Introduction
"The
only rock music to come out of Long Island is Billy Joel!"
That
statement is nonsense. Long Island is full of music and has always
contributed more than it's fair share to the national sound. Why is
this fact not acknowledged? No, it's always "New York, New York."
It is as if Long Island was merely a place from which to leave. Well,
it's far more than that. Consider Simon and Garfunkle's "59th Street
Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)". Whereas the nearest big city may be
more romantic and appealing, it is, for the most part, a place to
commute to as well as a destination.Long Island is one major point
of departure.
Long
Island is separated from Manhattan, to the east, by a narrow waterway
known as The East River. This seems a rather inelegant name, yet it
accurately establishes and simplifies one's coordinates in a city
of numbered streets and avenues. On the west side of Manhattan lies
the Hudson River and everyone knows that New Jersey is on the other
side. Turn around and you face the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens.
Beyond is Nassau County and Suffolk County; suburbia and the beaches.
For those who work in the city, this is a simple way to remember how
to rush home to Lung Eyelan.
Manhattan,
of course, is The Big Leagues. It is the hub of all major activity
in the music business - the recording companies, the studios, the
agencies and the venues. If you are a major player, you have a place
in the city. However, it is a good bet that you grew up on the Island,
or, at the very least, you have a weekend place on the East End.
During
the early '50s, a migration toward the east began. The boroughs were
becoming too intense an environment in which to raise the baby boomers.
Overnight, the potato fields of Long Island yielded crops of single-family
homes. Major thoroughfares mapped the land. Shopping centers and pizza
joints replaced the plains and the pine forests. Nassau and Suffolk
were no longer considered the hinterlands. As the sounds of Alan Freed,
Murray The K and The WMCA Good Guys wafted east, the Island youth
turned up the volume. When mom and dad yelled "turn that crap down",
the kids moved into the garage. With all those garages, the rock explosion
was inevitable.
