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Five Best…Artists from Staten Island
And no, Lady Gaga doesn’t count
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Don’t laugh. For someone living in Manhattan and Brooklyn (and Queens and the Bronx…), Staten Island is easy to make fun of. Heck, even people from New Jersey like to mock the fifth and mostly forgotten borough, and people from Jersey shouldn’t be making fun of anyone. But Staten Island does have one thing it should be proud of: no, not the Fresh Kills Landfill, which closed in 2001, but rather its abundance of musical talent. Below are the five best (note: George Harrison and Keith Richards don’t count because they lived on the Island later in their lives, not born there…thank God).
#5. Ingrid Michaelson
Best known for the hit single, “The Way I Am,” Michaelson has improved with every album, evolving from a Lisa Loeb-esque sound to one all her own. “Maybe,” from 2009′s Everybody, is a perfectly pleasant single, with a killer melody. Also of note: Michaelson is performing at the Union Square Best Buy at 12:30 p.m. today, followed by a slightly bigger show at the Best Buy Theater in Times Square. More info here.
#4. Blackie Lawless
Why are Mötley Crüe and Quiet Riot still so oddly popular, while W.A.S.P. receives very little press? They’re all heavy metal-ish shock rockers from the mid-80s, but W.A.S.P. has Blackie Lawless, the band’s lead singer and rhythm guitarist, which should be them at the peak of Cock Rock Mountain. “Wild Child” is everything a band who’s acronym of a name stands for “We Are Sexual Perverts” should be, full of hip thrusting and power chords. Lawless also briefly played for the New York Dolls when Johnny Thunders left the group.
#3. Roy Clark
Without Clark, there’d be no Hee Haw. I truly can’t imagine a world without Hee Haw. And, oh yeah, Clark’s an incredibly talented guitarist, too, not to mention a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame.
#2. David Johansen
One of the greatest regrets of my life: my middle school class once visited New York City, mainly to see Ellis Island, which we were studying at the time. For an 11-year-old from upstate New York (south of Albany, specifically), this was a rare treat, and I especially loved the boat ride from Manhattan to Ellis Island. My father was a chaperone on the trip (I’m sorry for you having to put up with all of us, dad, especially my “buddy,” Chris, who’s refined taste included a poster in his bedroom of a woman, um…well, let’s just say she had evidently had to empty her bladder when there just so happened to be a photographer around), and years later he told me that also on the boat was New York Dolls’ lead singer, Mr. David Johansen. Of course I had no idea who the New York Dolls were at the time, but my father did, and he spoke to the former-Buster Poindexter. If only I knew who he was so I could tell him that “Frankenstein” is a perfect song, ’cause I’m sure he hasn’t heard it already.
#1. Wu-Tang Clan
As we all know by now, Wu-Tang Clan ain’t nuthin’ ta’ fuck wit’. RZA, GZA and Ol’ Dirty Bastard are three of the greatest rappers of all-time, something Jim Jarmusch knows all too well.