October 8th, 2023, Twisted Sister guitarist and founder Jay Jay French will do a book signing at the Long Island Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame in Stony Brook. The evening will include a Q&A about the legendary Long Island Club Scene and musical performance including members of Twisted Sister, Zebra, The Good Rats and Stanton Anderson Band. We recently caught up with Jay Jay via Zoom to talk about the event. Jay Jay have been friends for many years, so our conversation began with joking, as you might expect. We discussed how great the Long Island Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame Museum is. You can find out more about the hall and museum and find tickets for the event here. Jay Jay even spoke about a mutual friend, Kevin O’Callaghan of the School of Visual Arts, who designed the museum.
From there we discussed the first exhibit that the museum focused on, the Legendary Long Island Club Scene. Jay Jay spoke about the bands that really made up that scene, Twisted Sister, Rat Race Choir, The Good Rats, Stanton Anderson Band and Zebra. In fact the event on October 8th 2023 will feature a Q&A and live musical performance with Jay Jay and Mark “The Animal” Mendoza of Twisted Sister along with original Bassist for the band Kenny Neil, Randy Jackson and Felix Hanneman of Zebra, Joe Franco of The Good Rats and Mark Fowler of Stanton Anderson Band. We discussed the drinking age moving from 18 to 19 and again to 21 being what essentially killed this scene. Jay Jay estimated from 1973 to 1982 hundreds of thousands of people saw these bands play in Long Island clubs. Twisted Sister began playing on Long Island in the summer of 1973 as the house band at The Mad Hatter. He really went in depth into what made the scene and the history of it. This included a look at everything from those years including rent and gas prices.
The current exhibit at the Hall of Fame celebrating the legendary club scene will be going away soon to make room for the next exhibit. Before it goes away you should check it out. What better way to see it than with this event and the bands that the Hall celebrates. This is an event that will never be replicated celebrating the club scene that will never be replicated, do not miss it!!! You can find tickets for the event here. Doors for the event are at 6PM. Jay Jay will be signing books starting at 6PM as the doors open. We strongly suggest planning to be there at 6PM.