Could it really be two years since we were all hoarding canned goods, sanitizing our groceries, and shopping for toilet paper online, thanks to COVID 19?
And, could the isolation, paranoia, and general weirdness finally be over?
One sign that things are getting back to normal is North by New Hope (NXNH), a four-night music festival to be held at John and Peter’s, 96 South Main Street in New Hope, Thursday, March 10, through Sunday, March 13.
In addition to showcasing regional bands such as Trio of Madness, Cosmic American Derelicts, The Tribe, Dinosaur Stampede, Sound of Urchin Duo, and Room For Mojo — many with a connection to New Hope-based Ween — NXNH will help celebrate John and Peter’s 50th anniversary year.
J&P’s opened its doors in July, 1972, and they originally served breakfast (but not alcohol.)
Trenton resident Patrick Thompson, founder, singer-guitarist/songwriter for Trenton-based Dinosaur Stampede, agrees that, when John and Peter’s launched in 1972, the music scene was having a particularly fertile moment.
So many great albums were released that year: everyone from Frank Zappa to the Carpenters was in creative mode. Even punk rock was starting to rear its rebellious head.
“There’s a common thread between 1972 and today — it was a sweet spot (for music). Punk and metal were starting, but we still had folk rock, etc,” Thompson says. “John and Peter’s are still doing rock and roll the old school way, and there are very few clubs that have been doing this for so long.”
NXNH founder Guy Heller (Dickey Moist of New Hope’s punk/metal band Moistboyz) has been organizing the multi-night music event for years, unofficially beginning in 2013. He moved back to the area from Austin, Texas, where he had worked the stages of the famous South by Southwest festival for some time. So Heller had the skills and contacts to bring numerous acts together, akin to SXSW.
As for Thompson and Dinosaur Stampede, their show Saturday night will only be their third live performance. The group, which also boasts drummer Sim Cain, guitarist Keith Kenny, and bassist Keith Hartel, celebrated the launch of their eponymous album in 2019, but then retreated like the rest of us due to the COVID pandemic.
“We had one show in Asbury Park, then a sold-out record launch at Randy Now’s Man Cave, and it was a great show, but then COVID hit,” Thompson says, noting that he continued to write and rehearse during the shutdown. “I’ve worked very hard to get better and better, and now I’m playing with these pros. We have almost another album’s worth of material, and are hoping to start releasing singles on seven-inch (vinyl), and digitally.”
The group’s website, www.dinosaurstampede.com, describes their spirit perfectly: “Rising from the Primordial Soup that was Trenton’s City Gardens in the ’80s and ’90s, Dinosaur Stampede features an all-star lineup that channels the Indie/Punk spirit of Central Jersey Rock.”
Thompson is serious when he says his bandmates are true professionals. Trenton resident Cain, who was part of the rhythm section of The Rollins Band (fronted by Henry Rollins, former lead singer of Black Flag), has played with the Dean Ween Group, Regressive Aid, and blues guitarist Hubert Sumlin, among many others.
According to Thompson, Cain has the distinction of playing the very first note (a bass drum thump), on the very first song, during the inaugural Lollapalooza festival in 1991.
“He still has that bass drum,” Thompson says. “Fast forward 30 years and Sim is my neighbor on the Island in Trenton. I was seriously nervous when I asked if he’d record an album of my songs with me. He not only said yes but dedicated an incredible amount of his time and wisdom over several months to rehearse, arrange, record, and produce the first Dinosaur Stampede album.”
Thompson recalls that he attended many sweat-soaked shows at Trenton’s City Gardens and was knocked out by The Rollins band.
“I was a dumbfounded, star-struck teenager, standing in front of the stage at City Gardens with Henry’s sweat dripping down upon me,” he says. “I had never seen or heard anything quite like The Rollins Band.”
“These were men — men with a caliber of musicianship I had never seen or heard anything like,” he says. “The music transcended genre and embodied a musical freedom and power that still gives me chills. The drummer, holy moly. Sim Cain was larger than life.”
“I had been in bands, I had played with drummers, and I had seen all the great punk drummers of the day,” he continues. “Sim was different and Sim was special. He went on to travel the world and is a legendary, highly regarded, world-class musician.”
Bass guitarist Keith Hartel is a very old friend of Thompson’s, and is known for playing with Richard Lloyd (Television), Dick Manitoba of the Dictators, Tammy Faye Starlite, as well as several New Jersey punk bands, most notably Adrenaline OD.
“Keith also embraced the (Dinosaur Stampede) project and dedicated countless hours to arranging, producing, and playing bass, keyboards, and providing background vocals on the album,” Thompson says.
Thompson refers to guitarist Keith Kenny as “The Eighth Wonder of the World.”
“Keith does a jaw-dropping one-man-band performance and is highly regarded in New Jersey and beyond,” Thompson says. “He is a world-class guitar player who really classes up the Dinosaur Stampede sound. The album was recorded at Keith’s Studio 303 in Monroe Township.”
Kenny engineered the album and co-produced it with Cain.
That studio in Monroe is not too far from Jamesburg, where Thompson grew up.
Born in New Brunswick, November 1, 1970, Thompson seems to have come out of the womb with energy and ideas.
His father was an artist who made a living designing, developing, and engineering packages for a German pharmaceutical company, and became a prolific painter in his retirement. The elder Thompson listened to a variety of music when he worked at home, with the Beatles, Jackson Browne, and especially Neil Young frequently on the turntable.
“Neil Young’s catalog was imprinted on my brain and soul,” Thompson says.
Thompson’s mom was a stay-at-home mom who later worked in property management in the Monroe/Jamesburg area. But she is also a photographer, “a true artistic documentarian, and I follow in her footsteps,” he says. “She never lets me forget how fortunate I am to have endless clicks on my iPhone, when she had to carefully dole out each frame of film and processing/developing, while feeding a family of five.”
His father took Patrick and his brothers to see the Ramones, and Thompson completely absorbed their rough but polished sound and image. So he was ready to hit the stage by his mid-teens.
“That’s how I got into starting and playing in bands — music was accessible, and there were lots of teens like me into hard core and punk rock back in the mid-1980s,” says Thompson, who originally played bass but switched to guitar. “I never took lessons, just started playing Ramones songs, and played simple, loud and fast. That was our ethos.”
Thompson gives both of his parents a lot of praise for backing him all those years.
“I was always ambitious and always had very supportive parents, in fact, they still come to every one of my shows,” he says.
His very first gig was in 1987 with his group, Black Vomit, at the Court Tavern in New Brunswick. The group had a minor college radio hit with “Reggae Man” and was hired to open for Faith No More.
“I was 16, and I had to have a note from my mom giving me permission to be inside a bar,” he says.
Instead of college and graduate school, Thompson utilized the skills he developed as a young musician, songwriter, promoter, etc., to find his way into the corporate world, sales and marketing in particular.
“I’ve always said the skills that were necessary to start and lead a band as a teenager were a remarkably transferrable skill-set to corporate sales and marketing and operational and leadership roles. It continues to work for me, anyway,” he says.
“I went to college for two weeks at what was then called Rider College, but it wasn’t for me,” he says. “My punk rock band and record company — that was my college. I had a very nice and successful career at McGraw Hill (in Hightstown), which became McGraw Hill Financial, and eventually S&P Global, before they kicked me out in 2014.”
It was during these post-corporate times when an idea for a new group began percolating in Thompson’s mind.
“There’s a part of me that feels like I just lucked into this by getting Keith and Sim to come practice these songs with me and trick them into thinking they were having a good time,” he writes on Dinosaur Stampede’s website. “But the truth is that once we dove in and started to collaborate, it became a project that everyone became invested in, and their skills brought it to a level that I could not have imagined. Getting to work with such incredibly talented professional musicians, I had the time of my life.”
Keeping up with the Capital City’s wave of creative energy, Dinosaur Stampede commissioned Trenton artist Leon Rainbow to do the cover art for the album and engaged Trenton’s Exit 7A Studios for their logo design and rehearsal space.
Thompson and his wife, Amy Brummer, live in Trenton, on the Delaware River. The couple works out of an office in the old Laceworks complex in Lambertville.
Brummer, who used to be an arts and culture reporter for the Princeton Packet’s Time Off magazine (among many other ventures), is the founder of Watershed Wellbeing, a community resource guide for the Delaware River towns between Trenton and Frenchtown.
“She also works as a certified professional aromatherapist and runs an Airbnb called Breathing Room, out of the space above our office in Lambertville,” Thompson says.
His son, Jackson, is a journalist, and his daughter, Very, is a talented percussionist and keyboardist. “A very beautiful musician,” as her father says.
Thompson has recently joined a London-based company called Euromoney working for their Fastmarkets (Commodity Market Data, Price Reporting Agency) businesses.
“They embrace the Work 3.0 ethos and ‘work from anywhere and have a long weekend’ dynamic that many progressive companies are embracing in 2022,” he says. “Also, while I was out of the corporate world, Amy and I ran a consulting business, which among other interesting things, had me navigating a film production company through the curse of winning an Oscar (for ‘Birdman’), the changing entertainment landscape, and the litigation industrial complex.”
Between one thing and another, Thompson has found a pleasurable balance of work, creativity and home life.
“A lot has changed for the better since I took my eight-year hiatus from the corporate world,” Thompson says. “As my kids are grown, balancing a job like this while still playing music and being creative can all fit.”
Dinosaur Stampede will perform Saturday, March 12, 10 p.m. (doors open at 8 p.m.), as part of the North by New Hope festival, Thursday March 10 through Sunday March 13, John and Peter’s, 96 South Main Street, New Hope, Pennsylvania.
Dinosaur Stampede on the web: www.dinosaurstampede.com.
John and Peter’s: 215-862-5981 or www.johnandpeters.com.
