Dear fans,

It’s with great sorrow, and some embarrassment, that I announce the canceling of next Saturday’s Paramus show with guitarist, sharp-shooter, and conservative bellwether, Ted Nugent.

When the show, at the Flo-Flo-Kus Mall’s hallowed Plympton Stage, was announced yesterday, the local, regional, and, frankly, national fan response overwhelmed the security detail assigned to this family shopping and recreation mecca. Basically, thousands, if not dozens of insecure, misfit teens, armed with acne and their dads, lined up at the box office with such a menacing presence that the security officers manning the stage, cotton candy machine, and jumpy castle were over-powered and ran for their lives, 150 yards to the East, where they took refuge and sought reinforcements in an Orange Julius. Upon questioning, it came to light that the overzealous Nugent fans were pretend-shooting plastic gun-shaped guitars. No Nugent fans were arrested, but several were advised to seek psychiatric treatment, or just “get a life.”

The sad conclusion of this affair: no Flo-Flo-Kus Nugent gig – perhaps no Nugent gig ever, particularly since I showed up after being phoned by mall security and promptly called Nugent and sang the following song into the phone receiver, along with 3 mall security personnel and 6 Plympton workers, with all of whom I had rehearsed intensively for 2 solid minutes prior to making the call:

“Teddy, man, you are astounding
Your posse’s cheer is quite resounding
But those ideas with which you jam us
Ain’t got no place in sweet Paramus.”

Ted replied, “Fuck you, Joel Newton.”

Needless to say, this was a setback for the Earth-tet’s globe-plucking mission – but a short-lived one. Being agile in celebrity networking etiquette, I very quickly got Taylor Swift on the line and booked her for 3 (three) (3) shows, not in shitty Paramus, NJ (as I now see it), but in the illustrious hamlet of Nyack, NY.

So, I am bonerously (just made that up) excited to announce the Nyack debut of JOEL NEWTON EARTH-TET with special guest, TAYLOR SWIFT (details TBA soon).

Many of you are probably asking yourselves, or other people you’re near, how the fuck did Joel get Taylor Swift to do gigs with him? Her music is nothing like his. She’s a star, and he’s a regional folk-hero. She makes buckets of Benjamins, and he does stupid $40 jazz gigs. She dances around on 1-acre stages all over the world, whereas Joel scrunches his already jazz-spasmmed body into impossibly contorted, testicle-squinching shape on a tiny piece of floor betwixt a bassist and a trumpet-player so he can play some, admittedly, very hot licks. And strum some ii-V-I’s.

Anyway, Taylor Swift, like any girl overwhelmed with her rapid ascent in life, spends many an insecure hour in the wee hours googling this and that, and, as legend would have it (unnamed informer to remain unnamed (legendary …. lover), Taylor just happened upon a youtube video of me, Joel Newton, playing a hot jazz fusion number at the Turning Point in Piermont, NY, with a shiny red Gibson guitar, and a new haircut, and a certain stage pizazz that just lands on us performers sometimes. Anyway, it did that night.

 

I actually remember the moment it happened. By “it,” I mean: the night that Taylor, on the way home from a trip to Cape Cod with friends, detoured to the Turning Point with her hungry crew to grab a quick bite and take a freak chance on catching me in action before heading to points West. Freakily, I was in fact there, filling in last-minute for a blues band whose van exited the Tappan Zee bridge a mile early, tragically drenching the guys and ruining their hair dos. As I remember it, her eyes locked with mine as I laid down a particularly mean G7#9 chord over a fast funk groove. I remember being distracted from the music by her arresting blue eyes, but then laying even harder into my G7 tear, thinking “if this doesn’t get a girl hot, I don’t know what will.” I looked back, but she wasn’t there. I craned my neck further. No Taylor. Then my foot. I still loved my wife and kids. But where was she? Another step. Nothing under my foot. A jolt of adrenaline. Falling … crashing sounds … pain …

Fast forward 4 minutes, and I become dimly aware of a sweet, soft-spoken blonde woman bending over me, talking to paramedics (also bending over me) and saying it was all her fault, and I’m fine, really, and she’ll take it from here. I looked at her with disbelief, wonder, and longing. Not that kind of longing. Only the kind of longing that wants Taylor Swift to join your jazz band. As if in a dream, she looked me straight in the eyes and said, “Whoever you are, Joel Newton, I want to be in your band. Four minutes ago, I thought country-inflected pop songs, or even all-out pop songs, were my path to fulfillment; but now I realize I need jazz fusion in my life. I want to be your singer. I’ll even learn backup jazz-fusion guitar.”

Fucking unbelievable.

I said to Taylor, gravely, but kindly, “You may be in my band, but only as a short-term guest, and we’re not just a jazz-fusion band: we play all kinds of music.”

“Okay,” said Taylor.

Hello fans,

I’m bursting with pride, and more than a few jitters, to announce the beginning of what I hope to be a long, fruitful journey with my new band, the Joel Newton Earth-tet. It’s a bold concept: we will play ambitious jazz / rock /experimental compositions of mine at venues all over the earth, each gig featuring a special guest from somewhere on the planet. To counterbalance the (potentially reckless) boldness of my endeavor, I’ve decided to make our first “Earth landing” somewhere not overly exotic, or far away; and where EZ-pass works. And where our first special guest wouldn’t balk at doing the gig. My plan is to move incrementally further and further away from the New York Tri-State area until we are playing gigs in the most remote corners of the globe, with an increasingly diverse and star-studded line-up of guest artists. At the risk of raising expectations, let me just throw out a few hypothetical examples: 2018, Oslo, with Dave Matthews; later 2018, Caymans, with Carly Rae Jepsen; 2019, Aukland with Vince Vaughan (I don’t know what he plays yet); 2020 with Seth McFarlane, Rhode Island or Shanghai. He sings.

The core band will feature me on electric, hybrid, ethanol guitars and solar guitars, Janice Tubman on bass, and Cedric Fritz on drums. If you don’t know them, suffice it to say for now that they really know their instruments upside and down and left their jobs as research assistants at M.I.T. to join this band. I tried to talk them out of it. Seriously, they’re some hot players and know how to thread the needle through that tiny little hole that connects Louis Armstrong, Eric Marienthal, late-career Streisand, mid-career Minnelli, Return to Forever, and The Who. And Ted Nugent. Which brings me to our first special guest …

Ted Nugent … what can I say. He’s an asshole who champions unbridled gun rights above all other concerns, and he’s not a great guitarist, but he’s one of the few people who can play a gritty guitar lick, make a macho arm gesture toward the audience, and announce, with complete veracity, that he is, in fact, Ted Nugent. I can tell you, I’ve tried it myself, and it just doesn’t work. I jest, he’s a great guy and I’m proud to be working with him.

Anyway, come to the Plympton Stage at the Flo-Flo-Kus Mall in Paramus this Saturday, July 4, from 11am to 11:45 am and we will get you thinking in a whole new way, about music, and maybe even life in general. I’ve been told to advise visitors not to trip over or accidentally unplug the extension cords that will be taped to the floor throughout the seating area: they serve the cotton candy machine and jumpy castle to the left of the entrance. The first six attendees get an extra punch card for the jumpy castle. Infants 6 weeks or younger get in free.

Prepare for awesomeness, thank you in advance, and be on the lookout for our next bulletin!

[applause]

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[continued applause]

Greetings actual or potential fans! Guitarist Joel Newton here, and this is my new blog site. You may know me from the Joel Newton Situation and other serious musical pursuits. For better or worse, you have stumbled upon or deliberately found the official web page for the Joel Newton Earth-tet, a group dedicated to bringing hot jazz-funk-rock-fusion to the farthest reaches of the globe, with a dizzying array of special guests, many of whom are famous and awesome.

You’ll be reading about these people (among many others)…
   

and these non-people things…

Yes, as amazing as it may seem, past guests and almost guests include Taylor Swift and Ted Nugent, and a soon-to-be guest is Billy Joel. This is not a joke, although it might seem to be a joke. Wait, what is a joke? How about I’m dead serious about doing this “thing,” so it really isn’t a joke? I’m doing this to better my life, and the people around me. Is that a joke? I don’t think so. Or maybe it is. Ha ha ha ha. Have I covered my ass legally? I have no idea.