And...we're back!

Jay and Lenny at the Bolton Center for the Elvis Birthday Concert with The Long Island Hornets.

Photos by Jim Marchese

Hiya Hiya Hiya Kids,

The Vendettas have mostly been laying low during the cruel winter, mostly due to Chin's house arrest. We do however, have some good news to report.

We have a brand new venue on the books, this month we will be making our first appearance at CB's in Hampton Bays, and then again in March right after the St. Patrick's Day Parade.

We also have some great library shows coming up. Check out all of the new dates on the sidebar on the right.

If you visit our website, you will see that it has been totally redesigned by our creative dept. (Chin, a lot of extra time on his hand) to be interactive. It is an inside look at what The Vendettas World Corporate Headquarters looks like.

Lenny and I were invited by NYRMA to participate in Gene vs. Eddie Rockabilly show, and we just played at the sold out Elvis Birthday Tribute at the Bolton Center. This was our third year playing the show and as always it was a great time. Lots of really talented people who donate their time for Rock Can Roll, a local food bank. This time we played onstage with The Long Island Hornets. They are a great band, check them out as soon as you get a chance.

We have spent this winter learning a bunch of new songs and even writing a few of our own. We will be breaking some of these out at our next show.

New Show with Big Daddy Deluxe!

Hey Folks,

We have been invited way out West (to Massapequa) to join Big Daddy Deluxe for their Rockabilly Night at the Blue Parrot Lounge. We hope that if you live out that way you'll be able to join us for an evening of swinging music. Saturday March 20th 8:00 PM

Blue Parrot of Massapequa Inc5460 Merrick Rd, Massapequa, NY 11758-6213(516) 797-5908‎

blueparrotmusic.com

Bonus Show!

We have a late addition to our show schedule: We will be playing a full show at Fatty Beltbuckle's in Rocky point on Wednesday November 25th, the day before Thanksgiving. This hot on the heels of our unscheduled double bill with The Kerry Kearney Band at the same venue.

Following that we will be returning to Matty T's in Deer Park for Rockabilly night on the 28th, the Saturday after Thanksgiving. We will be opening for The Blaggards who are just a great band and a really good bunch of guys. We met them last year at the Elvis show. It will be a great show, the bar is the only place where you can wear a cowboy hat or a pompadour and fit right in.

Speaking of The Elvis Show, The Vendettas have been invited to play at this years edition. The show will be ont Saturday, January 30th, 2010 at Hennesey’s Bar & Grill, located on Jericho Turnpike in Huntington Station. More details to come.

Check out the sidebar for some recently added dates and venues

Bells Will Be Ringing...The Vendettas' Christmas Show!

Take a break from shopping and join us for warm drinks and Rock and Roll Christmas songs on December 20th at Eastender's Coffee House 40 E. Main St in Riverhead, showtime about 8:30.

Sadly, rumor has it that Eastender's may be closing sometime in January. You can blame the economy, or a town board with no vision that can't get out of it's own way, or the greed of a landlord who owns most of the stores on Main Street and whose goal seems to keep those stores empty. Whatever the reason, it is a sad situation. Lindsey and Dianne were the first people to ever hire us, on faith alone. We have played Eastender's more than any other venue. For those reasons we have always considered the coffee shop our home. If in fact they do close thier doors we will miss them, and Riverhead will miss them. Ther is no other gathering place like it around anywhere.

On a happier note: Lenny and Jay will be performing at the Elvis Tribute Show, along with the Hornets, The Purple Gang, The Lone Sharks, The Blaggards and probably a mess of other people. That will be on January 24th at Matty T's. We are excited to be a part of it. More information to come.
Thanks to Dianne Woodcheke for the photo.

Blues Fest- Jerry The Dish- Vendettas Get Rooked!

Where do I begin, it has been a while.

Vendettas at the Artful Dodger-photo by Diane Woodcheke

Our Next Show: Aug 31 The Artful Dodger, Westhampton Beach

Firstly and most importantly those of you who come to see us on a regular basis will no doubt have notice the absence of "Teen Dream" Jerry "The Dish" Silverstein. Jerry has taken a well deserved sabbatical to do what he does best, scrimshaw. Jerry will be continuing to work in his songwriters workshop and look for him to make the occasional surprise appearance with the band. Once a Vendetta...

We made our second appearance at the Riverhead Blues Festival, we had a great time and would like to thank everyone who came to see us and who helped us get booked. It is great to be a part of it.

Now then, last year we got wind of some complaints that "some of the bands" were not playing blues at the blues festival. While it is true that our music is sort of the bridge between Blues, Country, and Rock and Roll, we played a bunch of blues too to show respect for the theme of the festival. So imagine my surprise when as we were loading in, the band on the main stage was playing Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes". No t that it is not a great song, not that the band playing g it didn't do a great job playing it (it was Jim Moran, I think) but is it Blues? Not frigging remotely. We got flack about playing Bo Diddly at a blues festival (not from anyone affiliated organization) and somehow the Genesis guy gets in there and that is OK?

Vendettas rock Megan Dascoli's wedding. photo by some dude

Lastly and to me, regrettably we will no longer be playing the Manorville venue. In the words of Spinal Tap's David St Hubbins, "we shant work together again". It is really too bad, I thought that we had found a home, the crowd was really receptive and it was exciting to play for a group who knew the music. Unfortunately there was a problem with the management, money not payed, terms of agreements left vague. It is one of the few places in the area that feature live music every week, so I guess they can make the rules. Musicians beware.

Our show this weekend features original recipe drummer Charles Woodcheke. Like I said, once a Vendetta... This is Charles during his pirate phase.

The Vendettas at The Blues Fest - New Shows Just Added

The Vendettas will make their second appearance at The Riverhead Blues Festival, Saturday at 2:30 in Club 91.

Thanks to "The Core" who came down to our new room, The Artful Dodger, which is in the back of Magic's Pub on Main St. in Westhampton Beach. Things went so well there we have been asked back. Our next show will be Saturday July 26th at 10:00. Look for special guest and former full time member Charles Woodcheke on Drums, filling in for Joe. Charles will be back with us at the Dodger Sunday August 31st. You can see Charles at his regular gig with his excellent band Highway 49.

The Maples is another new venue for us. Frank Lattore of The King Bee's sat in with us for our first show, he is always a pleasure to play with. He added great blues harp and slide guitar to our Rockabilly sound. It was great to meet an new and very receptive crowd, we had a great time. The Vendettas will be back (and hopefully joined by Frank) at The Maples Saturday July 19th after our second appearance at The Riverhead Blues Festival. We are booked at The Maples over the next several months.

We will be at the Longwood Public Library on August 1st. It may seem strange but actually it is the third library we have played. Come and see if we can vibrate the books off the shelves.

Jaybone

Vendettas in the Studio, Brian Setzer, Next Show

This Saturday We will be back where we started at East Enders Coffee House on Main St. in Riverhead, NY. Showtime will be 8:00 PM. We will also have a special guest for the evening, the most talented harmonica player I have ever had the good fortune to play with: Frank Latorre of the King Bees. He wll be sitting in for Jerry the Dish who has an out of state court appearance. Please join us on the 19th for an evening of rockabilly and rock and roll as it can only be played when fueled espresso and cake. http://eastenderscoffeehouse.com/

The Vendettas are now working on a new recording. We have recorded the basic tracks, the old school way live, with no tricky stuff. We will be adding the finishing touches and mixing in the next few weeks. We found a great studio http://www.suffolkrecordingstudios.com/ and had excellent experience with Allen and Dan there. They understood what we were going for and helped us get the authentic vibe we were looking for.

A few weeks ago I was in Minneapolis for a professional conference and happened to eat dinner at a Jazz club called Rossi's. To my surprise Leon Redbone was appearing there that night. Needless to say I couldn't pass up the opportunity to see him. So as my colleagues left for the evening (they had no idea who he was) I headed toward the performance area to take my seat. I made a quick stop in the men's room and while washing my hands I turned my head to see standing there, freaking Brian Setzer!

Now I don't have to explain as a guitar player in a rockabilly band how important this guy is to me. When I was in the 8th grade the Stray Cats played in my middle school gym on Long Island. This was right before they went to England. It was a pretty influential moment in my life, it is one of the reasons I picked up the guitar in the first place.

It can be sort of terrifying when you get to meet your heros, there are many ways they might not live up to your expectations, not the least of which is they may turn out to be jerks. That happened to me once. It was a real disappointment. I knew I had to chance it though and say something (even though I was kind of star struck) so I eked out something along the lines of "I love your work". There were about a million things I wanted to say but I didn't want to seem like a freak. I have to say Brian was very friendly and gracious. He took some time to talk with me and even stayed to see Leon Redbone on my suggestion. We had another brief exchange on the way out. It was a very cool experience.

Return of "The Dish"!

After "being away" for almost two months Jerry "The Dish" Silverstein will make his triumphant return to the stage at our last schedualed appearance at Westhampton Bowl, this Friday February 15th at 9:00 PM. Our attorneys have advised us to say as little as possible regarding the Dish's whereabouts for the last two months so let's just call it a "vacation" and leave it at that.

Our last show at "the Bowl" as we like to call it was a great success and we would like to thank all who came down including two members of the great band "Collarbone": singer Alex Mckenna and drummer Dave Elliot. If Lorin were there we could have had a full reunion. Also in attendence were staff members of the Westhampton Free Library and some people who were bowling and just wandered in to see what all the noise was about. We thank all who came.

I recently saw a group called the Church Boys at the Vail Levitt Music Hall in Riverhead New York. Chris the bass player in an original memeber of The Vendettas and has joined us on stage several times in the last year. His new band is a lot of fun, playing mostly originals plus some great garage rock classics. Check them out if you can and check out the music hall which will be showcasing bands every third Thursday. We need places like this that are opened to bands and support original music. Try to support it by visiting when you get the opportunity.

Please join us Friday for an evening of rockabilly and rock and roll. We try to make the shows different so we will be adding in some songs we have never played and the bowling alley before.

Happy New Year, From The Vendettas

The start of the new year marks the third anniversary for The Vendettas. Our first show with Lenny, Chin and Jaybone and Jerry "the Dish" in lineup was a Christmas party at a friend's house. We played every song we knew plus some rock and roll Christmas classics. We were nervous, but we had fun. So much so that we kept on going.

Last month we revisited the holiday rock, busted out the Santa hats and turned up the Fender amps. We even got our newest member to don the headgear and add his voice the "harmonies" Elvis's "Santa Claus is Back in Town". Of course we want to thank the people who came down to see our Christmas Extravaganza and the Westhampton Beach Library, and the library for taking a chance on having a Rock and Roll band, which I think was a first for them.

We also want to thank all the folks who have supported us this last year including Lindsey from East Ender's Coffee house, the first place to actually hire us, The Birchwood in Southampton and Westhampton Bowling, who have invited us back for two more dates.

In 2008 we will explore new venues, meet more people who dig rockabilly and rock and roll, and maybe we will all chip in and get a body for Chin's upright bass.

Jaybone

Vendettas Rock Westhampton Library !

Saturday Dec. 8th The Vendettas will appear at The Westhampton Free Library for a free Holiday Rock and Roll Show at 7:00pm. The Library is on Library Avenue in Westhampton Beach, the phone number is 288-3335. We are led to believe there will be snacks, and we don't have to play quietly.

The band has also secured two more dates at the Westhampton Lanes bowling alley. Our last show there was a success and our stay has been extended. Thanks to Matt for posting on that show and to Andrew from The De'villes for coming down to hear us. Check out The De'villes, if you get a chance they're a great band.

See You Tonight!
Jaybone