Lollapajewza Returns to Rock the Shore

The Lollapajewza ’08 Music and Arts Festival returns to Asbury Park on Sunday, August 24 with over 50 performers and artists taking the stage and displaying their talents. Over 14 bands are scheduled to play, along with several individual performers and artists, to benefit the Imagine Academy for Autism. Performers range in age from high schoolers to grandfathers. With such a diverse lineup, there’s sure to be something for everyone!

Bands scheduled to perform include: The Perfect Mistake, Saturday’s Saints, Meets West, Wolves of Flatbush, The Invitations, Filthy Animals, Eric Ginsberg and the New Originals, Blue Mood, Sammy’s Cousins, Sounds of Friday, Same Day Service and the Bon Bon Poets. Other artists performing include Sonja Cabasso, Shani Levy, Julian Tawil and David Bernstein as Sefarad, Sammy Chalme, Morris Antebi and Jake Fallas. Pianists David Sutton and Mosey Sutton will also be showing off their skills. This year’s event will also feature artwork and photography by talented community artists. The artwork of Abie Hakim, Sofia Jemal and Sarah Kassab will be on display, alongside photography from Morris and Victor Gindi.

Any big event needs a charity component, and this year’s event will be for the Imagine Academy for Autism. This school is dedicated to helping children with autism reach their fullest potential and improving the quality of students’ lives as well as the lives of their families. Founded in 2004, Imagine was initiated by parents of affected children. Tired of outdated approaches and rigid schools, these parents banded together to start a school which would encompass all proven methodologies. No other place like Imagine Academy exists in the world today. It is a unique school for autistic children.

What most people do not know is that music therapy is an important tool in helping autistic children reach their full potential. It has been noted time and again that autistic children possess unusual sensitivities to music. They have made enormous strides in eliminating their monotonic speech by singing songs composed to match the rhythm, stress, flow and inflection of the sentence followed by a gradual fading of the musical cues. With this in mind, the Lollapajewza team strongly felt that partnering with Imagine Academy was a natural fit. They hope the event will serve as a platform for Imagine to educate members of the community on how we can all help out on a local and global level.

Putting an event of this size together was no small feat. After many months of planning by the Lollapajewza team, it was decided that a move from the site of last year’s event, at the legendary Stone Pony, was a necessity. Due to restrictions on sound from the new beach-front development in Asbury, the event could not take place at the Pony outdoors on a Sunday. The search was on for a new venue, but where else can you throw an outdoor rock concert in the area besides the Arts Center, which is 20 minutes away? After countless weeks of searching and meetings, the team chose to pursue something that had never been done before. We decided to close down the street, and throw a block party!

The team wanted to have the festival at the most hip and happening spot available. So we decided on the trendy and fashionable downtown area near Cookman Avenue. Mattison Park, one of the new lounges that recently opened in the area on Mattison Avenue, has been on many people’s radar this summer, as the scene of many birthday parties.

Just across the street is a big parking lot that sits mostly unoccupied. It was perfect! The only problem was that the town had never done anything like that before—fencing off a full city block for a music festival. Putting it together took a bit more work, but it was worth it. In the end, our team pulled it off with the help of Mattison Park, after a few meetings with the town’s special events committee. Finally, the plan went before the city council and was approved!

Although planning for this year’s event started almost a year ago, it has now kicked into overdrive. The team had to finish booking and confirming all of the bands and artists, start selling tickets as well as ads for the event guide, get things organized with the charity, and work on marketing and promotion. On top of all that, a stage was needed in the middle of the street! Thanks to the team’s experience in putting on last year’s event, as well as a successful event this past winter at the Knitting Factory in Manhattan, everything came together.

The event will take place all day Sunday, August 24. Doors open at 11 am, with the first band taking the stage at 12 pm. Tickets are $18 in advance or $20 at the door, and allow you to come and go as you please. Children 10 and under are free! A parking garage has been reserved just a block from the festival, in addition to plentiful street parking. For more information and a detailed schedule of performances, visit www.lollapajewza.com or email info@lollapajewza.com. For sponsorship opportunities, please contact Sonja Cabasso: sonja@lollapajewza.com or (347) 416-4009.