Photo Credit: Joseph Quever.

Jesse Malin has been building and nurturing the music scene in the five boroughs for over forty years. He is essentially the New York Mayor of Rock and he makes friends wherever he goes. Through the decades he’s played countless benefit shows and spearheaded more than a few efforts to try and get help where it’s needed. He embodies the idea of community through music so naturally we’ve had a long and rewarding relationship with him at WFUV. Eighteen months ago, Malin suffered a rare spinal stroke that left him without the use of his legs. All the compassion and empathy that he has shown throughout his career is now coming back around in the form of a tremendous new tribute album and a pair of benefit shows coming up in December that will be his first time on stage since then.

It was an honor to visit Jesse in his East Village apartment and create a one-hour radio show to celebrate the new collection, preview the concerts – featuring full sets from him and his band – and get an update on his situation. It was a rare opportunity to have a freewheeling conversation that touched upon everything from spitting ketchup Gene Simmons style at a talent show in Whitestone to being at the Saturday Night Live performance of Fear to having Bruce Springsteen congratulate him on a good review in Rolling Stone to combing through lyrics at a kitchen table with Lucinda Williams. At the same time we got to play some of his great tunes and hear some of the marvelous new interpretations of his songs. Silver Patron Saints: The Songs of Jesse Malin does what great tribute albums do: It’s a reminder of a lot of great songs and an introduction to a bunch of new versions of them. See you at the Beacon Theatre on December 1st and 2nd.

Jesse Malin radio show on 90.7 FM WFUV – Broadcast 9-10p on 10/14/24
Links below give you the whole show with music and conversation in 2 parts

OR cherry pick below…
Click link to hear song, Click play to hear each interview segment

“Room 13”    Jesse Malin    3:57    Sunset Kids     2019

“New York Comeback”    Lucinda Williams    4:14    Stories from a R&R Heart    2023

“She Don’t Love Me Now”     Bruce Springsteen    3:28   Silver Patron Saints    2024

“Queen of the Underworld”     Jesse Malin    3:53    Fine Art of Self Destruction    2003

“Before You Go”    Jesse Malin    3:46    Sad & Beautiful World   2021

“Brooklyn”   Dinosaur Jr.    4:01    Silver Patron Saints    2024

“Sally Can’t Dance”     Lou Reed    4:13    Sally Can’t Dance    1974

“Turn up the Mains”    Mosshart Morello Gang    3:41     Silver Patron Saints    2024

“Cycles”     Rickie Lee Jones    3:19    It’s Like This    2000

The News: Malin is on the road supporting his latest EP Meet Me At The End Of The World which includes a handful of excellent new originals and a dynamite Big Star cover.  Catch him if you can on a bill with Cheap Trick at the Capitol Theatre on November 18th.

“We always liked bands that had melodic kind of pop songs; groups like The Replacements and Cheap Trick and T-Rex.  You’re taking something really nasty with the melody and the two are fighting against each other and you get something out of it.   Some of our favorite bands live always had a little more edge than their records.  They stepped it up, the rawness, the underproduction of a live show…”      -Jesse Malin

Sitting down with Jesse Malin, Danny Sage, and Howie Pyro shortly before they took the stage at Irving Plaza last summer, I asked  if they had any rituals that they employed while writing the first new D Generation album in seventeen years.  Jesse immediately countered with,  “Is fighting a ritual?”  There then are the twin tensions, musical and interpersonal, that are the heartbeat of this essential New York City band.

Even though they broke up in ’99, Malin, Sage, and Pyro – along with Richard Bacchus and Michael Wildwood – continued to guest on each other’s albums and remain in each other’s lives.  These were the five who made their self-titled debut in ’94 and whose roots together went back to Queens in the early 80s.  Malin and Sage, based in the Whitestone neighborhood, made their first marks on record and on stage together in the hardcore outfit Heart Attack.  The five had done a one-off reunion in 2008 and a tour in 2011/2012.  However sessions for a new record in 2012 with Ryan Adams producing were aborted and months on the calendar kept flipping by.

Nothing Is Anywhere was recorded in the most appropriate place imaginable, a bar in the East Village.  A tiny studio exists within Hifi on Avenue A and that’s where the fellows captured tracks.  It was done with a lot of bleed and a lot of blood as Sage, who produced it, remarked.  Malin noted that they had learned a lot from guys like Ric Ocasek and Tony Visconti (who produced No Lunch and Through The Darkness respectively) but getting back to the garage so to speak resulted in something more raw and more real.  The tracks recorded at Hifi were originally planned to be demos but Sage, working with the group’s front of house engineer Mark Lewis, recognized the album was done and that it’s what we’ve been waiting for.

I had a chance to speak with Jesse Malin in 2015 as he released his album, New York Before The War.  That interview is spread out over the two videos below; the first is the TV piece that ran to announce the album and preview a show, the second a brilliant rant about New York…

Go to #6 The Bad Plus

D Generation Celebrate Comeback Album At Irving Plaza – July 30, 2016

“We always liked bands that had melodic kind of pop songs; groups like The Replacements and Cheap Trick and T-Rex. You’re taking something really nasty with the melody and the two are fighting against each other and you get something out of it. Some of our favorite bands live always had a little more edge than their records. They stepped it up, the rawness, the underproduction of a live show…” – Jesse Malin

Sitting down with Jesse Malin, Danny Sage, and Howie Pyro shortly before they took the stage at Irving Plaza on Saturday, I asked if they had any rituals that they employed while writing the first new D Generation album in seventeen years. Jesse immediately countered with, “Is fighting a ritual?” There then are the twin tensions, musical and interpersonal, that are the heartbeat of this essential New York City band.

Even though they broke up in ’99, Malin, Sage, and Pyro – along with Richard Bacchus and Michael Wildwood – continued to guest on each other’s albums and remain in each other’s lives. These were the five who made their self-titled debut in ’94 and whose roots together went back to Queens in the early 80s. Malin and Sage, based in the Whitestone neighborhood, made their first marks on record and on stage together in the hardcore outfit Heart Attack. The five had done a one-off reunion in 2008 and a tour in 2011/2012. However sessions for a new record in 2012 with Ryan Adams producing were aborted and months on the calendar kept flipping by.

The new album was recorded in the most appropriate place imaginable, a bar in the East Village. A tiny studio exists within Hifi on Avenue A and that’s where the fellows captured, Nothing is Anywhere. It was done with a lot of bleed and a lot of blood as Sage, who produced it, remarked. Malin noted that they had learned a lot from guys like Ric Ocasek and Tony Visconti (who produced No Lunch and Through The Darkness respectively) but getting back to the garage so to speak resulted in something more raw and more real. The tracks recorded at Hifi were originally planned to be demos but Sage, working with the group’s front of house engineer Mark Lewis, recognized the album was done and that it’s what we’ve been waiting for.

New York Before The War is Jesse Malin’s first record in 5 years.  The quintessential New York rocker spoke to me about it and let me roll some video on his mean band in their Lower East Side practice space.  He’s at the Bowery Ballroom next Saturday…

You don’t have to be a Jesse Malin fan to appreciate this interview although it might make you one of the veteran rocker – only someone who loves New York…

While raising dough for Little Kids Rock, a nonprofit music education charity, Cheap Trick, Billie Joe Armstrong, and Alice Cooper lead an astonishing parade of artists singing the songs of Joan Jett – sometimes with JJ herself.