I Don't Want to Go Home
The Oral History of the Stone Pony
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- ¥1,700
Publisher Description
“Reading Nick Corasaniti’s delightful book about the storied Asbury Park, New Jersey, club is like sitting at your favorite bar listening to the old regulars tell magnificent stories.”—Rolling Stone, Best Music Books of the Year
A captivating oral history of the iconic music venue the Stone Pony and of the rise, fall, and rebirth of Asbury Park, New Jersey—featuring interviews with Bruce Springsteen, Steve Van Zandt, Southside Johnny, members of the E Street Band and Asbury Jukes, the Ramones, the Jonas Brothers, Jack Antonoff, and other legendary musicians.
Featuring exclusive, never-before-seen photos from Danny Clinch
In 1970, Asbury Park, New Jersey, was ripped apart by race riots that left the once-proud beach town an hour away from Manhattan smoldering, suffering and left for dead.
Four years later, a few miles down the coast in Seaside Heights, two bouncers, Jack Roig and Butch Pielka, tired of the daily grind, dreamt of owning their own place. Under-prepared and minimally funded, the two bought the first bar they considered, in a city where no one wanted to be, without setting one foot in the place. They named it the Stone Pony, and turned it into a rock club that Bruce Springsteen would soon call home and a dying town would call its beating heart.
But the bar had to fight to survive. Despite its success in launching and attracting rockers like Stevie Van Zandt, “Southside” Johnny Lyon, and Springsteen, the Stone Pony—like everything in Asbury Park for the past half century—could only weather the drags of a depressed city for so long.
How did the Stone Pony beat the odds to survive? How did it become an international rock pilgrimage site, not just for fans of Springsteen, but for punk rockers, jam bands, pop, indie, alternative and many other musicians as well? And how did it continue to inspire and influence a hall-of-fame list of New Jersey and national rock stars? The story of the Stone Pony—thrillingly charted in this detailed oral history—is the chronicle of a proud and unique cultural mecca blooming in a down-but-not-yet-out tough town. As Nick Corasaniti reveals, the stories of Asbury Park and the Stone Pony are that of modern America itself—a place of battered hopes, big dreams, and dogged resilience.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
New York Times reporter Corasaniti debuts with an immersive chronicle of the music venue in Asbury Park, N.J., where Bruce Springsteen got his start. Beginning the account with the Stone Pony's 1974 opening, Corasaniti pulls from hundreds of interviews with a diverse cast of characters, among them the bar's original owner, Jack Roig; manager Butch Pielka; and Springsteen himself. The interviews touch on Roig's impromptu decision to open the Stone Pony in the wake of the 1970s Asbury Park race riots, the venue's shift from disco to rock and roll soon after it opened, Bruce Springsteen's frequent shows there with the E Street Band in the '70s, the venue's 1991 closure as the local economy nose-dived and its reopening six months later, and the renaissance of Asbury Park in the past 15 years. Seamlessly stitching the interviews together, Corasaniti vividly portrays the "The House That Springsteen Built" as a microcosm of the changes occurring across blue-collar America over the past half century. Springsteen devotees and fans of '70s and '80s rock will be captivated.
