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David Elliot and David Stadnicki never expected their little R&B band to end up performing in the presence of Billy Joel. Then again, nothing about the Long Island band was exactly “expected.”
The Shoreham-Wading River locals were not all acquainted with each other back when they formed the band in 1982, but that didn’t matter.
“Some of us knew each other, some of us didn’t,” Mr. Elliot recalled.
“We’d say, ‘Hey, don’t you play saxophone? Come out and play with us,’” Mr. Stadnicki added. “We just picked everybody that knew how to play.”
The band members dubbed themselves “The Hack and Sack Men,” a nod to hacky sack, a game they used to play together. After being confused countless times with the town in New Jersey, the group ended up giving in and changing its name to “The Hackensack Men,” which came with a story of its own.
“There’s the real story, and then there’s the story where we all met at the Vince Lombardi rest stop on the New Jersey Turnpike,” Mr. Elliot laughed. “That’s the story people know.”
The band grew to feature 11 people after adding in a variety of horn instruments like trumpet, trombone and saxophone to the mix. Playing into the story of their New Jersey “roots,” they added “The Trenton Horns” to the group’s name.
Several members of The Hackensack Men and The Trenton Horns are East End teachers, including Mr. Elliot, who teaches instrumental music at Bridgehampton High School. The group’s pianist, James Tartaglia, teaches vocal music at Southampton High School, and guitarist Rich Iannelli teaches science at Hamptons Bays High School. Other band members include Greg Reilly on bass, Wayne Sebasto on drums, Tim Carssera on trombone, Mike Particone and Steve Muller on tenor saxophone and Melissa Cole-Miller on vocals.
“It’s great playing with the band and then also being able to teach it to the kids,” Mr. Elliot said.
During the early days, the group performed at Phil’s in Wading River, though it was called the Judge’s Hotel and Convention Center at the time. Known as the local dive bar, on weekend nights it would be “absolutely packed,” according to Mr. Stadnicki and Mr. Elliot, who are the band’s last remaining original members.
“We had just performed at a party one night and we stopped [at Phil’s] and said to the bartender, ‘Do you mind if we play?’ He said, ‘I don’t care, go ahead,’” Mr. Stadnicki recalled. “So we brought everything in and the people there got a kick out of it. Then we realized that maybe we could do this.”
During their 35-year tenure, The Hackensack Men and The Trenton Horns have played at venues like The Suffolk Theater in Riverhead, where they were the first band to perform, Governors Island, the New York Marriott Marquis in Manhattan and in the blue whale room of the American Museum of Natural History, to name a few. Locally, the band plays regularly at Long Island staples such as Rocky Point Ale House, the Port Jefferson Moose Lodge, Buckley’s Inn Between and, their personal favorite, the Stephen Talkhouse, where they will perform on Thursday, June 27.
“Every performance, including the one coming up, we look forward to,” Mr. Elliot said. “It’s one of our favorite places to play of all time.”
“We grew up going there to see people like Leon Russell, so it’s fun performing there and rubbing elbows with some of the big boys,” Mr. Stadnicki added.
It was at the Stephen Talkhouse where the band looked out into the audience and saw Billy Joel, who has performed at the venue himself.
“That was probably one of the most memorable nights at the Talkhouse, to look down while I’m playing and see Billy Joel watching,” Mr. Elliot said.
The band’s set list consists of a mix of well-known covers as well as their original songs, which Mr. Elliot and Mr. Stadnicki believe attracts listeners of all ages.
“You’ll have the people that are 50 or 60 who know what we play because that’s their kind of music, then the rest of the club will be packed with people under 30,” Mr. Elliot explained. “I just think that if it’s played well and there’s energy coming from the stage, the audience is going to fall in love with it.”
The Hackensack Men and The Trenton Horns return to the Stephen Talkhouse in Amagansett on Thursday, June 27, for a 10 p.m. show. Tickets are $10 at stephentalkhouse.com.
Staff Writer on Jun 17, 2019