Rock WILK: PRESS & THANK'S

Rock Wilk’s play coming to Trenton
By JOAN GALLER
jgaller@trentonian.com Posted: 03/16/12 12:01 am
Updated: 03/16/12 12:55 am
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Rock Wilk performs his one-may musical play “Broke Wide Open.” He’ll perform the show Sunday at 3 p.m. at the Mill Hill Playhouse on Front and Montgomery streets.

TRENTON — For every kid who’s been abandoned, dumped into foster care or given up for adoption — and sentenced to a lifetime of wondering why — this story is yours.
Actor-singer-playwright Rock Wilk has lived just such a life and examines all those life-changing decisions that impacted his life in his one-man musical play “Broke Wide Open,” which he will perform this Sunday at 3 p.m. at the Mill Hill Playhouse in Trenton. This marks the second time Wilk is performing “Broke Wide Open” as part of Passage Theatre’s 11th annual Solo Flights Festival in New Jersey’s capital. He opened the festival on March 2 and received a standing ovation on the final leg of his six-year artistic journey that will culminate Oct. 5 with his play’s debut on Broadway.
Wilk — who was born in New York City’s Mount Sinai Hospital and spent 10 weeks in three foster care homes before he was adopted and renamed Alan Wilk — has been writing, revising and performing his play since 2006. He set out on his birthright quest in 2003, searching for his birth mother, and later started writing his autobiographical music after his parents and grandmother died and his marriage broke up, leaving him feeling utterly alone and searching for answers. “I wasn’t sure I wanted to meet my birth mother. I just became curious when my family started to die and I started to think about my medical history,” Wilk began. New York State’s adoption records are sealed by law, so it took him a year to track down his original birth certificate with his original name and where he was born. What little he discovered in the records and at the now-defunct adoption agency brought him no comfort. His birth mother had a two-year affair with her boss — his father, who was married with three children. When she found out she was pregnant, she left and never told him about his baby. She was 27 when Wilk was born. “They wouldn’t give me her name, it’s illegal, but I presume (based on her name that) she was Jewish,” Wilk says. Wilk has managed to learn that his birth mother was orphaned at age 3 when both her parents died. “Now I believe she was completely confused, felt that she could never be a mother, and I’ve come to understand her pain,” he said. As for his father, Wilk says “I don’t understand how he could not know there’s part of himself running around out there.” Wilk was adopted by a loving Jewish couple Phyllis and Leon Wilk, who also adopted two other children, a boy and girl. “We weren’t religious, just observed just Yom Kippur and Passover, and I made my bar mitzvah by faking the Hebrew.” In his search, Wilk found three women with his original last name who might be his mother, and he called the only one with a listed phone number. “She was not the right one.” Today, in “Broke Wide Open,” Wilk recounts and relives all those decisions by others and their impact on his life. The play’s blunt title is taken from a term that means “being revealing, raw, naked as possible,” says Wilk. It came from his initial work, an independently produced album of songs that he wrote over two months in 2006 while riding New York’s subways. Wilk sings on this album and calls it “a popular R&B sound. My voice has been compared to Justin Timberlake. I play guitar, piano and drums, this album’s all me.” It was produced with help from Jack Rollins, now 96, a longtime personal friend who was a film producer and manager for Woody Allen, Billy Crystal, David Letterman and Robert Klein,” says Wlik. “Jack’s daughter was one of my early girlfriends, she’s still one of my best friends.” As Wilk tells his story, Rollins “heard some of my work and thought I should do an album, said I had a lot to say and needed to get this out of me, but he advised me to be completely revealing -- open, raw, naked as possible that’s where the art lies. “He inspired me to do that at a difficult time in my life when my mom had just died and my marriage crumbled,” Wilk said. Others felt the album was a performance play, but there were so many themes. Wilk was urged to choose just one story line. “I chose the adoption theme.” Every day for nearly six years, Wilk has worked on his play. “I’ve traveled the world after developing it in the streets, performing in the parks.” And he has used the audience’s feedback in the play’s “ongoing development.” His search for identity and answers last year took him all over the U.S. and on to London, where he performed “during the riots” in the Camden Fringe Festival. Other adoptees relate to adoption’s impact on Wilk’s life: his ambivalent search for his mother, his sense of loss following the deaths of his parents and grandmother and lost friendships. “Everything fueled my search for personal identity because I have no idea about my real identity,” he notes. Wilk’s play chronicles his non-stop search for “home” because he always felt out of place, even as a young and sometimes “difficult” child, whose his family and friends started calling him “Rock” and by 13 “Alan was gone.” From audience feedback, Wilk has learned “my issues are the same as anyone else’s, not knowing who I was or having anyone looking like me always had me confused.” “My play is about all the complexities of not knowing where you come from,” Wilk sums up. “After two hours of watching me perform with all this frantic energy, the audience and I find out who I am — I am just like anyone else, an accumulation of all these people in my past, of all my experiences and all the choices I have made.” Today, says Wilk, “I know who I am, I am my mother and father and grandmother, my relationships, travels, challenges, that’s who I am. It’s a constant search for all of us to know who we are.” Wilk takes heart from the message in “The Wizard of Oz.” “I always think of Dorothy, She’s always been ‘home,’ it’s inside you.” Wilk, who lives in Washington Heights, is looking forward to performing his one-man play at the 45th Street Theatre in New York. Using his brokewideopen.com website, Wilk has raised $11,300 to date to mount the production. He’s hoping to reach the $30,000 mark with his “500 Names” campaign, supporters who are helping him mount the production, pay his collaborators and hire a publicist. Contributions have ranged from $5 to $500. “I wept the day I delivered a $10,000 check to rent the theater for one month,” Wilk said. “It had 300 signatures on it. This has always been a community-based project, performing in the streets and parks,” Wilk added. “I’m so grateful for this (500 Names) list.” Wilk says the “adoption community has found me and comes to all my shows but is not supporting” his fundraising efforts. Donors are mostly people who relate to the story because everyone has dealt with love, loss, relationships and family issues, says Wilk. Feedback, good and not so good, comes from all quarters after performances and via email. “Some people call adoption ‘child trafficking,’ that they ‘took me’ from my mother, and one adoption advocate actually told me the most significant fact in my life is that I was given away,” Wilk said. “I had a woman send me a negative e-mail that I promote child trafficking, but I have a lot of friends who grew up in group homes without anything. I feel very healthy today, I am willing to deal with everything about me. I’ve experienced very difficult, painful things in the past six years. I have completely reinvented my life while working on this play.” The New York show will use animation, video, a magnificent two-story mural. “I want them to see what I see ... which captures the diverse people I’ve encountered all over the world as I’ve performed ‘Broke Wide Open’,” WIlk explained. Wilk is planning a gala New York opening night with a celebratory dinner after the show. Twenty percent of proceeds, at $125 per ticket, will be donated to the Children’s Aid Society adoption and foster care program. General admission will be $35 for the rest of the run, which he hopes to extend beyond one month. Tickets are $20 for the Sunday performance at 3 o’clock at the Mill Hill Playhouse, Front and Montgomery streets. Passage Theatre is Trenton’s only independent resident theater company dedicated to presenting new talent and one-person shows.

Rock Wilk Wants to Play With You
May 3, 2011

We knew him when: Performance poet, playwright, producer, musician and mad original Rock Wilk has BROKE WIDE OPEN on an international scale — and he’s coming to a major stage festival, legit theater, public library, street corner or living room near you.

Some of our Fa(r)cebook Frenz send us breathless dispatches concerning cups of coffee and sunrises viewed from the deck. Others link to some article we first saw on The Onion in 2003, and even we have not been immune to the cutely photoshopped cat pix. But when Rock WILK comes a-postin’, it goes something like this:

Rock WILK is… out of the box renegade, not part of the club, without invitation & so he is throw his own party intriguing, THINK it PLAN it DO it FEARLESS, he just wants to play with you, share with you. Watch him fly. High. He won’t stop. He’s all a that…

Who is this Rock Wilk anyway? We’d endeavor to peg him as a sought-after singer and vocal arranger (for Nile Rodgers and Patti Labelle among many others), a composer of soundtrack music, a “spoken word sensei,” a producer, a playwright, a performance poet…and we get the feeling we’d run out of push pins long before we got to “a puppet, a pirate, a pawn and a king.”

Just precisely who “Rock WILK is” remains unresolved by Wilk himself, since the Boy from NYC has made matters of identity — the adoptee’s search for his birth parents; the artist’s almost obsessive need to constantly reinvent oneself — the tectonically tumultuous foundation for Broke Wide Open, the solo performance piece that began life circa 2007 as a self-released CD of intensely personal and/or autobiographical songs.

Several years after very small audiences here on the Upper Wet Side were first exposed to Wilk’s live renditions of BWO (at offbeat venues like the Crane House, The Showroom, SICA and even a suburban stripmall bookstore), the work has morphed from a songs-and-stories slideshow into a powerhouse presentation supercharged by word-high energy; a candidly confessional, relentlessly rhythmic state-of-the-state that sizzles with everything from a scared little kid’s search for a hand to hold, to an angry young runner’s attempts to stay a step ahead of the fury that both inspires and threatens to overtake him.

To call Broke Wide Open a “memoir” is to do it a disservice in this “me”-O.D. marketplace. Is it even a play? An epic poem NuMythology? A “road” novel or a rant? A gum, a candy, a breath mint? Not to be too terribly arch about it, Broke Wide Open might just be that Whole New Thing we didn’t even know we were looking for; that place we’re being drawn to for the first time as things warp and splinter, as our notions of how anything at all is conceived or created (or delivered, distributed, owned and consumed) gasp their last, and we try to figure out What Just Happened and what we’re supposed to do next, and wonder just what or who is going to come along and make perfect sense of (and in) this new context.

After honing his act to a Wilkinson-sword edge at venues like NYC’s Theater Lab, Wilk took Broke Wide Open on its first coast-to-coast tour this spring — and later this summer, he brings the stage production to Europe for a major festival engagement and possible world domination.

Until then, Rock Wilk continues to workshop new material in public parks and on moving subway cars — and rides the NJ Transit rails down the Shore, where he spends time in and around Asbury Park, and maintains a regular presence as the host of the monthly series of “iPoet” student-writer showcases at the Long Branch Free Public Library. On the afternoon of Saturday, May 14, Wilk will be joined by Springsteen singer (and solo songwriter) Lisa Lowell for an iPoet session that pairs the area’s newest poetic voices with some veteran vocalizers of the Shore music scene — and upperWETside caught up with the renegade somewhere outside the box.

So since the last time we talked you’ve gone nationwide; done a little Manifest Destiny with your one-man show. How’s it play out in the hinterlands? Are audiences in different towns reacting differently?

It was the first time that I really took the show outside my little area — New York, New Jersey, Boston, Philadelphia — basically the Northeast. I went to places like Chicago, Seattle — some of the Q and A’s last as long as two hours…very open, very raw…I’m givin’ people a forum to talk about the things they don’t always want to talk about.

I went to LA, where I happen to know a lot of people, and where I’d get all these industry people making comments about structure, transitions, things like that. I also went to Denver, which was quite a new experience for me.

How so?

The Denver audience was very conservative, mostly older crowd, probably all Republican…not at all the sort of crowd you see in New York or Asbury. But the response I got was almost religious…I didn’t change a thing about the show, and the reaction I got was for me a confirmation that I’m telling a story that resonates with any kind of audience. Something that’s not all about me; that’s transformed into something where people can see things about their own lives.

Kindly reiterate the exciting news that you shared with your email friends the other day.

I’m going to London, to do The Camden Fringe Festival — six shows between August 9th and 14th. Then in December I’m goin’ to Paris, at the invitation of a theater company there. They’re gonna have me do Broke Wide Open to a French-speaking audience, with subtitles.

And in between all this, you’re still finding the time to host the iPoet events at the Long Branch Library, where I can tell you everybody’s just thrilled to have you on board. The people from the Arts Council, the young kids, are all digging what you’re doing…you tie the room together, like the rug in THE BIG LEBOWSKI.

I love doing the iPoet thing…it’s something different every month, and I’m grateful that Robyn, Gabe and everyone keep askin’ me back. As far as the next event goes, I had planned to mix things up with song when I heard that it was going to be incorporating some singers and songwriters.

It wasn’t too long ago…2008 I think…when I saw you perform your show for the first time; a presentation with slide projections and recorded music inside the tiny parlor of the Stephen Crane House in Asbury.

At that time it was called Ma’Plej’ , and it was more of a songs and stories format, based on the album of songs called Broke Wide Open. And each time you saw it after that, I’m sure it had evolved into something different…that was a period of time when I was kind of traveling inside my own head; I didn’t know exactly how I wanted to tell this story, and a friend kind of pushed me in the direction of spoken word.

You were still known primarily as a musician, a singer, an arranger at that time. Was this more or less the first time you tapped into the spoken word thing? When you took the show to places like the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, did it still have the musical component, or did you just reinvent it altogether?

It wasn’t easy at first…I really humiliated myself in front of the audience. It can be very painful to perform in those clubs, but I figured that this pain was something I could use; just dive into it, learn from it, write about what I was going through.

Well, the show’s obviously morphed constantly and considerably through the years…I know you’ve always solicited feedback from the audiences, and I’m wondering if there ever was a time that somebody said or suggested something that really caused you to rethink what you’d been doing at that point…

I think Broke Wide Open was a very angry show at one point, and now it’s much more vulnerable, even funny. Nothing has ever really thrown a wrench into things, but I have to say that Broke Wide Open has been shaped to a great extent by a lot of the people who’ve come out to see it over the years — people from the adoption community especially.

The show is still about being adopted, being given away, living in foster homes…back in the 1960s, you had babies taken away from their mothers, kids placed in foster care with no way of ever connecting with their birth mothers.

The earliest version of the show pretty much ended with me talking about how I’m grateful for my adoptive parents. I’d get people coming up to me, telling me that I wasn’t happy, that this wasn’t a happy ending, and that I should be taking a stand and finding my mother. That’s something I’ve always wrestled with. I mean, what if my mother’s some racist asshole; what if I find out about some disease I’m just waiting to get?

When I performed it at The Showroom, this one adopted guy brought his father; you could see he was very moved by it…another guy wrote online that the show made him pledge to call his father every day, to tell him that he loved him.

I’ve had directors and other industry people try to tell me what to do with the show; try to change it something that it wasn’t — but you have to understand that even if I make one little change, it affects the whole work. It’s not just one word; it could be ten pages.

In a way you’re still just getting started with BROKE WIDE OPEN, but what happens after that? Do you have a sequel in the works?

I’m working on another play — it’s about Sean Bell, who you might remember from a news story a few years back, and it’s based on a poem which I performed at the last iPoet in Long Branch. It’s not a monologue this time; it’ll have a few characters, although I may wind up doing it as a one-man show with different parts to play.

One of the things I’ve had to teach myself is the theater scene; who the directors are, and who might be the best director to work with. I’ve been watching a lot of movies, studying those directors also — I like the Coen Brothers a lot, and I especially love Spike Lee, and the way he tells his stories.

One of the things I’m most impressed with is how you’ve engineered your show to really work in any available space…a black-box theater, a bookstore, a coffeehouse, and I even remember you doing it out on the street in Asbury Park. How big and how small are you willing to go with this thing in its current state?

I live in Washington Heights, and I rehearse in a little park there. I’ve had people stop and watch and listen while I run through the show…one group of people sat there for the entire two hours, and stayed to talk about it afterward.

I definitely think Broke Wide Open is Broadway worthy. It’s something that’s good enough for the Taper Forum, for Steppenwolf in Chicago. It’s something that can hold a big audience, and it’s something I can do on a street corner for passersby. I’ve even done it for a friend and her daughter, the entire show, in their living room.

So that stands as the most intimate performance you’ve ever done?

No, that would be when I went to my parents’ graves and did it there, just for them. I made some changes to the show after I did that, so you can say that they had their own contribution to make to it also.

So yes, everybody who’s ever seen Broke Wide Open has been part of the evolution of the work. It’s a cliche, but it’s all about the journey. I want us to do this together — to be part of this wonderful shared experience.

A shared experience, maybe, but one in which you yourself are still doing all the heavy lifting.

This is hard work. It absolutely is, and if you’re not workin’ like I’m workin’, you ain’t doin’ nothin’. I’m my own promoter, booking agent, tour manager, whatever it takes — there are no shortcuts, and when something positive goes your way, you really feel that you earned it.

I’ve been called a “shameless self promoter” — sometimes in a friendly way; other times by people who are jealous of what I’ve managed to do — but I’m squeezing every drop out of everything I am with my work. For the first time I feel I’m doin’ exactly what I want to be doing…I feel filled up when I do this work. Like I’m not just takin’ up space; I’m contributing something.

Pure Poetry #19: Rock WILK is a F*cking Experience

I sat sipping a Bud Light at a square table waiting for the show to begin. The small crowd consisted mostly of poets waiting to perform their pieces. The host asked me to sign up because some of her performers had dropped out. I agreed and wrote my name on a list right above someone named “Rock WILK.”

I dropped some new poems and did my thing. Another Bud Light was calling my name as they announced Rock WILK on stage. I discreetly attempted to head to the bar when I heard his voice. His voice was even more powerful than my desire for a fresh beer.

I stopped, immediately and felt literally spellbound and frozen in place.

Rock WILK is a fucking experience. His spoken word performances are life changing. With a soft voice and rapid fire-delivery, Rock solemnly refuses to release you back into your comfort zone until he’s good and finished — until his words have cracked open your ribcage and slipped into your beating heart and his face is forever embedded in your mind — then, and only then, will you be set free.

Rock WILK is a NYC based multi-talented artist with a divine given gift for performing in front of an audience. And I’m not saying you gotta believe in God or anything, but go see Rock WILK perform and then tell me if you didn’t feel the heavens shift slightly.

Ok, enough of me gushing — here’s a video of Rock WILK performing a piece at the Nuyorican Poets Café about Sean Bell. The New York Pigs, oopse I mean Police, Department gunned him down in the parking lot of club. It was the night of Sean’s bachelor party. Instead of walking down the aisle the next day, Sean Bell was laid to rest after 50 shots took his life.

Rock WILK is currently on tour with his one-man show Broke Wide Open. Check it out

For a taste of Broke Wide Open, check out Rock’s performance of “My Grandmother.”

http://wilkmusic.com/blog.html/doubt__no_way_just_ask_my_grandmother/

Rock WILK shares his life through music, acting and performing spoken word. Join the Rock movement. Fall in to Broke Wide Open:

I’m BROKE WIDE OPEN
but honestly
sometimes I hate cryptic
someone said that I am a love poem

maybe that means I’m a metaphor
I am gunshots on 125th St in the summer
right after saying so
close,

you are nervous
a quiet window of opportunity
we’re getting closer
and so you let me take you

Trust me, you will not regret it.

For more info on Rock WILK and to find out if Broke Wide Open is coming to your town, check out http://www.brokewideopen.com/

Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Broke Wide Open by Rock Wilk at the SoulSWEET Sanctuary in the Bronx | by Ebony Brown

After seeing Rock Wilk perform at Urban Voices Heard Write Out Loud 2-Year Anniversary event held at El Fogon Center for the Arts in the Bronx, I was officially 'fiend-out' for a second serving of his verbal gumbo soup. Considering the place from which it was concocted, I knew that his words would get stuck in my teeth, making them harder to digest. Words like, "she, nine, repeated, acts, shame, and grown man" had certainly turned my stomach but not my head. To some extent, I knew what I was getting into when I decided to see Broke Wide Open, but I wasn't fully prepared for the story that unfolded.

Broke Wide Open is an utterly engaging, one-man show performed by Rock Wilk, one of New York City's most committed orators and prolific writers. Independent of Purchase College SUNY, Broke Wide Open was recently held at the SoulSWEET Sanctuary in the Bronx; an unlikely tourist locale with a reach that extends beyond the arts and into the community – providing support for young mothers and parents in need. Currently a traveling show, paralleling the main character’s journey, Broke Wide Open tactfully spews its ‘ejaculative’ ooze on the good-old, common wishful thinking associated with the better life a child is hoped to experience post adoption. From the perspective of the adopted, Broke Wide Open beautifully unveils the mind flogging pandemonium that crescendos with age as the main character, Rock Wilk searches for the woman whose womb he had been conceived but yet consoled.

Rock’s performance was comprised of the stuff that people often contain, mask or manage in order to evade the fear of judgment, rejection or self-fulfilling, prophetic abandonment. My senses were immediately courted by the wonderfully balanced entourage of literal and metaphoric allusions – euphemisms excluded. Whether on a set designed stage or a ‘hole in the wall Rock’s life is both the venue and the play. Do yourself a favor and indulge!

Debuted in September 2010 at the Medicine Show Theater, Broke Wide Open continues to develop as Rock considers the feedback of his audience – perfecting one of the most honest and powerfully delivered, one-man shows on the road.

Broke Wide Open is an example of the raw creative expression and cultural enrichment that exists off-campus, easily serving as a priceless addition to the college experience, especially for students in the performing arts conservatories at Purchase College or elsewhere. Students seriously pursuing their craft would not only have much to gain in witnessing a true performance artist in motion - they would also have the opportunity to give and take full advantage of the question and answer session held at the end of the show.

Audience members at the SoulSWEET Sanctuary shared their own personal struggles and triumphs with adoption. In retrospect, I remember thinking about how you never know of someone's burdens or blessing, especially those we passively encounter until they express the least imagined. Both Rock and the audience attested to this.

In the unglorified and often underfunded arts spaces of the Bronx, there lie pockets of soul, truth and penetrating artistry to be experienced, appreciated and supported. Although Broke Wide Open isn't scheduled to take place at the SoulSWEET Sanctuary anytime soon, spoken word and open mic events are usually held every Saturday.The SoulSWEET Sanctuary is located only 35-45 minutes from Purchase College SUNY.

Broke Wide Open

Upcoming Show:
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
BROKE WIDE OPEN "unplugged" @7:30pm
78th Street Theatre Lab
236 W 78th St
New York, NY 10024
212.873.9050

Follow the Broke Wide Open unplugged tour for more show dates and news!
Official Broke Wide Open Website:
http://www.brokewideopen.com


SoulSWEET Sanctuary
835 Dawson Avenue
Bronx, NY 10459

Many of us have had the pleasure of witnessing the magic of a one-person show: John Leguizamo, Caridad (La Bruja) de la Luz, Helena D. Lewis, to name a few, have all been outstanding in this genre. But how many of us can say we have actually taken part in the development of such a masterpiece? For quite some time, Rock Wilk has been working on bringing us the play of a lifetime – his lifetime. Broke Wide Open has been described as a verbal opera guiding us through the journey of one man’s search for his biological mother, his identity, his home. The pure, raw honesty of his performance is undeniable as Wilk invites us to embark on his soul-searching expedition while leaving his heart on the stage. The play is a perfect blend of his talents (actor, playwright, poet, socially and politically charged vocalist) guaranteeing a myriad of emotions as we not only join him, but feel as though we are him. Through unfiltered emotions we become one, evolving and overcoming trials and tribulations mapped out before us. Through his Unplugged tour, Wilk encourages audience members to stay after the show and provide feedback/constructive criticism so he may file any rough edges and polish his gem with the viewer’s best interest in mind. His ultimate goal? To share his story, his life, with as many people as he can from small venues to Broadway and beyond.

This past September, Broke Wide Open was brought to the stage of The Medicine Show Theatre in NYC where it was run as a 3 week, 12 performance workshop. The play has received rave reviews from peers, colleagues and audiences via virtual pages and print (up to and including The New York Times). So far, the Unplugged Tour has graced the stages of The Showroom Theatre of Asbury Park, NJ and the Nyack Village Theatre in Nyack, NY. Next stop is the SoulSweet Sanctuary in Bronx, NY. How often do you get the chance to experience an amazing piece of art? The kind that gently takes you by the hand, leads you to a tunnel heading towards the unknown, swoops you up into a tsunami of emotion before gently lulling you to serenity? How often does one get to witness a stage in the metamorphosis of an unpolished masterpiece? Not many can say they have. If you are amongst them, you certainly owe it to yourself to find out. Come join the crowd this Saturday, December 18th, 8pm (9PM show time) at the SoulSweet Sanctuary in the Bronx. Share Rock’s experience – it is guaranteed to change you!

Categorized | Featured Poets
Rock Wilk – Get To Know The Man Who Is “Broke Wide Open”

Posted on 03 January 2011 by Nicole
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If you’ve never heard of Rock WILK – the Poet; the Playwright; the Actor; the Instrumentalist: the Man with a warming spirit that can touch you via any medium; or the voice of reason for the socially and politically incorrect – it’s time you sat back and gained a bit of knowledge into who is going to be bringing you the HOTTEST off-Broadway (for now) play you’ve ever seen.

Rock WILK is the creator and one-man sensation behind the critically acclaimed play “Broke Wide Open.” A play that has set the stage for expression through art. A traveling Unplugged play that has received rave reviews by many sources. “Broke Wide Open” is a play that cinematic-ally describes the journey of a young man seeking what most of us take for granted – belonging. It expresses a young man’s longing desire to find his biological mother; his true identity and the belonging to something more than just a name. This is a play that will take you on an emotional roller coaster and leave you at the edge of your seat; ready to take the ride again and again. Each time feeling more satisfied than the last.

Lets get to know the man behind all of the talent. Join me while I get inside the mind of the masterful Rock WILK and share with you a few secrets behind what makes him do that thing he does so well. ~ Nicole S. Ross

SWNY – Rock, what exactly do you do and how did you get started?

Rock – I’m an actor, a playwright, singer and musician. Actually, singers are musicians, but most people don’t look at it that way, so I say both. I play guitar, piano and drums, as well.

SWNY – When did you know you wanted to become an artist?

Rock - I’ve been an artist since the day I was born. The first time I performed in public was singing for my first grade class, playing The Beatles and Bob Dylan on a guitar my Grandmother had bought for me.

SWNY – What/Who inspired you to become an artist…your influences?

Rock – My biggest influence was Michael Jackson, but there are SO many influences, Hmmmmmmmm…Theater and film people who do interesting work like Elaine Stritch, Spike Lee, Lily Tomlin, Whoopi Goldberg, Anna Deavere Smith, John Leguizamo, almost every documentary HBO does, Music people… wow, there are so many……..I’m a jazz head, so John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Wes Montgomery, Bobby McFerrin, Keith Jarrett, Bill Evans, Stevie Wonder, Donny Hathaway, James Brown, Aretha, Chaka, Justin Timberlake, Eminem, Jay Z, George Benson, Tony Bennett, I could go on and on because, to be honest, I could walk into a place like The Cherry Lane Theater or The Public Theatre or Theaterlab, or even the platform walking to the 2 Train at Times Square and see a performance that inspires me so much that it makes my head explode, so my influences are never ending, thankfully. But the one who made me want to be an artist was definitely Michael Jackson. The other major influence in my creative life is Jack Rollins. He is a legend in the entertainment business – managed artists like Woody Allen, Billy Crystal, Robin Williams and David Letterman. He’s 95 now, and I have been so fortunate to be able to call him my friend. He says things and I devour them, digest them and use them like good nutrition.

SWNY – When you perform, to whom do you favor the most…do you have a target audience?

Rock – Nope. Each time I perform, no matter where it is, I say to myself just before I get on stage, “Let’s have a beautiful shared experience with these people.” I don’t care who they are, what they look like, what language they speak, I want to feel something with them. It’s an exchange of energy, a collaborative experience for me, so I have no targets. Just whoever is nice enough to come see me perform. I want them to feel me and I want to feel them.

SWNY – You are a writer, poet, actor, playwright, musician and spoken word artist. What have you accomplished since you began your career?

Rock – I’ve been fortunate to have accomplished quite a bit in a few different areas. My play, BROKE WIDE OPEN was presented in “The Undergroundzero Festival” as part of “The Playgroundzero Festival” this past summer at PS 122. Then it was fully mounted as a workshop at The Medicine Show Theatre in Manhattan a few months after that. I have music playing on shows like The Real World and Making The Band, among other shows on MTV and VH1. I have a commercially released album out called BROKE WIDE OPEN [yes, the music is in my play], I’ve worked as a producer, instrumentalist and background vocalist in the music business, most recently with Patti LaBelle, and as a poet, I’ve been a Nuyorican semifinalist, performed for Amnesty International – I’m gonna stop now. ;-)

SWNY – You have a highly-acclaimed musical/poetry show that you have been doing for the past 4 years called “Broke Wide Open.” Tell us about that?

Rock – BROKE WIDE OPEN, first of all is a play. It is the true story of my search for my biological mother, my identity, my “home”. That’s basically it. It’s this frantic search for my beginnings. I weave monologues into poems into songs and back into monologues, it’s a very high energy show, very intense, and a lot of fun. Here is a blurb that was used to describe the show recently…..
BROKE WIDE OPEN is a musical and poetic avalanche of words dramatically cascading into the compelling journey of one man’s search for his biological mother, his identity, his home. Best described as a verbal opera, “Rock WILK is a one person symphony, conducting a dynamic movement of language weaved into a beautiful theatrical experience.”
That’s a pretty good description. ;-)

SWNY – What have you learned throughout your life about this business?

Rock – I’m not sure how to answer that, I approach my art as art. The business takes care of itself. One thing I DO know, though, is that you need to create opportunities for yourself. Don’t wait for anything to “happen” to, or for you. Just do what you want to do and do it well. And make it happen.

SWNY – Throughout your career as an artist, what have you taken away from it that you’d like others to experience as well?

Rock – I’ve experienced the joys and love of doing it; of working hard; of committing. I wish for all to wake up every day and give all of yourself to your art; TRULY share yourself with an audience. Nothing feels better than that.

SWNY – With all of your talents, if you could only practice and share one with the world, which would it be and why?

Rock – I’d have to say, telling stories. That is when I feel most connected to the audience. It feels like a genuine exchange for me.

SWNY – What advice would you give to your followers/fans that may help them throughout their own personal aspirations?

Rock - Work hard, be honest. Be brave. Be generous with your work. Reveal yourself.

SWNY – What projects are you working on…what are your future plans?

Rock – The only thing I’m working on at the moment is BROKE WIDE OPEN and I am committed to taking it to the highest level that I can. I’m all about the journey, so I am WIDE OPEN to the possibilities. But you KNOW I will be doing everything in my power to make it the most amazing piece of work that I can and make sure that as many people see it as possible. The Public Theatre, The Mark Taper Forum, Berkeley Rep and Broadway – can you hear me?????

SWNY – How can your followers/fans see more of your work and keep track of your performing schedule?

Rock – People can go to: www.brokewideopen.com. Check the entire site, it’s updated constantly. There is a blog there; videos all over the place AND, of course, Facebook me at Rock WILK or BROKE WIDE OPEN.

***To learn more about Rock WILK and of his play “Broke Wide Open,” visit: http://www.rockwilk.com/home.html

***For bookings and interviews, contact Rock at: rock[at]wilkmusic.com

***Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/people/Rock-Wilk/702532334

***Twitter: twitter.com/rockwilk

Tags | Broke Wide Open, Rock Wilk

Let me start off by saying that, with many in the poetry community, I’ve gotten a reputation for my honesty and borderline snobbery when it comes to writing. I don’t intend it that way; I just have a certain quality of writing I ask for. Whether it’s morose or uproarious, I ask for few things, but they’re all important and centered around this idea of “care.” I got a fair amount of criticism when I first brought this up a while back, but it’s true. Qualities like taking one’s time with a piece, working extra hard on refining one’s craft, and having a sense of earnest in the things you say, no matter how outlandish. It’s those qualities above elements like verbal dexterity and hyperbole I truly appreciate.

This past Saturday, I witnessed a great example of this idea, seeing Rock Wilk’s one-man show, Broke Wide Open. As is typical with one-person shows, he tries to convey a whole life’s story in a matter of a couple of hours and a couple of acts. The difference between his show and others I’ve seen is that, as effortlessly as he skated across the stage, dancing in the projected images around him, he obviously worked really hard to give the illusion of simplicity.

With him, I also started toying with the idea of why I like an artist of any craft, in levels:

1. They try to convey their message, and we’re meant to hear it and like it.
2. They convey the message, hoping we’ll sympathize with them.
3. They convey the message well, and get us to empathize with them.

That last level is so critical too. I feel like the closer you feel like you’re in the person’s shoes when the person’s in their “art avatar”, the better the artist is for me, no matter how reserved they are when doing interviews or in normal conversation. Ignore that I’m not Jewish, I’ve never been adopted or married, never lived in Los Angeles, and haven’t had so many of my close relatives die within a few years of each other.

I didn’t just feel Rock; by the end, I almost felt like Rock himself.

And that’s an awesome feeling. I’ve had the privilege of seeing Marc Anthony dance and sing with us on the floor of Madison Square Garden, Jay-Z and Eminem at Yankee Stadium where we were shoulder-to-shoulder on the field all bopping along, and now in a small black box theatre where a man was practicing this thing we call performance poetry, a different animal than slam poetry. (All of them from pretty close range, too). In all these instances, the artist has this way of captivating the audience because they don’t just ask you to join them in their stream of consciousness; they lend you their shoes and ask you to strap in.

The quiet man in the corner of our poetry workshop had all these words to share with us, and so many of us knew it, too. While a friend and I sat there thinking of poets who emote this sort of feeling to us (and we came up with about 4), I said, “This is what poetry should feel like.”

Like we were him, and our hearts were broke wide open.

Open; Broken and Wide

For much of my life, I have always been attracted to art that brings you in, that makes you think and reflect on yourself. Because of this, I have a very particular taste in what I will watch, listen to and read…which makes me a little bit of a art snob. It is what it is. I know what I like.

I was given the chance to go see Rock Wilk’s one-man show, “Broke Wide Open” this past Saturday. I didn’t know what to expect, other than all the reviews I’ve seen from my peers on how amazing the performance was. It’s hard to impress me when it comes to poetry. I can count on less than both my hands who I could listen to endlessly recite poetry and be stricken profoundly by their words. This show made it on that list.

There was no gimmick. No trying to be something it wasn’t. It was raw, unfiltered emotions on this man’s life and all the tribulations he went through. I found myself beginning to feel what he was feeling, regardless of the fact that I have no idea what being adopted feels like. Things I had been feeling last week came to the surface as I began to examine them from the mirror this show held up for me.

I thought about my own family and parents. I thought about the places I’ve sought to find acceptance and love & the desperation that it came with. There was so much busted open inside me. I had to sit there after the show and absorb what I had just seen; it was impossible to just get up and move along my night as though something in me hadn’t been touched.

This show led me to reach out to a sister that I hadn’t spoken to in some time. I had a good conversation with her, and trying to put into words the things changing in me. She told me that one day I will tell him what he did was wrong and be completely fearless in doing so; that what he did is his shit and I don’t have to carry it. We realized that obsessing about someone calling you is merely a distraction to your own life (What are you doing? What are you accomplishing? Is your to-do list done?). I finally figured out that I can’t make a special someone pay for all the transgressions of those before him, and that I was thisclose to doing so.

Shows like this make you open yourself up. Whether you take the chance to do so is your issue, but this helped me in so many ways, I can’t even begin to thank Mr. Rock Wilk for what he’s doing. It just inspires me to continue my introspective journey within.

5 Questions With undergroundzero Participant Rock WILK
By Byrne Harrison

Name: Rock WILK
Play: Broke Wide Open
Relationship to play: Writer and performer

An actor, playwright and poet, New York City's own Rock WILK is also a socially and politically charged vocalist and an accomplished multi-instrumentalist. He creates all of this art while riding the subways of NYC. Along with being a 2009 Nuyorican Poet's semifinalist and 2010 runoffs qualifier for The Nuyorican's national team, Rock has worked as a studio and touring background vocalist for many years, most recently singing with the legendary Patti LaBelle and contributing vocal and horn arrangements to the Grammy Award winning Les Paul compilation album, "Les Paul and Friends."

Rock's music can also be heard on such TV shows as MTV's "The Real World" and "Making The Band," among others.

You have a very interesting bio. What would you consider your best performance moments so far?

Hmm... that's a tough one because all of my performances are special in their own way. Lemme see... hmm.... well, I'm just gonna go with a relatively recent staged reading of Broke Wide Open. It was at a beautiful small theater down in Asbury Park, NJ called The Showroom, and it was going to be my last reading for a while because I was, at that time, in the process of workshopping with a number of directors, in the midst of trying to find the perfect person to continue this journey with. And so the day came for this performance, and there was a pretty big snowstorm, and I thought, "Damn, nobody's gonna come." To make a long story short, the theater was full, there were a few directors in the house, and the performance was profound for me, I felt like I found a lot of new things in my words that night, and we had a Q&A after the performance that was so deeeeeeeep. A man walked up to me after the performance with his son, who was about 20 years old, and they both looked kinda dazed. This guy had seen me perform at The Nuyorican Poets Cafe one Friday night and when he saw I was performing in his area, he decided to come see me and bring his father, not really knowing what to expect. I'm not sure he even knew that he was coming to see a play, that perhaps he thought he was going to see a night of poetry. Cool thing was this... he was adopted, was bringing the man who had adopted him, his father, and my play REALLY affected both of them. [Broke Wide Open is the true story of my search for my biological mother] They came up to talk to me after the Q&A, both in tears, and his father said to me, "I heard so much in your play that I have heard out of my sons mouth over the years. We have had some issues." The son said to me, "Yeah, we've had some issues. I've had some problems dealing with this 'being adopted' thing." It was very intimate, and so without getting into the details of our conversation, that experience really hit home with me, made me realize that there were people I was seriously connecting with, made me feel the power of the theater. Truthfully, I was humbled by that, everything changed for me that day. I have always felt like people go to the theater or to concerts or to any type of performance to FEEL something... that night I REALLY felt that, like this was a beautiful shared experience for me and the people who came out to see my show. So from that day on, every time I get on stage, I say to myself, "Tonight.. all I want is to have this beautiful shared experience with these people. Tonight is never going to happen again, so let's do something special together." And it seems like it always works out that way, I appreciate each opportunity to perform, but that night is one that I will never forget. Oh... and about a week later, I decided that my director was going to be the amazing Tamilla Woodard, and thankfully, she said yes!

As you mentioned, Broke Wide Open is a very personal piece. Tell me a little bit about how it came to be.

Broke Wide Open actually started as an album. Music. A collection of songs. My very close friend Jack Rollins, who was the long time manager of Woody Allen, Robin Williams, Billy Crystal, David Letterman, and who also happens to be the father of my old girlfriend, who now happens to be my best friend, [whew! I digress]... Mr. Rollins encouraged me to embark on this journey of revealing myself in this collection of songs, to create an album that would, in a sense, be my legacy. He kept saying to me, "Rock, I feel like you NEED to do this, you have this interesting life story that people will want to hear, and if you are willing to REALLY open up, they will love you as much as I do." Damn, THAT stopped me, I took that moment in, we were sitting together in Riverside Park on a bench at 83rd Street that day. Anyway, he was talking about doing this for the sake of the art, like I said, he felt it was IMPORTANT for me to do this, and I respect Mr Rollins so much, and so after going back and forth for a while, thinking about whether or not I really had anything to say that anyone would find remotely interesting, I decided to take the opportunity to do this album. So I got on the subways and started to write songs. That's where I write, on the trains, just riding and riding, that environment is inspiring for me, it's where I feel most creative. Then when my little digital recorder was full, when the songs were written, I locked myself in my small studio in my apartment in Bed Stuy, Brooklyn and recorded the album in a few months. Then everyone who heard the album said, "Damn, this sounds like a play", and so I created this performance piece called Ma'Plej, each letter standing for someone in my family. At a performance of Ma'Plej, I met Stephen Bishop Seely, who was at that time the creative artistic director of The Revision Theatre in Asbury Park, NJ, and he said, "This is great, but it's about 14 plays, so you need to choose one, and write it." I chose the portion of Ma'Plej that was my search for my biological mother, my search for home, my identity, and so then this cathartic journey began, and Ma'Plej found it's way back to the beginning of this process and so Broke Wide Open, the play, was born, and here we are now.

I like that you call it a "verbal opera." What exactly does that phrase mean to you?

My director, Tamilla Woodard came up with that. And when she said it one day, it really hit home with me, felt like the perfect description of Broke Wide Open. There are A LOT of words in my play, and sometimes I say them REALLY FAST. They feel like a "movement" or almost like an opera or symphony. The play moves dynamically, with parts that are quiet and somewhat serene and then there are crescendos. We journey up and down, high and low, it feels like there is this beautiful motion, or EMOTION. So when Tamilla said that one day, "Rock, this is a verbal opera", my approach became like I was a conductor moving through this story like music, and it really feels that way for me, only verbally. There IS, literally, plenty of music in the play, along with these monologues and all of this poetry, all of these words are being weaved in and out of each other... yeah, Tamilla found the perfect way to describe Broke Wide Open.

What are your hopes for this production?

To serve the work, to really explore this and make it a beautiful work of art. To give it real opportunity to grow, to continue, for Broke Wide Open to have a long life. And to be REALLY honest... the first day I sat with Stephen Bishop Seely when we first began talking about what I was doing with this project, he asked me, "Where do you want to go with this? Where do you want to do it?" I immediately said, "The Public Theater." That was my dream from the beginning, my intention, and so I would like to see Broke Wide Open keep progressing, and yes, I'm saying it out loud, I WANT TO DO THIS AT THE PUBLIC, THE MARK TAPER FORUM, BERKELEY REP, BROKE WIDE OPEN ON BROADWAY!!!!!!!!!! I would love the opportunity to share this work everywhere and anywhere. And I visualize all of that, every day, seriously. But having said all of that, truthfully, it's all about the work for me, I am completely in love with this process, and we will just continue to attend to this work, to stay open to learning, I'm very grateful to be here at this particular moment.

What is next for you after undergroundzero?

We are fortunate enough to be doing a full workshop in September at The Medicine Show Theatre on 52nd Street in Manhattan, directed by and developed with Tamilla Woodard. We will have the full production being workshopped, collaborators included, lighting and set design, the video and music elements, I am VERY EXCITED to get this on. We open that on September 9th and will run Thursdays through Sundays until September 26th. After that, who knows? We are rolling!

Broke Wide Open
Written & Performed by Rock WILK
Directed by Tamilla Woodard

Staged Reading

P.S. 122
150 First Ave at 9th St.

Sat July 24 @ 2pm - Downstairs Venue

WILK, WIDE OPEN AND READY

Profile of the artist: He’s not posing for his face on a silver dollar just yet, but when Rock Wilk returns to The Showroom this Friday night, he’ll be commemorating the end of one chapter — and the beginning of an exciting new phase — in the evolution of his performance piece BROKE WIDE OPEN.

By TOM CHESEK

Maybe you caught a glimpse of a GOT WILK? sticker on a street sign and wondered vaguely what that was all about. Maybe you found yourself riding the G line of the NYC subway one night and didn’t know what to make of that intense character sitting across from you; taking down notes and talk-singing to himself not from insanity but inspiration. Or maybe you were just put in position to encounter him in guerrilla performance mode — be it on the streets of Asbury Park, at a coffeehouse in Long Branch, even the Borders bookstore in Eatontown.

If you’ve ever so much as dipped occasionally into our oRBit, you’ve probably encountered some mention of Rock Wilk, the Brooklyn-based “singer, scribe and spoken-word sensei” who’s likely racking up some new categories even as we write this. For the past couple of years, this seriously driven artist has staked out a second base of operations “down the Shore” in and around Asbury town, where the veteran studio musician — credits include recordings by such pop eminences as Nile Rodgers and Patti Labelle — went to hone and define the live performance piece that came to be known as Broke Wide Open. Taking its name from Wilk’s self-released 2008 CD — a sober set of songs rooted in anger, personal pain and a broader social anguish — the work has transcended its source material; morphing into a fully fleshed theatrical presentation that centers around its creator’s real-life search for his biological parents, and his consequent struggle with his own sense of self.

We first caught a very early version of this work in the historic parlor of the Crane House in Asbury, under the name Ma’Plej’ (the odd name roughly translates as “my pledge” and is composed of letters corresponding to the names of Wilk’s extended family members). The artist subsequently would show up at venues ranging from Asbury Park High School to SICA in Long Branch, to that aforementioned suburban bookstore — and along the line, the melodic vocals of the original album gave way to a new, more raw (but no less rhythmic) spoken-word-with-music attack that Wilk would mark with a second word-based CD (Valentine’s Day) and a second MySpace page dedicated to this developing aspect of his art and craft.

Wilk would continue to workshop his ever-evolving work at performance venues in NYC — but it was at The Showroom, that savvy storefront screening space in downtown Asbury Park, where Broke Wide Open took a quantum leap forward toward a new life as a real-deal stage play last year. This Friday night, the Wilkman returneth to Mike and Nancy’s place on Cookman Avenue for an occasion that marks the end of one chapter — it will be the last time he’ll be performing the one-man “staged reading” version of BWO — and the first step toward the project’s next logical phase; that being a fully staged New York production.

Red Bank oRBit rang up the Rock at this exciting career crossroads — Continue Reading for best results............

RED BANK oRBit: So, I’m understanding that this weekend’s performance at The Showroom represents a kind of closing one chapter in your project called BROKE WIDE OPEN. Is it more of a beginning or an end? Would it be the last time we get to see you perform down here for the time being?

ROCK WILK: This is the last staged reading of Broke Wide Open that I’ll be doing in this form. I’ve been workshopping it now with various directors; working with people who can confirm that I’ve been going in the right direction. I’ve been working on the script for about a year now — I feel like I’ve been in school for the past year or so.

I’ve also been performing it as much as five times a week in places like the Theater Lab in Manhattan,which is just an amazing place, and the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. But down here is where I first performed it as Broke Wide Open, and when I first did it at The Showroom, I had an intermission for the first time; I did a Q&A with the audience for the first time, which was just ridiculously amazing.

Having seen what you’ve been doing as sort of a multimedia slide show; as a scaled-down reading for bookstores and coffeehouses, and as a more polished piece — how far has this thing evolved from what you first did at the Crane House in 2008?

Oh, it’s radically different from how it started out. Ma’Plej’ was more of a presentation piece, based on my album, with some other spoken material that explained the songs. It’s evolved into a two-hour play with intermission.

Basically, it’s about the search for my biological mother — I think of it as sort of an urban Wizard of Oz; you meet all sorts of characters along the way. I’ve taken actual things that have happened over the years; included people that I’ve known in my life.

When you first saw it in its original form, it was kind of an angry piece — there was personal anger in there, but also anger directed at broad themes like racism, prejudice. Now I look at it as a celebration of every experience I’ve had in my life

Anger sometimes comes off as honesty — you know, it’s easy to be angry, and harder to deal with truth and be balanced about it. So as far as being angry — I’ve evolved, definitely. I feel that I convey the same intensity, but at the same time I feel more secure in myself.

I’m aware of your famous method of writing on the subway, but would you say that the time you’ve spent down in our neck of the weeds has really had a big impact on shaping your work?

Going down to Asbury Park, which I did a while back for personal reasons and just to get away, was crucial to the development of this play. To me it was like exploring Roman ruins. I couldn’t have done what I’ve done if I didn’t leave the city — I’m a self-professed New York City snob, but it’s important to get out and see different places.

When I got to Asbury Park I didn’t know anybody; I had to learn about the city and the people who lived there. Like, I got interested in what the Arts Coalition of Asbury Park was doing, although to me there was a real disconnect between one side of the town and the west side; my intention was to kind of work with people to get things happening all over town, to kind of bridge the gap a little bit.

But I wanted to finish this stage of the project down here — partly as a way to thank the people who’ve had a lot to do with this project evolving the way it has.

Who are some of the people down here that have really taken an active interest in your project?

The people from The Showroom — I love those guys! I kept going over there before they opened; as soon as I saw the place I knew it would be perfect for what I was doing. And Stephen Bishop Seely, who you probably remember from ReVision Theatre Company, was the person who more than anyone else helped me to turn it into a real play. He’s one of the smartest people I’ve ever met — he got me to go deeper and deeper with this work; prompted me to make the choices I had to make. I’d be thinking I was being brutally honest and he’d be telling me, ‘I think you’re hiding.’

Stephen’s left ReVision to concentrate on his acting career again, but he put me in touch with some important people at Disney and at the Public Theater. And I’ve done a lot of community outreach with ReVision; I’d like to continue my association with them.



During the time that you spent around Asbury Park and the surrounding area, you got yourself involved in a few other events — for instance, you had something to do with a performance at The Showroom by the spoken word artist Tylik “TIGGA” Railey, which got cancelled a month or two back.

Yeah, Tigga’s show had to be postponed when he got sick, but they’re looking to get it together again, possibly later in February. As soon as I saw Tigga perform I knew that he was just the sort of artist who could help make the kind of connections I was talking about; he comes from Asbury Park, from a family of social activists, and I hope that ArtsCAP can work together with him.

Another local endeavor that you took an active role in was the Long Branch Poetry Festival, specifically the Young Poets portion of the event…

It was really great to host that program, and to work with those kids from the local schools — a great experience, and anytime the Arts Council people want to to do something together, I’d be into it. I was impressed that they had a political panel discussion on poetry, right there in the council chambers at the municipal building.

Well, thanks to Brian Unger, Long Branch is one of the few towns that can boast a published poet on the City Council.

Yeah, Brian’s a good guy, and so are Gabe Barabas and Robyn Ellenbogen from the Arts Council. And I got to know Long Branch a little better; I think the downtown, around where SICA is, is a nice area — the architecture’s really cool, which is something I’m always interested in. But there’s a definite sense of isolation from the beach, from all the new things that have opened up on that side of the city.

Yeah, downtown Long Branch is very much a work in progress, and if we all ever get out from under the economic nasties it’ll definitely be a place to watch in years to come. Evolving, just like you — it wasn’t so very long ago that I knew you as a singer, an arranger and a musician.

I come from the music business; it was my frame of reference for a long time, and I still have stuff going on musically with MTV and other things. But in order to make this project happen I had to abandon a lot of what I did in the past. I had to commit 100 percent to developing this work — and it was like public humiliation for the first six months! But now, when I’m introduced to people, I’m introduced as an actor and a playwright. I’m completely immersed in that world, when just a couple of years ago I would never have imagined such a thing.

Well, here’s a question to take this thing out — having put so much of yourself out there, when you meet someone for the first time, do you get the sense that they kind of feel they’ve got the drop on you; like they think they know all about you and you don’t know jackshit about them?

A lot of people think they know me, but I’m changing every day. I’m actually very shy, very private — at a party I’m the one who’s standing there not talking to anybody. So while there’s a lot of me in this work, I’ve made sure that it’s not just all about me.

You know, I never did get to meet my biological mother, so after all the searching I still don’t have the answers necessarily. But through that exploration, I feel like I have closure. For me, this whole thing has been a cathartic experience — although I want people to know they won’t be attending someone’s therapy session. It’s still entertainment!

Tickets for Friday’s 8pm show are $10 in advance ($15 at the door) and can be reserved online right here.

Rock Wilk at The Showroom. For a guy who’s notorious for doing his best writing while riding the subway back and forth all night long, the search often takes precedence over the destination. And, while we would never be so presumptuous as to suggest we “discovered” him in any way/shape/form, we’ve been pleased and proud to have brought you early ink on the artist known as Rock Wilk — singer, poet, producer, spoken word artist and compelling performer whose own personal quest for a sense of identity has resulted in an arresting body of work that’s raw, confessional and way beyond the realm of “Journey to Me” jackoffery. Wilk has also been searching for the perfect venue in which to feature his one-man multimedia performances, and his activities in and around Asbury Park — whether at the Crane House, Core Restore, SICA in Long Branch or even the Borders bookstore in Eatontown — arguably found their finest forum in his previous appearances at The Showroom, the storefront screening space that first hosted him and his program Ma’Plej back in May. This Saturday night, the Rock returns to Mike and Nancy’s place with Broke Wide Open, a presentation that takes its name from his autobiographical CD of songs (lest we forget, the man’s an accomplished arranger who’s worked with the likes of Nile Rodgers) and includes some new material that illuminates and transcends the personal stories within. The 8pm show’s on the verge of a sellout as we post this, but if nothing else make a note to investigate the work of this rare artist wherever and whenever you can in the future. Saturday, 8pm/ $10

Street poet, sweet singer and spoken word artist Rock Wilk returns Shoreside for a handful of live appearances.

Last summer in the virtual pages of Red Bank oRBit, we introduced you to Rock Wilk, a seriously skilled guy from Brooklyn who we described as “a veteran of the recording studio and a chronicler of stories. A poet who works in the cadences of the hip-hop tradition, and a character who claims to do his best writing while riding the subways.” Rock spent some time down Asbury way last year, where he spread the love via his GOT WILK? stickers and brought a multimedia show of songs and stories to the historic Stephen Crane House.

“The subway is the place where I feel most creative,” said Wilk, who in our profile had some refreshingly contrary things to say about the local state of the arts — and the distances we all need to travel to truly make this system hum. “I feel private when I’m there…sometimes I just ride the trains, all day and all night.”

Well, riding the pedal-car jitney up and down the boardwalk all night just doesn’t have the same kind of cachet, so Wilk took it back to the tubes to work on some different projects, including a whole new set of spoken-word with music compositions represented on his latest self-released drop, Valentine’s Day. He’s even started a second MySpace page, dedicated to this developing aspect of his art and craft.

“The work is something I’m very proud of, a result of a real evolution of my art,” writes the music veteran who’s lent his backup vocals and arrangements to the likes of Nile Rodgers and Patti Labelle.

“I’ve been living in these spoken word clubs since just before Thanksgiving, performing all over the place doing poetry slams and finally finding my OWN voice in this genre, perhaps creating a new genre, somewhere between hip hop/music/spoken word.”

Wilk has uploaded several examples of his recent work to the page (as well as edited snippets appearing on his official website), and we think they’re a savvy synthesis of musical language and a forceful, yet conversational style of writing-out-loud. In “22 Stops to 198th Street,” Wilk wonders “who the fuck am I?” as he pieces together snapshots of the birth parents with his self-realizations as “my own little man” in a culture that still views the adopted kid as The Other. He’s that guy sitting across from you on the G line, suddenly shouting out not in subway-craziness but in epiphany. Think much-maligned Eminem in his his most devastatingly personal moments, minus the mawkish victim trip.

“A Letter” works a similar theme of Wilk’s thoughts on finally meeting his bio-mom, set against a jazzy upright-bass plunk that for once isn’t some corny hip-hop hybrid. This is a guy who knows words and music and the ways in which they either cooperate or compete. And best of all, there’s not a vein of vanilla ice running through it.

“The material is born of a lot of pain that I’ve been thru recently,” says Wilk. “So some of the material is brutal, but honest to say the least.”

The Wilkman cometh again to the Shore for a handful of appearances spotlighting his new projects, beginning this Thursday with a school show at Asbury Park High. On Friday, March 13, he’ll perform for the first time at the interesting setting of the Borders store on Route 35 in Eatontown, and one week later on March 20 he’ll be at Core Restore, that rather unique space devoted to both art and physical therapy, on Mattison Avenue in Asbury Park.

Times Topics: New Jersey Arts Listings | New Jersey Arts

THE seven-man band Monkeyworks has been performing around New Jersey and New York for 20 years, but its members are hardly deluged with invitations, they said. Its jazz-meets-African-meets-electronic music is not especially accessible or easily explained.

So when the chance to play at the ShowRoom movie house in Asbury Park cropped up in July, the band quickly accepted.

Before an audience of 52 — there are only 50 seats, so a pair of extra chairs were dragged out — Monkeyworks spontaneously concocted scores to six silent films. The bandmates’ eyes roamed from one another to their instruments to the 14-foot screen. By the time the oldies — including the 1915 Charlie Chaplin short “Work” and a 1922 “Felix the Cat” animated short — had run their course, the group had skillfully worked up an original soundtrack.

It was exactly the kind of borderline-weird performance that the ShowRoom, which opened April 1, is proud of bringing to the Jersey Shore.

The goal is “to present a different slant on culture for the community and the surrounding area,” said Michael Sodano, the co-owner with his partner, Nancy Sabino; the couple moved to Asbury Park from North Caldwell in early 2008.

“Yes, it’s a movie theater, but it also has all these other functions,” he said.

In its brief history, those functions have included hosting the Jersey Shore Film Festival; staging a multimedia poetry slam featuring the Brooklyn artist Rock Wilk, who will return Aug. 15; and presenting “Get Naked,” a slide show of nude men, a collaboration with the nearby Parlor Gallery.

Mr. Sodano and Ms. Sabino, both 57, together run Eventure, a company based in North Caldwell that handles the audio-visual element of business meetings for major corporations. They also have made two documentaries together, “Rock and a Heart Place,” a 2007 film about volunteering that centers on the charity Holiday Express, based in Red Bank, and “Greetings From the Parking Lot,” a 1999 film about Bruce Springsteen fans.

Someone Mr. Sodano met during the filming of “Rock and a Heart Place” told him about the dearth of cinema in Asbury Park.

“He recommended Asbury Park as a place to come down to — there was no movie theater here,” Mr. Sodano said. “And I said, Asbury Park? I remember Asbury Park as having this not-great reputation.”

The town’s reputation as a hotbed of live music, of course, was legendary, he said, but when local promoters did try to show films, Ms. Sabino said, the setting wasn’t right.

“Everything used to work out of the Paramount, which is a beautiful theater. But it’s got 1,600 seats, so it’s seldom filled. No matter what you have there, it looks partially empty,” she said. For small screenings, “there hasn’t been a real, devoted space for projection.”

Not one as intimate as Mr. Sodano and Ms. Sabino envisioned, anyway. At 2,200 square feet, the ShowRoom is sparsely appointed but invitingly dark. Its décor is classic — dark red carpet, heavy curtain. Its straight-backed lightly padded chairs are not bolted to the floor, though. Candy comes from local outlets like Candyteria. And Twisted Tree Cafe, a local vegetarian spot, supplies vegan cookies, which sell for $2.

The ShowRoom’s most important attribute, though, according to its owners, is its open-mindedness toward what goes on inside. In addition to regularly screening art-house, classic and independent films like “Outrage,” the recent documentary about closeted gay politicians, and the 1964 film “Umbrellas of Cherbourg,” Ms. Sabino and Mr. Sodano plan to continue recruiting acts like Monkeyworks for out-there performances.

If Monkeyworks is representative, fellow recruits will be appreciative.

“Improvised music can be quite a high-wire act,” said Jim Stagnitto, Monkeyworks’ trumpeter. His bandmate, Steve Peckman, the group’s woodwind player, said, “We’re incredibly grateful for people like Mike and Nancy, who are willing to take a chance.”

A ROCK AND A HISTORIC PLACE

Wilk to power: Singer, poet, spoken word artist Rock Wilk offers the Shore audience a look at his “work in progress” known as “Ma’Plej’.”

By TOM CHESEK

At first glance, it’s a matchup of vocalist and venue that’s simply strange — the kind of idea that just seems “too true to be good.”

At center stage, you’ve got the man known as Rock Wilk, a lifelong New Yorker recently (temporarily?) transplanted to the Shore. A veteran of the recording studio and a chronicler of stories. A poet who works in the cadences of the hip-hop tradition, and a character who claims to do his best writing while riding the subways.

Hovering above it all, you’ve got Stephen Crane (1871-1900), the renowned 19th century author whose Civil War novel The Red Badge of Courage has been taught in high schools for generations. A war correspondent and prolific journalist who served as an early editor of the Asbury Park (Shore) Press.

It’s at Crane’s house on Fourth Avenue in Asbury Park that Rock Wilk will be standing in the modestly scaled parlor on Thursday night; addressing visitors to the historic Victorian-era home with a program entitled Ma’Plej’, a “work in progress” that’s built upon a foundation of tracks from his self-released CD Broke Wide Open.

A collection of songs inspired by personal travail, current events and other messy aspects of life — yeah, real songs, with the veteran vocal arranger multi-tracking his vocals into the tight harmonies of millennial R&B sounds — the CD was performed and produced in its entirely by Wilk, inside his Bedford-Stuyvesant apartment. A look here brings you a telling of the artist’s life story, the making of the album, and a sharing of the view from his window.

There’s more to Ma’Plej’ — the title’s an acronym of Wilk family member names, as well as a representation of the author’s “pledge” to use his musical gifts for the betterment of the world — than a run-through of album cuts. It’s a performance piece that uses spoken word interludes and visual elements as well, to convey “a show that’s socially and politically charged.”

A serious guy whose steely-eyed intensity brings to mind the younger work of actor Vincent D’Onofrio, Wilk has a background that has allowed him to work on records by some of the era’s pre-eminent purveyors of pop — including Nile Rodgers and Patti Labelle, to name a couple. But, as the singer says, “I try not to be the kind of guy who drops names…I’ve always rather been the guy who speaks out against injustice.”

On closer examination, the Wilk-Crane connection starts to make a lot more sense. The impassioned observer giving voice to the souls in transit beneath the streets of the city. The dynamic young reporter whose sympathetic studies of “women of the streets” enhanced his legacy, even as they jeopardized his professional standing. Together these guys are destined to create a wild duet.

Red Bank oRBit slipped away from a family barbecue to talk with Rock Wilk about his ever-evolving work, his strange new surroundings, and the things that remain constant through good times and bad.

Underground artist: Rock Wilk, pictured in the setting from which he draws his greatest inspiration.

RED BANK ORBIT: I guess the obvious question here would be to wonder just how your presentation traveled from Brooklyn to the Stephen Crane House — you can’t take the subway to the Crane House, and a boardwalk pedal-car jitney just doesn’t mean the same thing. Did you get a look at the place?

ROCK WILK: I did, yeah, and I thought it was great. I open Ma’Plej’ at a theater in Manhattan in a couple of months, and I was looking for a unique place to do the piece down here. Somebody from ArtsCAP introduced me to (Crane House owner/curator) Frank D’Alessandro, who’s a really good guy — I walked in there and said, “I wanna do it here.” I really like the vibe in there.

It’s a room that’s certainly never seen anything like you’re planning to bring there. Not sure what Crane himself would’ve made of it. But it’s also a very intimate space, so aren’t you thinking that you’re gonna need a bigger boat, as they say?

I’ve done this material for five people out in the street, and I’ll do it for a crowded theater. As long as I’m connecting with somebody, its a piece that will work on any level.

So what exactly is Ma’Plej’, compared to the album Broke Wide Open? Does it utilize all the songs from the album?

It’s a combination of music from my album, including remixes of things on the album, along with a lot of spoken word, and some visuals. It’s personal stories; my life story basically. I’m running the whole thing off my computer.

What kind of visuals?

Believe it or not, a lot of photos that I took with my cell phone. Sometimes I just have it as a background; the visuals together with the music gets the point across.

And you did the whole album yourself at home; tracking all the vocals, playing all the instruments.

Anybody can record a great album now on a laptop. You can do better than Earth, Wind and Fire did back in the 80s. But it’s really not so much what you do with the technology, it’s who you are.

You’re not an unknown quantity, though. You’ve worked with a lot of well known people in the business, so do you think that gives the project a higher profile from the start, no matter how small and personal it may be?

I’m a background singer; I’ve been in bands, I worked with some of the best singers in the world — people who probably appear on about half the records that ever get released. But if you don’t have the funding, you just can’t be part of the mainstream.

Like most new artists these days, you’re savvy enough to know that there’s not going to be a record label looking after the promotional details for you; you’ve got to be versed in all of the alternative methods of getting the word out.

I did very well with MySpace. The MySpace site exploded when I put it up after the album came out. I actually got jobs off of MySpace — I did vocal arrangements for someone in Australia!

I’ve been lucky, doing what I can to make a living. And I’m a pop music freak — Justin Timberlake, Stevie Wonder, Jay-Z, Eminem — but I’m also influenced by Pete Seeger, Gil Scott-Heron, anybody who has something to say.

And you do all of your writing on the subway.

The subway is the place where I feel most creative. I feel private when I’m there. Sometimes I just ride the trains, all day and all night.

You’re a lifelong Brooklynite?

The Bronx, Manhattan, where I lived for twenty years, and Brooklyn — Bed-Sty. But I’ve actually been down here in Asbury Park for the past eight months. I locked myself in an apartment for all this time, just working.

When I came to town, I didn’t know anybody down here. And when I saw what was going on around town, I said damn.

So you like what you see happening in Asbury?

Well, the west side of town is not part of what’s going on — not a lot of people want to talk about it. It reminds me of Williamsburg about 15 years ago. There was no rhyme or reason to it; people just started coming in and forcing the older people out. Living in Bed-Sty, it’s like — people stayed there, weathered the storm for years, and when the money starts coming into the neighborhood, things start opening up, they’re not in a position to take advantage of the new stuff. They can no longer afford to live there.

I went to one of the First Night events in the downtown, and I didn’t see one person of color. And this is a town that’s been majority African-American for years. Then I met a bar owner over on the west side, and he had never heard of the First Night thing. So, I really appreciate what ArtsCAP is doing, but there’s still a lot that needs to be done, to get people working together.

And you’re thinking that music, or the arts in general, can play a big role in that?

Well, we were talking about influences a moment ago, and the thing that had the single biggest influence on me was this one event; after 9/11 I went to Yankee Stadium to see this program with all of these spiritual leaders coming together. All of these different singers, working together. I said, that’s what music is for. And anything I do from now on, should be along those lines.

Which brings us back to Ma’Plej’ and songs like “New Orleans, a Warning.”

I’m the guy who can’t keep his mouth shut. This is perfect for me!

Rock Wilk is scheduled to perform at the Crane House at 8pm Thursday; tickets are $10 each and can be reserved here. Seating, however, is extremely limited, so if you’re unable to attend in Asbury Park, check the link for some upcoming opportunities to catch Rock in Brooklyn and Manhattan.

Free MP3s: Wilk Music, Plastic Little: Hip-Hop Hopefuls
Posted 37 minutes ago by Ken Micallef in Better Living Through MP3

Dime store rappers are a nickel a dozen, just take a ride on the New York City
subway or walk down a street through the borough of your choice. Personally, I
miss the days when promising young hip-hoppers could be seen city-wide,
carrying a big boombox on their shoulder, blasting crazy beats like a loud message
to the masses. Now, they don't even bother with the CD player, these psych-cases
just get in your face, spouting moronic verses while channeling their inner
Tourette's syndrome. Sure, they carry pen and paper, but can they read?
Anyway, one young hip-hop soon-to-bemogul
has recently invaded my personal
space--and it's all good. Wilk is a New
York City native (da Bronx) who uses the
subways for more than simple
transportation. Riding the rails from his
home in Bed-Sty way up to 207th street
in Manhattan or down to Coney then
round to the East Village, Wilk envisions
our beautiful, if overly commercialized
city, as his own personal inspiration pad.
Broke Wide Open was written entirely on
the New York City subway system. Does
this remind me of Travis Bickle's
response to the Yellow Cab dispatcher's
inquiry as to whether he would work
uptown and Jewish holidays, only to reply, "Anytime, anywhere, don't make no
difference to me"? You bet it does! Wilk's Broke Wide Open is his personal
mission statement of a journey through brain melting times.
You see, folks, our man Wilk is a real New Yawka. His friendships attest to his
attachments to the Big Apple's history and entertainment circles. One of Wilk's best
pals is movie producer mogul Jack Rollins. A really big cheese in this wacky
industry of ours, Jack has managed none other than David Letterman, Dick Cavett,
and Woody Allen, and is perhaps best known for his long time partnership with
Charles H. Joffe, the executive producer for practically every Woody Allen film in
existence. Not bad street cred, huh? Whenever Wilk was feeling depressed during
the recording of Broke Wide Open, Rollins would simply say "Stay with it," no
doubt the same advice he offered to everyone from Woody Allen to David
Steinberg to Tiny Tim. That, and an egg cream is all a real New Yawka needs to
get off his ass and turn lemons into lemonade.
Recorded entirely in Wilk's Bed-Sty loft, with our protagonist singing all the
harmonies, playing all the instruments, and programming everything else, Broke
Wide Open matches blue eyed soul vocalizing with a typical hip-hop template.
Opener "Be Quiet" rides its own rails over a swaggering programmed hip-hop
beat, but Wilk's vocals, which are rapper-lite at best, are actually more of the
crooning, Daryl Hall (of Hall and Oates) school. Does it work? Only because Wilk's
big choruses quickly grab our attention. "I need to find a white girl, I meant to say
the right girl" is the kind of clever subversion Wilk offers over super catchy,
infectious hooks.
There is enough evidence in the album's 14 tracks to suggest that Wilk is a
crossover driven artist, from the honey dark, Creed worthy, hands-in-the-air
harmonies of "Johnny" to the multi-tracked gospel chorus of "Stroke." He gets all
weird and Travis Bickle-like (again) in "Song For My Mother," proclaims his "nice
Jewish boy roots" with weight in the finger-snapping, throat-humming "What Did
You Mean," and creates a Ninjatune worthy moment in "Jane's Talkin' Union."
Gospel inspired, R&B enabled, and "nice Jewish boy" sanctified, Wilk is on the way
up. (See Wilkmusic.com for more madness)

Wilk's new CD, Broke Wide Open is aptly titled. An accomplished composer, lyricist, performer and producer, he's opened up his head, his heart and his life to tackle subjects like love, death, family, religion and racism. It's obvious this a very personal piece of work, even before you know that he also provides every voice and instrumental performance heard on the disc. With a well-developed sense of sound and self, Wilk is definitely ready to break.

T. Lambert
contributing writer, NY Times
Independent journalist
Editor, ARRAY magazine
former Blender columnist

"There has been no writer/performer since Lennon and McCartney and the Beatles broke up as a team that has been able to dominate the charts and capture the heartbeat of their generation for more than a few short years. Michael Jackson, Prince , and Bruce Springsteen all came close and the sounds of their great songs will always fill our memories. But if you were to pick which one was the dominate one for their era you would have to pick all three. In recent memory the " collective whole" has dominated the music scene. The entertainment industry is and always will be looking for the next "big thing" but where are the artists that have the "talent that sticks." After listening to Rock WILK's full catalog of songs, from his solo album BROKE WIDE OPEN to his Samah Productions catalog, I believe this artist/producer has the potential to be one of "those artists" ---- Enjoy !! "
Neil Bond,
Mayor Of FreeAudioPlayer Radio Network

Thank you’s in no particular order………..
Gabriel Rollins Arce, whose vision and sensibilities make me optimistic for the future.
Richie Hart, my teacher who is HUGELY responsible for me being able to pull this album off. Basically I’ve had the opportunity to study guitar with the best jazz guitarist in the world, and he has taught me not just guitar, but music. Indescribable talent to play and to teach. I owe him a lot.

Bob Cutarella, my soulmate in this business, integrity would describe him, in addition to mad talent, as a player, producer, publisher and most importantly, a great friend. Continue to live your life!

Natasha Kubis for her input, wisdom and encouragement with Ma'Plej, and for helping me to find my inner poet and to cut him loose, I will never forget you and your rubbing heart. To all the poets of The Nuyorican Poets Cafe, The Bowery Poetry Club, Bar 13, the Inkwell and Loserslam and that entire community of amazing people on the New York/New Jersey spoken word scene, you inspire, you teach, you B Badass!
Jeff Bohnhoff, Jim and Phil Wharton, who are pretty much the reason I can still walk. As Jim would say, I’m like a high performance engine, and when I go down, I go down hard. They, along with Tommy Nohilly, are the only people who could ever put me back together.

Phil Clendennin who has been incredibly influential in my development as a “self contained” producer. He taught me “midi” and put up with all of my questions for years. A giant to me, and one of the greatest piano players you will ever hear. Tunde Ra and Taharqa Aleem taught me how to be an independent artist, these are true warriors who I refer to everyday with regards to my approach to many things.

Nicky Kalliongis, my brother, who, along with me, has owned every piece of equipment ever made. The greatest ears in the business and I’m a better musician because of him. We’ve been through a lot together, and this business could never break us down, You are my friend for life. Bobby Gordon, who gave me the keys to the studio for my first project and basically let me “go to school”. Dick Scott, my first manager who was my foray into the actual “business”.

The entire Rollins family, [see my liner notes]. Joe Ham, the funkiest drummer in the land and my great friend. We hit 100,000 miles together in the “death mobile”, coming back from a gig at Creedmore Psych.

Gene Torres was the first musician I met when I came back to NYC from college and he is “ground zero” for me. Introduced me to almost everyone I know, and a GREAT BASS PLAYER. Almost like a mentor to me, one of the most professional people I have ever known. He is truly a Rock, someone you can ALWAYS count on and showed me where to get all the good pizza in town.

Curtis King Jr., like my brother, always there for me no matter how many tracks that meant, [“wait, check out one more part”], One of the most talented people you will ever meet.

Lisa Fischer, my heart and soul and truly a sister to me. Always lent me her talent with no strings attached and her love, understanding and intelligence is something I am lucky to have. A true friend, and her talents are well documented. I was so excited when she won her Grammy, that I went out and ran from 95th and Amsterdam to the Brooklyn Bridge!
Cindy Mizelle, the nicest human, greatest singer on the planet earth and someone who has “the joy”. I love and appreciate you, and thank you for always being there for me when I needed you. I’m here for track and field advice anytime! Dennis Collins. Darryl Tookes.

Pat and Mike Mikell, who owned the club that I feel like I grew up in, Mikells. NYC has never been the same since that club closed. Kathryn Bostic, whom I love like my family. The epitome of an artist, with exceptional drive to go with it. I am so proud of you and think about you often. I miss our conversations and will always be your biggest fan. Kelly Coffield, where you at? Your humor and love will always be a part of me, no matter how much time and distance come between us. Steve Ferrone and Doc Powell, 2 people who taught me what it was to be a professional musician.

Kevin Jones, my partner in crime for many years, always trying to “hook me up”, the greatest sound engineer in the business and as a road manager, he has no peers. Get yo’ ass to Brooklyn!!
Ralph Schwartz, damn, yo; we’re letting too much time go by. Always will be my boy, I have to admit, I still slap myself on the shoulder occasionally to get into a better mood. Bernard Davis. “Still” Phil Hamilton. Ginny Reichert Altman, “I love you just the way you are”. Tanya Walton, where u at? Never will forget you. AB, rest in peace. Drew, king of the NYC street musicians, rest in peace. “Johnny B” Baldante, a “lifer”, and a poet, “put 5 bucks on number 9”. I will never forget that you accepted me as an equal when I came in as an outsider.
Michael Raysses, heart hanging out all over your skin, on the outside, integrity dripping all over you, never at a loss for a metaphor, and the perfect example of a real friend,

Noel Meller, who had faith in me and trusted me.

Jim and Joy Spain who paid for my first demo and my example of what you’re supposed to wind up like in this life. TM Stevens, your boundless energy and talent has always inspired me to be better.

Famous Famiglia, I love you all for your friendship over the years and the best pizza in NYC, I’ll always be your first customer!

Debbie Smith, the most sincere heart on this earth, we went to war together and I’m so happy to still be connected with you. I love you. Lloyd Phillips, thanks for my clear mind and my continued, invaluable education.

Lili Wu, you saved my life when I was stumbling around, and became one of my best friends. Thank you for all the love and the “balance”. Bonnie Rabin, intuitive to the point of being scary, nurturing to the point of always making me feel as if everything is OK. You are the best, and truly the “real deal”.
Diane Garisto, a perfect singer and fellow NYC snob, even though you “settled” for the beach. You’ll be back. ;)
Don Lawrence, you showed me how to keep this voice healthy and your music is the first thing I hear everyday, part of my workout, no different than running over the bridge each morning.
Lynda Hamilton, I will NEVER forget that your voice was what kept me sane while my father was dying.
Ralph Rolle, who IS the funk. My brother.
Peter Brown, [where’s tony and pops?].

Kenny Gorka, the best and only person to deal with in the clubs in NYC. Fair, sincere, always willing to give a good artist a chance and never books a bad band. Johnny Kemp, the first time I saw him perform, I cancelled 6 months of gigs because I didn’t want to perform unless I was at that level. He was like seeing the “standard” that we all should be at.

Chris and Anita, my extended family who have always been there for me. When I have no idea what to do or where to go, like when my father passed away, I head straight to these two, and they always put up with their “3rd wheel”. I love you guys. OK, I won’t mention LBH. Jan Newman who’s intelligence, wit and amazing input has really helped me during this project. A friend for life, doin’ it in the UK!

Abby and julie, VERY happy we’re “reunited”. I had this lingering pain while you were gone.
Rosie DeSanctis, crazy talent that she doesn’t even know about, and one of the largest hearts known to humankind. Keep singing and I hope Sonar is being good to you.

Thomas Rome, the best attorney anyone could ever hope to have in this business because he approaches everything as if it’s the most important deal, no matter how small. He’s been there for me since I started and the security I feel because of him keeps me sane.

Barry Knapp, my best friend, can’t put words to what he means to me. Just think of something that you KNOW is always there, like the Empire State Building, and that describes him. Kathy Alexander, one of the more supportive humans on the planet earth and the place I go to when I really need a voice of intelligence and reason. Venus Smith.

Affi, one of the beautiful spirits traveling around this planet, her mind/body/spirit in perfect balance giving off positive energy to anyone lucky enough to be around her. Benjy King, who IS music and gives every bit of his soul to everything, whether it's a gig or a conversation. Ivy Ray, where would I be if you didn't introduce me to Dr Lili? Ivy always brings the funk and her spiritual center has given me so many gifts over the years. Bert Glassberg, thanks for giving me the opportunity to own some real art. I will always carry your love for what you do, and who you are around with me.

Gene Giles, rest in peace, the world is not quite as fun without you here. Q Bear, holdin’ it down in Minneapolis.
John Adams, NOBODY gives more in a rehearsal, or on stage than this great keyboard player. Makes you feel as if your gig is the most important he's ever done.
Bill Dotts, Sir Groove, the kid from Red Bank and his old soul is one every musician, or person for that matter, should have the opportunity to be around. Richard Brown, crazy mad talent.

Tom Coleman, I think about you every day and I just hope you don't feel as if I abandoned you. I love you.
Sam Owens, rest in peace.

Country Pancake House, Ridgewood, NJ, the greatest pancakes in the history of the world!
Priya, in Suffern, NY, indian restaurant with no peers.

Monica and Aminta, new friends for life, sometimes you just know.
Drame, this man is just plain magic, and we are going to Burkina Faso together soon.

Ted Lambert and Susan Carragher, Great friends, true artists who teach me to never stop, to always continue working and good things will happen. I appreciate you guys. Natasha, your insight into these songs has been an immense help, as you throw your entire heart and soul into every comment.

Harvey and Christine, always there for my family over the years.
Rich Isaacs, always answers the phone when I need advice, the voice of reason and intelligence.
Jon Wiederhorn, the most talented music writer I know. Uncle Shelly, my final link to my mom and my grandparents, you are one of the good people on this planet. Peaches, I'll never forget you. Sterling, my "cousin", you amaze me all the time, including the time you drove from Atlanta to NYC to see one of my shows and then drove back to Atlanta the same night. Crazy.

Will @ Food 4 Thought & Pierre and Raoul @ Le Dakar, These guys represent all that is good in my neighborhood, from Bed Stuy to Ft Greene. True "salt of the earth" business owners making real and major contributions to their community. Providing all of us with great places to congregate and eat some of the best food in the world. I am inspired by you and learn from your commitment to people around you.

Lisa Wieneke, your passion is unmatched, other than by your talent. I love every word that comes out of your mouth. Greg Demaras, am I looking in the mirror?

Trina "Love" Perrineau, to know her is to love her, thus “Ms Love”. I’m honored that you include me in your creative process. Mad Love.

Dina and Yochanan, Hadas and Tamar, who have brought a lot of love into my life, and give me a great example of a beautiful family, something to aspire to.

Herb Kurzman, could I have ever gotten thru all the financial affairs of my family without you? All the responsibility laid upon me for so many years, and you guided me thru all of it. You will always be a part of my family.
and finally……………………………………..
My brother Michael, I’m very proud of you and all of your accomplishments, but most importantly the way you are raising Sean and Logan. I’m in awe of your commitment. Just watching them grow, I’m sure, will fill you and make your life worthwhile. I love you
My sister Amy, one raw emotion just “out here” for the world to see all the time, it’s gotta be tiring being you. The most sincere person I know, Rachel and Leah ARE you, and anyone who knows them knows that is a GREAT thing! I love you.
The three of us are pretty much all that’s left, so maybe when I’m out there in Cali touring off of this music, we can get together, just the 3 of us and have some dinner sometime. I’m thinking the Cheesecake Factory.
Rachel, Logan, Sean, Leah, don’t forget me! When you guys are president of the united states, head of the peace corp, finding a cure for aids, don’t forget me! I love you all.

Mick and Andrea, how do you keep it all together with all you’ve had to deal with? You amaze me and Andrea, I will NEVER forget that you called me when my mother died. Oh, and by the way, Mick, get away from McDonalds and KFC, that’s your sister’s kidney you need to take care of. And remember which way to vote in the next election…………….

Aunt Sheila, Gail and Angelo………. Part of my history, links to my past. I look forward to our meals all the time. “It’s not even that”
Howard and Joan, thanks for continuing to include me.
Helen and Leonard, 2 of my favorite humans, thank you for always treating me as “real” family. I noticed.

Donnie…………. You are the true link. When we talk, I hear my father’s voice, I feel the history of my family. You will live forever in my heart. As a matter of fact, you may just live forever, period! The world is a better place because you’re here.


Cesca, all I can say is thank god I walked into “Sport Stripes” that day and you hired me. You are so deeply a part of my life, running around New York City with you for all those years and seeing it thru your eyes is one of the greatest things that I own, and I keep it in a safe place. You are my best friend and MY Rock. I thank you for “adopting” me and giving me a “home” and keep me up to date on all the Henryisms! I love you

Kathleen, Chicago, LA, San Francisco, Stinson Beach, Stinson, Death, Kidneys, houses, this has been a ride, for real, and I’m glad it was all with you. I have learned a lot, and in the end, that is what it’s all about. To learn from one another and to hopefully apply that knowledge to the rest of our lives. You are the greatest gardener in the world, the earth loves you and is a better place because of you, but to me you will always be the best actress I have ever seen. I was reminded of that recently one night on Canal Street in a Chris Cartmill play, and I hope that is a starting point, not the end. People are affected by you when you are given an opportunity to do something like that, so my hope is that you continue to share that with the world. I love you

I’m sure there are so many more people so if you’re not here, I just ran out of brain matter and forgive me. I love you all.