Got Something Against Jersey? The Band Real Estate Defends Its Home Turf

From Ridgewood, N.J., the group called Real Estate, featuring Alex Bleeker, Martin Courtney and Matt Mondanile. SOURCE: Domino Records

Go ahead, call them Jersey boys. The band called Real Estate doesn’t mind.

Like Bruce Springsteen, who proudly put the seaside city Asbury Park on the map, and Bon Jovi, the Sayreville, NJ supergroup that named its fourth album “New Jersey,” Real Estate makes no excuses about where they come from.

That would be Ridgewood, NJ, a village in the suburban New Jersey outskirts where ponds, large brick school buildings, painted historic signs, ballfields, monuments and a bandshell make for picture-perfect, easy-looking living.

“We have tons of hometown New Jersey pride, which most people from New Jersey do because you get shit on constantly,” bassist Alex Bleeker told The Fader.

“You go to college or wherever you’re going to go, and everyone’s like, Jersey, I’m sorry. I was like, Wait a minute! I love all my friends from high school. We have a deep crew, and we’re like, ‘(Forget) this bad reputation of New Jersey, let’s rep it super hard. It’s that Bruce Springsteen bravado where it’s actually the best even though it’s really the worst,” Bleeker said.

“And so we obviously took that opportunity when we could have any public mouthpiece to be like, Jersey Jersey Jersey, we’re from New Jersey.”

OK, so, that said, the group is now based in Brooklyn. They’re hanging in Williamsburg when they’re not on the road.

But by calling themselves Real Estate, the Garden State’s latest offering of talented singer-songwriters has made their Jersey roots the soil from which their music grows.

And it’s flowering very nicely, according to many thumbs-up reviews Real Estate has received since the 2009 release of their self-titled first album. Currently, Real Estate is touring the U.S. in support of their newly released sophomore effort, “Days,” another gem, say music critics.

New Jersey is the central character of this record – its placid, boring micro-cities/municipalities juxtaposed with the often-overlooked majesty of its forests and oceans. Martin Courtney, Alex Bleeker and Matt Mondanile don’t view this place with the oft-repeated disdain and criticism associated with one of America’s less cool states, but with a bemused sense of wonder and appreciation. It’s where they’re from, what fostered them – and, for better or worse – what has shaped them. Unlike many artists who deny their origins preferring to cultivate an aura of urban hardness and experience at the cost of genuine reflections, Real Estate sing about exactly where they come from.

 

Bon Jovi had an album called "New Jersey," just like Springsteen had one called "Greetings From Asbury Park."

While Springsteen’s firepower music brought gritty, Jersey-Shore inspired poetics to rock, and while Bon Jovi amped up their pop/rock ballads with blue collar, Jersey-inflected, no-nonsense arrangements, Real Estate’s musical riffs are far more ambient and affluent.

They are like the Beach Boys of 21st century, East Coast suburbia.

Just listen to the track called, “Municipality” and ask yourself whether that’s not a modern-day, Jersey version of Brian Wilson and brothers singing those harmonies. Or, one little snippet called “Atlantic City.”

The songs are infused with a mellow suburban mood that both accepts gentile, placid suburbia and toys with its pleasant listlessness. Ridgewood median home values are up 3.5 percent year-over-year to its current average of $647,200.

In fact, listening to the band Real Estate’s songs can be greatly enhanced by viewing these evocative Ridgewood photos, uploaded by real estate agent Chris Grubbs of Keller Williams.

This way, real Ridgewood real estate meets up with the real Ridgewood-based band named Real Estate.

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