The artistic and creative freedom that exists in the Asbury Park music scene knows no bounds. No musician has to conform to a sound in order to fit in, or draw a crowd.
El Noordzo perfectly embodies this.
El Noordzo, which performs at Happy Mondays at Wonder Bar tonight, is essentially two distinct, wildly creative outfits that blend perfectly into the musical tapestry of Asbury Park. The band, which features Mike Noordzy (bass), Chris Welcome (guitar), Mike Winnicki (drums), and Greg Riss (percussion) have created a band perfect for the summery season, and a band perfect for the gloom of winter.
The first version of the band is one you can find jamming every Sunday at The Anchor’s Bend, located on the North Beach section of Convention Hall. This version of El Noordzo kicks out Afro-Cuban Surf Jazz interpretations of tunes by Nirvana, The Misfits, The Beatles, Talking Heads and Black Sabbath. So yes, those were crazy jazzy surf covers of “Burning Down the House,” and “In Bloom” you heard blaring from Anchor’s Bend this summer, came from these dudes.
The other incarnation of the band is as Noordzy puts it, “more like evil, droney, horror movie music. The band playing at [Happy Mondays] at Wonder Bar on December 2 is the latter, and we’ll be performing our 2017 album Shark Funeral Songbook [in full].”
The inspiration for the original sounds of El Noordzo comes from David Lynch’s seminal television series, Twin Peaks.
‘David Lynch in general is a huge influence on the whole thing,’ said Noordzy. ‘We even have a song called “Donna,” written for Donna Hayward (Lara Flynn Boyle in the series, Moira Kelly in the film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with me).
However the director isn’t the only influence that inspired the band’s sound, and their record Shark Funeral Songbook.
“Musically, the Velvet Underground and the Sun Ra Arkestra are two [primary influences]. When I was composing the music for Shark Funeral Songbook I was researching a lot of chaos magic, [Aleister] Crowley, [William S.] Burroughs, [Brion] Gysin, etc. I’m sure that seeped in there somewhere. I was also deep into the Don Cherry album Brown Rice and I think that shows up in the sound as well.”
With 2020 upon the band they are currently working on new music to put to record in the new year. Noordzy said he looks forward to their seventh summer residency at Anchor’s Bend this year.
