The prolific DIY New Jersey indie rock band Lifeguard Nights, have, for the most part, flown under the radar when you consider just how many recordings they’ve released; stunning when you think about it, the band has dropped some 19 to 23 – depending on where you start counting – EPs and albums in the past 15 years.
At the helm the whole time has been the band’s founder and frontman, Vincent Brue, who booted up his musical career back in 2000. Since then, he has overseen a revolving door of band members that have come and gone over the years.
The one constant has been Brue’s insatiable appetite to write and record music, and get it out, by any means necessary. No wonder he wrote in his profile that he loves to record. And it’s been for the benefit of music lovers that he has. Although too many have yet to hear the music of Lifeguard Nights.
Perhaps there is no more meaningful, and genius, recording in Brue’s discography than Lifeguard Nights latest release, the poignant album, Do Rock, which dropped in May. The entire album was inspired by, and written about, the life and death of the band’s drummer, John Dorocki, who passed away in November of 2013.
“Writing these songs was not only a way for me to express to John what I was feeling at the time, it was my way of keeping him right here with me,” Brue wrote on Bandcamp.
“John’s spirit will always be a part of me and a part of my music and I hope that those of you who knew him can hear that in these songs. I also hope for those of you who never had the chance to meet him, that you’ll get a sense of how great a loss this was and how much love we have for our old friend.”
Do Rock is truly a musical and lyrical experience, and in its own ways, somehow magical. Brue and the band have created something truly special. The songs are brilliant and represent a multi-dimensional ode to their friend and band member’s life with stunning variation in styles, sounds and emotions that come from one song after another.
There are sombre songs; celebratory songs; inspirational songs and gorgeously beautiful songs. Listening to the entire album uninterrupted is heart-breaking at times, whimsical at others, and altogether a spell binding and totally authentic sonic journey of humanity and love, loss and coping, friendship and honor.
We didn’t know John, but in listening to Do Rock as many times as we have, we feel like we are able to play a little part in honoring his life, his contributions to this unique band and to giving a thumbs way up for an album that is as raw and wonderful as they come.
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“Your Ghost” – Lifeguard Nights from Do Rock
“The Dream” – Lifeguard Nights from Do Rock
Other Recent Releases from Lifeguard Nights
In recent years, Brue simplified the band’s name from the original mouthful moniker of The South Jersey Seashore Lifeguard Convention Band to simply Lifeguard Nights.
In 2014 alone, the band released two albums that are nearly polar opposites when it comes to sound and style. The May 2014 release, Bruetown, was more pop and folk oriented, while last October’s release, Beastmaster, is “a fast and furious excursion into the world of (punchy) art rock with prog tendencies,” Brue commented.
And yet it sounds nothing like the Lifeguard Nights of just six months earlier – that release, Bruetown, demonstrates perfectly that point, with melodic hooks, thumpy bass rhythms, angular guitar notes, crashing drums and triumphant choruses on the single, “Overtired,” and the more serious, keyboard-laden, uptempo track, “The Break,” that proves just how hellbent Brue is not to allow his band to get pigeon-holed by one sound or genre. Many of the elements of an under-rated DIY band apply here, even though they’re something of an institution in the south Jersey indie scene.
So what were Brue’s early musical influences? “I grew up in Jersey in the 80’s with an older brother and sister, so I was frequently forced to listen to glam metal with a can of hair spray and a lighter pointed at my head,” he told Deli. “Call me ‘Stanley Stockholm Syndrome’ if you want, but I loved every glamorous coke-fueled-sex-orgy minute of it.”
From the Motley Crue’s of the 80’s to the explosion of grunge in the early 90’s with bands like Nirvana, Rage Against The Machine and Nine Inch Nail, and then Primus, Porno For Pyros, Pavement, Sugar, and Rocket From the Crypt, Brue’s musical influences were many and varied.
“In college some friends turned me on to Frank Zappa and that’s literally all I listened to for a couple years. I lost a lot of friends during that time. I moved on to Tom Waits and gained some friends back,” he said.
