New York Stories: Nick Catchdubs

Todd Terry said house is a feeling. As far as I’m concerned, that feeling will always be a school-bus seat slapped in 4/4 time with high-pitched chants of “It’s Time for the Percolator,” “The Witch Doctor” and the thoroughly sixth-grade-inappropriate “I’ll Beat That Bitch with a Bat” shouted over the top. Many years before I would ever hear dance music in a nightclub, I experienced it, thanks to the wonders of minimally supervised public-school transportation, and older siblings with “Follow Me” on cassette.

I’ve lived my entire adult life in the boroughs of New York City. My record label, Fool’s Gold, was founded in Brooklyn. But I am a son of New Jersey. And as a result of that geographical fact, all of my formative musical experiences are inherently Jersey ones – yellow bus untz untz untz and beyond.

I was way too young to appreciate Skid Row and Bon Jovi’s hairspray heyday. Instead I spent countless hours listening to wonderfully terrible local metal and hardcore bands shred on 89.5 FM (“Seton Hall’s Pirate Radio”), then flicking the dial to the right and freaking out with alllll kinds of weirdos on 91.1 WFMU. By the time Midtown and My Chemical Romance brought pop-punk glory to the Garden State, I had already moved to NYC for college. But at least I could say I had the Outsidaz and Lords of the Underground! And everyone else on the New Jersey Drive soundtrack. There’s something special about rapping along to Redman’s “Brick City” shout-outs when you’re actually in Newark. Driving past all the motels from Naughty by Nature’s “OPP” video along Routes 1 and 9 is far less special, though still kinda fun. (Word to the Loop Inn).

These rosy musical memories don’t just center around homegrown heroes. Red Hot Chili Peppers ruled the entire planet for a particular stretch of the early ’90s, though I’ll always associate them with the Woodbridge Mall Sam Goody, and certain maxi-singles that may or may not have been liberated from the aforementioned establishment in the front pocket of a pullover Starter jacket. I probably shouldn’t worry about statutes of limitations on preteen misdemeanors when none of those chains even exist anymore. But the Garden State Arts Center is still standing! Long before they sold the naming rights to PNC Bank, I begged my parents for months to see a show, any show, at the Arts Center, and got my wish when a Soul Asylum x Jayhawks x Matthew Sweet hat trick of uncoolness became my first concert ever.

My wonder years probably weren’t all that different from most music-obsessed children growing up anywhere else in the country with access to a cable box. Yet there is a myth in popular culture that everyone in New Jersey somehow wants to escape the accursed Fuggedaboutit-landia that raised them at the first possible chance. My state isn’t The Sopranos. (When I watch old episodes I just get really hungry and remember that I should probably call my parents). All the Bruce Springsteen songs about cars and desperation and what-not never really applied to my life. At no point in my personal musical genealogy did I ever feel like I was missing out on something across the river.

But I get it. I live in New York now because I want to (and on a purely professional level, I have to), not because I fled New Jersey. I understand the chip-on-shoulder mindset though. I probably carry more than a little of that dogged sense of pride than I will actually admit. I definitely will continue to defend the genius of the first Wyclef solo album to anyone within earshot. (It’s the Carnival! Anything can happen!) When it’s all said and done, I would love nothing more than to have my face carved into a Garden State Rushmore somewhere in the Watchung Mountains, right next to Todd Edwards, The Artifacts and the Aly-Us guys who wrote “Follow Me,” to the sound of a kickdrum somewhere in Linden while dreaming of a place where we can all be free-ee-eeah.

A version of this article appeared in The Daily Note, a free daily newspaper distributed in New York during the 2013 Red Bull Music Academy.