, and The dB's were mainstays in the beginning with The Feelies playing frequently towards the later half of the 1980s. They continue this tradition today with bands like The Dirtbombs Lemuria, Crooked Fingers, and Stars.
Notable events
Parts of the music video for Bruce Springsteen's "Glory Days" were filmed at Maxwell's on May 28, 1985. The music video was directed by Hoboken resident John Sayles.[
In the early 1990s Maxwell's was voted the "Best Club In New York — Even Though It's In New Jersey" by the New Yorker Magazine.
In the 2005 Village Voice Best of NY poll, Maxwell's was voted "Best Reason to Leave the State for Dinner and a Show". Also in 2005, The New York Times wrote that Maxwell's was "so New York that it's in New Jersey".
New Order played one of their first American concerts at Maxwell's. Depending on who you talk to, either it was a shambles with the band not so ready to play after the demise of Ian Curtis from Joy Division, or it was a fantastic show, according to Tony Wilson, the Factory Records chief who wrote a recollection of the event in an opinion column in London based Uncut magazine's July 2006 issue.
In 1989 the band Nirvana released their debut album Bleach on June 15 and went on tour to support sales of the album. They appeared at Maxwell's on July 13, 1989 and early in the day before the show photographer Ian Tilton took several pictures of the band around Hoboken. The picture of frontman Kurt Cobain has since been used in dozens of magazines, newspapers and websites before and after his death.
The video for the song "Away" by The Feelies, directed by Jonathan Demme was recorded at Maxwell's in 1988. After a seventeen year hiatus The Feelies reunited to appear at Maxwell's in July 2008,and they made appearances again in July 2009. -Wikipedia
