All posts tagged: new jersey

New Jersey Punk

September 9, 2025
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New Jersey had an incredible punk rock, ska, and hardcore scene in the mid/late-90s. Breakout bands like Lifetime, Thursday, Bouncing Souls, Bigwig, and Midtown got their start playing in the basements of northern New Jersey’s American Legions, Elks Lodges, VFWs, and fire houses.

Some kind, old punk rockers have archived many of those basement shows on YouTube. You can probably spot a teenaged and bleached-blond Paul somewhere in the crowds.

This is a clip from Outline…not a terribly popular band in our scene at the time, but they were fronted by future-megastar, Taylor Swift-collaborator, and member of Bleachers and Fun, Jack Antonoff.

It’s a little NY and a little PA. Meet the only N.J. town squeezed between 2 other states.

April 22, 2019
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My hometown of Montague, New Jersey: “It’s a little NY and a little PA.”

The only municipality in our state that borders both New York and Pennsylvania is finally starting to feel a little bit more like New Jersey.

Residents of rural Montague Township, population 3,753, no longer have a New York mailing address. High school students are no longer being bused across the border to [New York].

Now, that’s not to say that Montague is the typical New Jersey town. It covers more than 45 square miles, but there is not a single traffic light to be found. It’s home to High Point, the tallest elevation in New Jersey at 1,803 feet, but prohibits buildings from rising above 35 feet.

How Capicola Became Gabagool: The Italian New Jersey Accent, Explained

March 23, 2016
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How Capicola Became Gabagool: The Italian New Jersey Accent, Explained:

If you were to go to southern Italy, you wouldn’t find people saying “gabagool.” But some of the old quirks of the old languages survived into the accents of Standard Italian used there. In Sicily or Calabria, you might indeed find someone ordering “mutzadell.” In their own weird way, Jersey (and New York and Rhode Island and Philadelphia) Italians are keeping the flame of their languages alive even better than Italian-Italians. There’s something both a little silly and a little wonderful about someone who doesn’t even speak the language putting on an antiquated accent for a dead sub-language to order some cheese.