The Cucumbers | Hoboken

THE CUCUMBERS | HOBOKEN

ALICE: Songs on Site is recorded on location and features the site’s unique soundscape as an audio backdrop. This episode includes aircraft, watercraft, waterfowl, and winter coats—it was cold. We recommend listening to Songs on Site with headphones for an immersive audio experience.

MUSIC: SONGS ON SITE THEME PLAYS UNDER.
SEAGULLS FLY OVERHEAD. A TRAIN PASSES BY.

MICHAEL: From Cocotazo Media and You Don’t Know Jersey—

A BUS PASSES BY.

MICHAEL: —this is Songs on Site—

BIRDS TAKE FLIGHT. A CAR BEEPS. A HORSE (OR THE JERSEY DEVIL) RUNS BY.

MICHAEL: —where we explore the music and environmental soundscapes of the Garden State.

CONDUCTOR: Stand clear of the door.

MICHAEL: I’m your host, Michael Aquino.

COFFEE POURS INTO A MUG. SILVERWARE CLINKS AGAINST DISHWARE. KIDS ON A PLAYGROUND. A CAR PASSES BY. CRICKETS ON A SUMMER NIGHT.

MICHAEL: Hey, there. It's Michael Aquino, the host of Songs on Site. I'm a songwriter, musician, and performer born and raised in the lovely Garden State. I've been involved in the North Jersey music scene since college, playing in a few bands and taking the stage as a solo performer. I'm also the former host of Indie Music Circus, a live event series that ran for five years at Luna Stage in West Orange.

And I f**king love the music scene in New Jersey. It’s where you’ll hear the range of sounds that define our 8,723 square miles of attitude—to quote the tagline from co-producers You Don’t Know Jersey.
That’s right—Songs on Site is a co-production of Cocotazo Media and You Don’t Know Jersey, featuring interviews and song performances by an eclectic lineup of New Jersey musicians. We had a vision of capturing these sessions in 3D audio at unique locations throughout the state and delivering them to you, our listeners.

I'm thrilled to kick off Songs on Site with The Cucumbers, an indie rock duo from Millburn by way of Hoboken.

MUSIC: “WE’RE FAR” PLAYS UNDER.

Jon Fried and Deena Shoshkes began performing in the streets of Paris and Rome in the early 80s. After starting a rock band called The Cucumbers, they found a home in the indie pop scene in Hoboken, New Jersey. After many years of playing music together in varied incarnations, their duo performances draw upon a deep songbook and effortless communication. Their songs have been recorded by Jackson Browne, Dar Williams, and Marshall Crenshaw, and featured in films and on network TV.

Jon and Deena have been fixtures in the indie music scene in New Jersey since the 80s. So, they felt like the perfect pair of musicians to feature as we launch Songs on Site.

AN AIRPLANE FLIES OVERHEAD. BIRDS CHIRP.

MICHAEL: Describe what you see in this environment.

DEENA: It's magnificent. I'm looking up the Hudson River. I see a barge coming down and the George Washington Bridge behind and the skyline on a beautiful morning and the water rippling.

JON: And I'm looking towards Hoboken from where I stand. There's the W Hotel and all the buildings, none of which existed when we moved to Hoboken many many years ago. And there's Stevens Tech.

DEENA: Castle Point, that building was there.

JON: But all the big ones next to it. They're of more recent vintage. And the gazebo and Pier A, and the trees along Pier A.

MICHAEL: And who are you?

DEENA: I'm Deena Shoshkes.

JON: I'm Jon Fried.

DEENA: We've been married since 1985. We've been playing music together since probably ‘77.

MICHAEL: What is your group name?

DEENA: We are the—

DEENA & JON: The Cucumbers

MICHAEL: That's wonderful. Where in New Jersey have you lived?

A HELICOPTER IN THE DISTANCE.

DEENA: Well, I was born in New Jersey and I grew up in South Orange. And then I went off to college. And when I returned, I moved to Hoboken and lived in Hoboken for 10 years. And then moved to Millburn where we've been ever since.

JON: Our older son was born in Hoboken, and then we were in a little tiny place on Willow Terrace—

A HELICOPTER FLIES OVERHEAD.

JON: —these 1860 houses that were built for the workers that built Stevens Tech in that part of the 19th century—and kind of outgrew it and moved out to the ‘burbs. Like many people who go through Hoboken.

DEENA: And John is not New Jersey native.

JON: My dad was in the entertainment business and grew up in Southern California and I went east to college. My dad—originally from the Bronx. My mom’s from the Midwest but loved New York. And so they wanted all their kids. They kind of wanted us all to experience the East. And we are all on the east coast now, ever since.

MICHAEL: At what age did you start playing music?

DEENA: I started in the crib. My mother said I would rock and bang, my head. So I was a baby rock and roller. And then I'm the youngest of four girls. All my sisters had piano lessons and some of them played violin. And I just couldn't wait. I begged for lessons, but my mother made me wait until I was nine years old. So that's when I started my formal music training.

MICHAEL: That's great. And John?

JON: Well, my dad was a musician and music was always around the house. And we were all made to take piano lessons starting around seven or eight. And I didn't really take to piano. And when I was 10, I figured if I switched to guitar. And then I could quit lessons and get out of it because my dad really wouldn't care so much about the guitar as he did the piano. And that worked. And so I learned a little piano, little guitar. And then, when I was 10, the neighborhood kids started a garage band and didn't have a bass player, so my dad got me a bass.

MICHAEL: Mm.

JON: And we played Monkees cover songs. I was Peter Torque and I had a cherry red bass that had no name on it. I had years till it fell apart. I did play, actually played out when I was about 10, and then quit it all until I was about 13. And, you know, adolescence, where you wanted nothing more than to sit and strum your guitar and I went that way.

DEENA: John had no idea that he'd be living right near Pleasant Valley Way when he learned to play Pleasant Valley Sunday.

MICHAEL: There you go.

JON: That is true. That is true.

MICHAEL: That is so funny.

JON: I had no idea.

MICHAEL: When did you figure that out?

JON: It was years later that I figured out the Monkees not—only did they not write their own songs, they didn't actually play all the instruments on their albums—that they were a bunch of actors, which was kind of a shock. And then later, I was in New Jersey when I discovered that it was Carol King that wrote that song and there was Pleasant Valley Way not far from where we live. And she lived in West Orange, also not far away. And put two and two together.

MICHAEL: Describe your music in three words to someone who has never heard it before.

DEENA: Quirky.

JON: Indy.

DEENA: Pop-rock.

GEESE HONK IN THE DISTANCE.

JON: That's I guess The Cucumbers from the early days. I guess it’s become more eclectic than that. Since then, the music we’ve been playing now is more…Americana?

DEENA: Eclectic is good.

GEESE HONK, CLOSER.

MICHAEL: Now, why settle in Hoboken with your music as opposed to the behemoth across the water there?

AN AIRPLANE IN THE DISTANCE.

DEENA: My sister Ann was living in Hoboken. And we came to visit and while we were visiting her, we walked by Maxwell's. We had no idea what it was, but we heard rock music coming out of the storefront. And we went in the back door, which was open. Like, we didn't realize that we were supposed to go pay admission. We just walked in the back and there was, like, a band playing. It was, like—wow! And then that was it. It was, like— this is the place for us. And then we had no idea that we would end up playing at Maxwell's.

JON: Deena's sister was an artist and her husband at the time was an artist. They lived over Rico's on Washington near 9th Street. When we did decide to move and start the band, we thought we'd lived near them, and the rents. We first started paying 250 a month and then there were some tenant rights activists in our building.

MICHAEL: Mm.

JON: They said, You know, the rent should be 175. They've broken the rent control laws in Hoboken, and you should protest it. So we did, and we got the rent rolled back to 175 a month.

MICHAEL: Wow.

JON: From 250. So there we were on 7th and Willow on the 5th floor of this walkup. And in the building were artists and musicians we've been friends with ever since.

DEENA: People in the building had friends that started a literary magazine Ferro Botanica. And they asked us to play at their benefit party for the first issue. That was in the back room of Maxwell's. And that's when Steve Fallon first heard us and he's like, Oh, wow, I like you guys. And then he gave us an official gig.

JON: We didn't have a bass player yet. It was November of ‘81. And I think we played with Tommy, just the two guitars and drums.

A RUNNER PASSES BY.

JON: And in January of ‘82, we for the Individuals—

MICHAEL: Mm.

JON: —at Maxwell's, which was a big deal at the time.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

JON: By then, we had a bass player. Al Houghton was playing bass with us who runs Dubway studios in New York and has for years.

MICHAEL: Hoboken is typically known for the movie On the Waterfront, where we are right now, Frank Sinatra, and the birthplace of baseball. Tell us something you learned about Hoboken that most people don't know.

JON: There was a music scene here in the 60s, which I don't know if most people know about. And there was a place called Club Zanzibar, which was a club for Black musicians. And it was what Maxwell's became later—as an indie rock club for bands that were playing in New York and wanted an extra they'd go to Hoboken. Club Zanzibar was that for soul music and blues.

A HELICOPTER IN THE DISTANCE.

MICHAEL: Mm.

JON: So bands that would be playing New York would play also in Club Zanzibar. And they were a place where Cool and the Gang from Jersey City used to come to try out songs. And it was on the tour. So bands doing club dates would come through and play Club Zanzibar in Hoboken.

MICHAEL: And what year was that?

JON: It was through the 60s and I think they closed in ‘81.

DEENA: [Cross talk] There was such an amazing blend of people when we lived there during the 80s. And one of our neighbors across the street who we became friends with had grown up there. His name was Pat Frida. And he used to tell us stories about jumping off the piers and swimming in the river and, you know, the currents are very strong and they would be skinny dipping. And he jumped in and he got swept in the current and carried all the way down to Staten Island.

JON: Statue of Liberty.

DEENA: Oh, Statue Liberty.

JON: Cop picked him up as he washed on the shore, wrapped a blanket around him, and drove him back to Hoboken.

DEENA: Tell him about On the Waterfront.

A HELICOPTER APPROACHES.

JON: Pat Frida was in On the Waterfront. He was just hanging out, he was a dock worker and he was hanging out down there. And Kazan, the director, saw his face—say, you wanna be in a movie? In the scene near the end where there's a couple dock workers around and one of 'em says: If Terry don't work, we don't work. The guy next to him is our neighbor, Pat.

MICHAEL: On the Waterfront kind of made it into, uh, your circle anyway.

JON: It did. It did.

DEENA: Oh, definitely.

MICHAEL: I love it. Let's talk a bit about The Hoboken Sound. I recently discovered a documentary called The Hoboken Sound was made in 1985. And the first nine minutes the two of you—absolutely amazing energy— kicking off this documentary, talking about your music. And I want to read you a couple of quotes.

JON: Uh, oh. I didn't say it. They did, they made it up. I don't know.

MICHAEL: All right, I'm gonna start with the quote from Deena. And she said, I'm trying to be myself. I'm not trying to be a rock and roll woman, or, you know, a really cute girl or really tough. I’m trying to be myself in hopes that people that relate to my music feel they can be themselves. Now, how do you feel hearing that quote from young Deena?

DEENA: I still do feel that way. There's always pressure to conform. And that's what I thought I had to be. But there was no way I could be any of those things. I just tried to be myself, because that's the only thing you can do. But it's hard at that time of life when you're young and you're putting yourself out in the world in anything that you do. Especially in a public way, like, being in a band, you're gonna get all kinds of reactions from people, and that…that was hard.

MICHAEL: Let me read your quote, Jon. It sounds pretty. They think it's pretty. They think it's sort of throwaway, you know, just sort of nice and pleasant. But in a lot of the lyrics especially, it's a little more complicated. We're writing about situations, love situations, say. It's not just, Oh, I love her, she's great, I'm happy. It's more complicated, like the way things are in real life.

JON: We just were making our music. You know, I played in a Monkees band when I was 10. There was gonna be that kind of bubblegum pop somewhere in the back there. And there was also punk rock that we were listening to new wave, and all this stuff that was breaking away from it, but also tapping into it. And we were just absorbing all those influences and we wrote whatever came out—

MICHAEL: Mm.

JON: —and we hoped that people would like it.

AN AIRPLANE PASSES OVERHEAD.

DEENA: We stepped right into this wonderful scene. Our first performance we didn't even really have a band, and we were welcomed into the Maxwell's fold. There were lots of other little places to play in Hoboken—

MICHAEL: Mm-hm.

DEENA: —and throughout New Jersey when we were starting out. We were really lucky that we ended up in New Jersey and not New York. It was much harder to start out as a new band in New York. Because we came from Hoboken, which was a scene, then we could get into, like, in the East Village the A7 Club and—

JON: Pyramid Club and CBGBs. All the little places that came and went on the Lower East Side.

MICHAEL: So talking about this documentary—

DEENA: Ooh.

MICHAEL: —you're both going to have—

DEENA: This is like the Oscars…and the envelope, please.

MICHAEL: So you can open the envelope, and there's a bit of dialogue in there between the two of you at one point in the documentary and I want you to read these lines to each other.

AN AIRPLANE PASSES OVERHEAD.
THEME MUSIC TRANSITION.

MICHAEL: You’ll have to wait until next week’s episode for the second half of the interview. And now, enjoy a performance of “Keep on Doing What You Do” written by Deena Shoshkes and performed by the Cucumbers on the Hoboken Waterfront.

MUSIC: “KEEP ON DOING WHAT YOU DO” LIVE ON THE HOBOKEN WATERFRONT.

DEENA:
So I mixed my intuition
With some numbers and a rabbit's foot or two
How about you
I made a big production
From my imagination
It's what I do
How about you

DEENA & JON:
And when the night is over
And I don't want it to be through
I'm keeping my door open
Oh, won't you please keep on doing what you do

DEENA:
Crazy eights and hearts and kisses
You know I love what this is when you do

DEENA & JON:
How about you

DEENA:
In your fields and in your flowers
In your flying tender hours, I'll be true

DEENA & JON:
How about you

And when the night is over
And I don't want it to be through
I'm keeping my door open
Oh, won't you please keep on doing what you do

BANJO SOLO.

DEENA:
Spring is coming
And it’s time for me to get back to my roots

DEENA & JON:
How about you

DEENA:
Some days are heavy lifting
But the end is a beginning and it's new

DEENA & JON:
Isn't that true

And when the night is over
And I don't want it to be through
I'm keeping my door open
Oh, won't you please keep on doing what you do
Doing what you do
Doing what you do
Doing what you do

BIRDS CHIRP. AN AIRPLANE FLIES OVERHEAD.

MICHAEL: Nice.

MUSIC: SONGS ON SITE THEME (INSTRUMENTAL) PLAYS UNDER.

MICHAEL: Thanks for listening to Songs on Site. I’m your host, Michael Aquino. Songs on Site producers are Michael Aquino and Dania Ramos for Cocotazo Media, and Ed Magdziak and Alice Magdziak for You Don’t Know Jersey. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

MUSIC: SHIFT IN THEME MUSIC (INSTRUMENTAL) CONTINUES UNDER.

ALICE: Audio editing, design, mixing, and theme song by Michael Aquino. Story editing, script writing, and additional audio editing by Dania Ramos.

The featured musicians were Deena Shoshkes and Jon Fried of The Cucumbers. Music and lyrics for “Keep On Doing What You Do” by Deena Shoshkes. You heard Deena on guitar and lead vocals with Jon on banjo and backing vocals.

ALICE: Find out more about The Cucumbers—including how to buy their past and upcoming releases—at the cucumbers dot net. You can find a link to their website and our website in the show notes.

This episode was recorded in Pier A Park on the waterfront of Hoboken and produced in Essex County, New Jersey. Both locations are situated on the traditional territory of the Leni Lenape people.

Thanks for listening.

KIDS ON A PLAYGROUND. A CAR PASSES BY. CRICKETS ON A SUMMER NIGHT.
AN AIRPLANE FLIES OVERHEAD.

DEENA: Let me fix your hat, though.

JON: My hat. Thank you.