The Inside Press

Magazines serving the communities of Northern Westchester

Bands

It’s Only Rock N’ Roll… and these Parents LOVE it!

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Music is an outlet which provides a release for many people, but these local parents take it to a new level.

They are all over the County, and sometimes travelling beyond, all while working and raising kids. Whether a lifelong musician or just starting now, no matter how busy you think you are, you too could be on stage!

Adult Learners

Red Grenadine

Jenn Filardi and Jason Haberman of local band Red Grenadine just began taking guitar lessons as adults. Filardi, a stay-at-home mom since leaving a busy career in advertising to raise her children, studied at the Mike Risko Music School in Ossining. The upshot? At age 41, Filardi was performing vocals and playing electric rhythm guitar. The band rehearses once a week for about two hours, sometimes longer right before a gig.

The couple also took part in an adult music workshop and were able to stretch their abilities by working with musicians with varied skill sets. Over time their band evolved, some of the players changed, but since 2017, Red Grenadine plays in many local county venues. You can catch them at popular clubs/pubs like Lucy’s in Pleasantville or Garcia’s in Port Chester.

They are not a typical cover band that plays songs to sound exactly as they do on the radio; rather, they play different versions of classic rock songs and R&B, often versions covered by other artists. Sometimes the key is changed, or it has a funkier vibe, so it is very recognizable but not what people may expect.

“People are very pleasantly surprised a lot of the time,” Haberman shared.

They tend to select songs that feature different solo parts for the other members of the band to showcase their talents, such as Larry Yavner (drums), Rob Guglielmo (keyboard), Mike Bisceglia (lead guitar), Danny Golub (bass). Golub is a teacher with Music in Chappaqua. Occasionally they add horns by collaborating with the Horn Dogs.

On September 21st, they will be performing in the Battle of the Bands at the Chappaqua Performing Arts Center.  Follow Red Grenadine on Facebook and Instagram for more information.

Rocker Mom

Out After Curfew

Christina Joerss has been performing in bands since age 15 working with many different bands throughout high school and college. After she began work as a behavior analyst for children on the autism spectrum, she continued to perform.  She put music on hold when she decided to start a family.

After not performing for several years, she decided to get back involved once her daughter went to kindergarten. She connected with other musicians on social media. She started attending some local open-mic nights and, voilà, she got back into performing.

Joerss auditioned for and joined a women’s a capella group, something she had done in college at Sara Lawrence, where she had started such a group. While she found it gratifying, she also missed rock and roll. Spotting a flyer at a local music store, she joined an adult rock band workshop. Over a nine-week course she connected with musicians at all levels and performed a show at the end. The only drawback was sometimes she felt less accomplished than some of the 20 to 30 year veteran musicians she encountered out on the music scene.

She took another course with people who were at a similar level. From that experience, she met many of the people from her current band, Out After Curfew. There was an instant ‘click,’ easy harmonizing and shorthand music-speak that made communicating ideas clear and simple.

A little over two years together, they perform popular cover music at local clubs and outdoor concerts as well as private events.

At the Heart of Community

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One thing I’ve heard consistently about Pleasantville lately is how fiercely proud residents are of their town and of Mount Pleasant at large. As I produced this edition over the summer, and learned about Break the Hold, via Sabra Staudenmaier’s cover story for us, it was not hard to see why.

I feel like I’m getting to know a community that yes, celebrates all its gifts and good fortune, but also enthusiastically embraces solutions to challenging problems via its open hearts and extended hands. To me, such sincere involvement feels central to understanding the heart of a caring community. This story pulled my heartstrings right away. We also have a proud history covering mental health issues, and specifically the topics of depression and suicide. The Inside Press was the recipient a few years back of a Media Award from the Mental Health Association of Westchester. We hope to continue to shine a spotlight on mental health in future issues as well.

In additional heart sharing coverage, I am also thrilled to publish Ronni Diamondstein’s story about Pleasantville’s Gordon Parks Foundation; if you’re like me, you might be one of many who has walked by and felt curious about the foundation’s window on Wheeler Avenue. Its mission is to preserve the powerful images of artist and photojournalist Gordon Parks whose work has done so much to help bring attention to racism. It accomplishes that and so much more.

If you need more reasons to love Mount Pleasant, there is no shortage in this edition. We asked a long time savvy area resident and Inside Press contributor Jennifer Sabin Poux to compile ten, and she does a fantastic job of that too.

Two summer interns, Charlotte Harter and Madeline Rosenberg, have also helped turn our attention to community, with stories about how the Pleasantville Chamber of Commerce helps support local commerce, coverage of the town’s dedicated conservation efforts plus a look back at Pleasantville Community Day and the town’s firefighter parade.

We know fitness figures ‘big’ around here too, so please don’t miss the piece about area marathon runners either, which includes a Pleasantville resident!

Finally, we also keep hearing the music. In our debut edition, we offered a preview of the Pleasantville Music Festival (another mega successful day!), and in this issue, we give a nod to the area’s vibrant ‘music scene,’ as writer Miriam Longobardi spotlights a couple Rocker bands led by area moms!   

Enjoy the edition, and we hope to see you again in 2020. Our plans for now are for at least four a year, so stay tuned!  Follow Inside Press Magazines on Facebook or insidepress on Instagram, and soon enough, another surprise pub covering your town will be hiding in your mailbox!   

The Making of the Pleasantville Music Festival

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Managing ‘a zillion moving parts’ to create an all-day music extravaganza

Save the Date: July 13, 2019

When longtime Pleasantville resident Bruce Figler attended his first ever Pleasantville Music Festival, it was in 2005. That happened to be the inaugural year for the event, and Figler, who has been in the radio business, helped the original founders hook in a music station to be part of the all-day affair.

“I was perfectly happy sitting backstage with a beer hanging out with the radio station people, with the bands, going on stage introducing an act, hanging out with my family in the field for awhile,” Figler said.

“That was my life, it was a pretty easy life.”

Fast-forward more than a decade later, and Figler, who owns Creative Sound Works on Wheeler Avenue, is now the executive director of the yearly music festival that brings about 4,000 people to Parkway Field to hear a jam packed lineup of musical talent perform. His life is a little busier now than back in 2005 with months of planning going into the creation of the festival.

Figler works with an executive staff of about ten people and a volunteer base of more than 100 that live in the region (mostly Pleasantville and Chappaqua). Each year, he and staff members discuss what worked and what didn’t work that year with the desire to be more efficient the following year. A survey is also sent to attendees so Figler can receive feedback.

Once a review of the previous year is over, finding a new set of bands gets underway as early as December. Figler said he and the other staff members try to nail down different musicians that will please a wide range of demographics with Figler compiling a “wish list” of about 30 bands and musicians he’d love to go after.

ALL PHOTOS BY LYNDA SHENKMAN

But because the festival is a municipally run–rather than private–event, there are limitations Figler has to grapple with. Other festivals can offer more money to performers and some festivals have exclusivity rights, which means a band can’t perform within a certain radius within a certain time frame. He estimated that for every ten more prominent bands/musicians he reaches out to, seven reject him.

For the bigger bands, Figler said he tells them if they come to Pleasantville, it would be “an easier festival, it’s very manageable, you can be in and out pretty quickly.”

Additionally, because the festival is involved with a radio station (107.1 The Peak), that station supports the booked musicians which result in airtime for them leading up to the festival. A band could find a new base of fans in the suburbs, Figler said.

While the pursuit of big acts can be an arduous task, the festival also needs to find smaller bands and musicians, which begins two or three months before the festival.

Up and coming bands can submit through the festival’s website with staff members taking trips to hear different contending bands. “We’re becoming very diverse musically so I try to find something for everyone,” Figler said.

Pleasantville resident Jim Zimmerman, who founded the music festival in 2005 with Bernie Gordon and the late Lisa Wenzel, said the first year he helped put it together, it was like a second full-time job. Part of his motivation to start the festival was to give smaller bands and musicians a larger stage to perform. Some bands have gone on to bigger and better things, he pointed out.

“I had to develop all the systems and recruit so it was quite a project nevertheless,” Zimmerman said. “Everything had to be done by scratch.” Figler joked he doesn’t have to create the wheel like Zimmerman did, only keep it spinning.

While the music lineup is the most significant set to put together, Figler has to secure sponsors and vendors, many of which are eateries from Pleasantville and surrounding towns. There is also a push by a recycling group to ensure it is a zero waste event. Law enforcement and the department of public works are conferred with considering this is the largest public gathering in the small village each year.

The day of the event, Figler said weather is always an uncontrolled variable that has to be monitored. The last three years there has either been rain or a threat of a storm so the village recreational offices become a makeshift weather station. Said Figler: “There’s a zillion moving parts to this thing.”