1/12/07, 5:45 pm EST

Assignment One Finalist: Roy Opochinski on Asbury Park, New Jersey

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Note: This is not an official Rolling Stone article. What follows is a submission to the “I’m From Rolling Stone” writing competition.

by Roy Opochinski
Age: 34

At the intersection of rock’s past and rock’s future, you’ll find the Jersey Shore music scene. The warhorses who ensured that music fans would always receive greetings in Asbury Park are the backbone of a thriving musical carnival that nurtures local acts, embraces national acts, and worships its heroes.

The never-ending waves roll in, bathing the pilings of Convention Hall in a salty spray. Sometimes, fuzzy guitars waft through the open doors and onto the nearly-empty boardwalk. At other times a syncopated beat accompanies a vocalist testing the hall’s acoustics.

Cross the street and head a few blocks South. The front doors of the Stone Pony, a squat, rectangular structure with the iconic stallion on the marquee are still locked; however, tattooed 20-somethings in black tees open the back of a beat up van and wheel the equipment — a drum kit, speaker stacks, a mess of guitars — into the club, through the side door. A few bouncers stand outside, smoking, making small talk with the lead singer from tonight’s opening act.

At the smaller clubs, the band members are younger and the guitars are louder and the lyrics are about drinking and screwing and long nights on the beach. The ladies are drinking; they work hard all week and live for those weekend nights in the winter where locals finally get to hang with their friends in the bar bands. The bar bands, expert at the cover songs that make you dance, play as loud tonight as they do during the summer. Some of them hope to play their own original material someday. Others are happy to dip into the songbooks that their idols made famous.

Like their fans, they live for the music, the sea, and the endless summer nights that are better in the winter.

-- Rolling Stone