Kludge Headlines Sunday River Day Fest in South Orange

Band name: 
The Kludge

Members and their roles in the band:
Erik van de Pol – keyboard, vocals;
Jim Provini – bass, vocals;
Joyce Isabelle – keyboard, vocals;
Kenny Sabarese - drums;
Rob Sandow – guitar, vocals;
Wilma van de Pol – guitar, vocals

How did the band get started? 
Like many bad ideas, it was conceived at a party. But this actually turned out to be a good idea after all when we started jamming together. After doing that for a while, we started playing at parties and at outdoors events, and it quickly grew from there. We have since played at local events and venues, but also out of state. Since we all have jobs, we don't play gigs too frequently. It’s really a hobby for us, and for our enjoyment. We hope that enjoyment translates well through our music.

Who or what influences your band? 
We are definitely heavily influenced by and take our cues from rock and pop music that spans from the 70s, 80s, and beyond. Some in the band are classical trained while others were brought up on punk. We enjoy those songs that are often a little off the beaten path -- more obscure things that few people know but work well in our set. With three IT professionals in the band, we wanted to cover Code Monkey, Coulton's ode to programmers. We also play songs as diverse as Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville to the Sex Pistols’ Anarchy. Our original songs have a different perspective, that of a stalker-type personality to a sports fan who has never been to his favorite sport team’s city.

How did you choose your band name?
It's our tongue-in-cheek admission that we don't try to take ourselves too seriously. We have a few techie band members, and a “kludge” is often used in engineering circles to describe something that's patched together in a nontraditional way but for some reason works. Think MacGuyver with a keytar plugged into a Marshall amp; it's wrong - if only for the mullet- but it works. We felt that way when we first started playing music together. The Kludge sounds vaguely like a duct-taped together version of the Cure and the Clash. MacGuyver would be proud, we like to think.

How does this particular musical experience inform your life here in South Orange and Maplewood?
We've met many friends through playing music, so that's a big reason for continuing to do this. Many of the local musicians we know are ridiculously talented – some are professional musicians, which keeps us honest and motivated to step up our game. The community based events (like Downtown After Sundown, and the upcoming River Day) are also a great way to be involved in and take pride in our town and community. But in the end, it just comes down to the joy of playing and sharing music. It seems that as humans, regardless of cultural backgrounds or languages barriers, we can still be connected through music  -- and food. Playing music is one of those shared human experiences, and what better way to share it than with our local community?

When local folks come to see you play, what should the look or listen for, in particular?
For our cover songs, we try to do the originals justice through our interpretation. You'll also notice that while Rob and Erik provide vocals for the majority of songs, most of us sing lead vocals at some point, so we're not afraid to mix it up – enabling our set lists to be more diverse. We particularly hope that you will enjoy some of the originals we will be debuting soon. Ultimately, we want to provide a fun atmosphere in which one can forget their troubles for a moment and become engulfed in the music.

And.. when and where will you be performing next?
We'll be playing a free show on Sunday May 5 at 11:30am, during South Orange River Day, at the skate house on the duck pond off of Mead Street in South Orange. It's a great outdoor community event with a host of activities.  Please stop by!  We hope to be playing at Spiotta Park this July as part of Downtown After Sundown for the 4^th summer. 

Follow The Kludge on Facebook here.