Photograph courtesy of
Chris Lynch at
www.instilledimages.com.
In 1978, Steve Fallon bought a modest Hoboken pub that had once catered to Maxwell House plant employees and turned it into one of New Jersey’s premiere music venues. Over 20 years have passed and Maxwell’s still lures in the crowds, thanks in no small part to Todd Abramson, who has not only co-owned the club since 1996 (along with Dave Post from the Amazing Incredibles, his wife Jacki Post, and Steve Shelley from Sonic Youth) but is also the man responsible for booking the bands that keep the house packed.
Located on the corner of 11th and Washington streets, Maxwell’s is a bar, restaurant and rock club all rolled into one. The main room, where the restaurant is located, is an open space with an elaborate wooden bar, tile floors and tin ceilings. In contrast, the back room, where the bands perform, is a modest chamber with no chairs, no windows and no frills, other than a small bar along the wall. This austerity doesn’t seem to bother the patrons, most of whom are not there to get drunk, get lucky or simply loaf around. They are there to hear musicians like Alex Chilton, Jonathan Richman, and Elliott Smith play to a crowd of no more than 200 loyal fans.
Beyond the size, part of Maxwell’s distinction is that there is no back stage. Band members must walk through the crowd to get on stage. According to Abramson, members of The John Doe Thing recently described the setup as “very egalitarian.”
Like Frank Sinatra’s birthplace and the Erie Lackawanna Train Terminal, Maxwell’s has become a Hoboken institution.
Rob Grenoble, the owner of the Hoboken recording studio Water Music, even credits the bar with the city’s burgeoning music scene. “The [studios] are all here because Steve Fallon opened Maxwell’s 20 years ago,” he told me last spring. “And it just snowballed after that.”
James Mastro, the owner of The Guitar Bar and The Pigeon Club, the lead singer of The Health & Happiness Show, and a suburban New Jersey native, said that Maxwell’s was one of the reasons he moved to Hoboken 20 years ago. Back in the early ’80s Mastro even lived above the club. “It was definitely one of the things that brought me here,” Mastro said last week. “It was really a harbor for all of the freaks to meet at.”
Like Mastro, Todd Abramson grew up in the New Jersey suburbs – in what he refers to as the “New Providence, Berkley Heights area” – and began going to Maxwell’s when he was a teenager.
“I started sneaking in to see shows in 1978 when I was 16,” Abramson told me last week while reposing in a leather chair in Maxwell’s front lounge. With no back room designated for music, in the bar’s early days bands like the Fleshtones, the dB’s and the Boggles would perform by the windows along Washington Street. “The cops got called a few times because people outside on the street thought there were riots going on inside,” said Abramson.
While Fallon initially booked the bands, Abramson was entrusted with the task in 1986 when he was in his mid-20s, and, other than a brief hiatus in 1996, when a management consultant named Bill Sutton bought the bar and tried to transform it into a brewpub, he’s been booking the bands ever since. For 15 years, Abramson has been the man responsible for luring bands like Oasis, Nirvana, Fugazi, The Replacements and REM to our mile square city.
With cool blue eyes and a tacit demeanor, Abramson was modest about Maxwell’s substantial success, although he was willing to explain how he has been able to maintain the Maxwell’s cachet for over 15 years.
“Our acts are treated really well,” he said. “If they fill the place, they walk out with most of the money. And then there’s our proximity to Manhattan. It’s an extra gig without having to travel.”
Finally, Abramson explained that continuity has a lot to do with Maxwell’s success. “I’ve been doing it for so long now, [the bands] don’t have to worry,” he said. “There are a lot of clubs with a lot of turnover. I nurture relationships with bands on their way up, so even when they outgrow the place, they will be like, ‘Oh yeah, Maxwell’s is a fun place to play.'”
To that end, Abramson said he usually does not have problems booking bands he wants to play at his club, although he did concede, “It took me awhile to get Fountains of Wayne.”
Unfortunately, Abramson said that over the years he has been booking fewer and fewer local bands. “The city has changed, especially with the higher rents,” he said. “Years ago, Hoboken was a place people would escape to for financial reasons. Now it’s a place people escape from.”
Abramson said that there is not a general theme to the music he books – “I try and get a pretty diverse program.” But he did admit that he no longer books heavy metal bands after an experience he had in 1994. “I booked Korn [a popular metal rap band] and Sugar Ray. I didn’t really do my research. The audience was a little overly rambunctious. That show didn’t really belong here.”
Ironically, while Abramson’s life is all about music – not only does only does he co-own Maxwell’s but he also runs a record label called Telstar – the 38-year-old has never played an instrument himself, and said he doesn’t want to.
With what appeared to be absolutely no regret, he shook his head and said, “Somebody’s got to stay home and take care of business.”