A Tribute to the Court Tavern and all things Jersey rock

2012-01-22

One simple thing I always notice while shooting concerts, regardless of whether it is Bruce Springsteen performing a surprise set to a sold out crowd, or 10 people standing in the back room at Maxwell’s watching an up-coming band from California, is that live music makes people incredibly happy. 

Last week, the Court Tavern in New Brunswick shuttered its doors. I’m not going to go into a whole history of The Court, and its influence on the live music scene in New Jersey, as plenty of others have already written brilliant stories about it. What I will say is that the Court Tavern holds a very special place in my heart and this photo series, although not all shot at The Court, is dedicated to my favorite venue, a venue that has never failed to leave me feeling incredibly happy after a show.

Ever since my first time setting foot in that grimy dump of a bar, while in college, I felt at home. Not because I was a grimy person (well maybe just a little), but because it felt like a place where nobody cared who you were or how you dressed—it was an open-minded environment, one where lives, culture and of course rock and roll music all clashed. It was the CBGB’s of New Jersey.

I remember being horrified the first time I saw the basement of The Court with the lights turned on. I was working as an assistant to the Rutgers University photographer, Nick Romanenko (AKA Da Nickster), and we had an assignment to shoot an environmental portrait of the owner. It was then that I first learned of the massive amount of debt the bar had accumulated over the years, and it was also then that I realized that The Court probably wouldn’t be around forever.

That was 3 years ago. A year and a half later, I shot my very first assignment for The Star Ledger at the Court Tavern, oddly enough, it was Let Me Run, a band I knew well from my time spent living in New Brunswick. I never posted any of those photos from that show, but figured now would be a good time to do so.

I’ll get to my point: New Jersey needs small venues. It is imperative. The list of bands that have come through The Court is long and impressive. I wonder where those bands would be without it. I wonder how the Jersey bands of tomorrow will cope.

I will miss late nights at The Court, drinking cheap beer and pissing on TheLondonBroil.com stickers that lined the inside of every last urinal. I will miss the outrage mural in the background of every image I shot, the creepy regulars, the dentist chair, the random friend I hadn’t seen in years that I always inevitably ran into. George Harrison once said, “All things must pass.” It’s a god damn shame the Court Tavern is one of those things.