The Modulators stand together at The Cavern in Liverpool.
IRVINGTON — The Modulators were New Jersey’s hottest power pop band in the early 1980s.
They performed at legendary nightclubs like The Meadowbrook where music lovers could go to see original music by big names. The Modulators would be there one night, Cyndi Lauper or John Bongiovi—later known as Jon Bon Jovi—would be there the next.
Joe Riccardello, founder of The Modulators, was born in Orange and grew up in Irvington. And he says he would not trade it for anything in the world.
“Growing up in Irvington was great,” he said. “I went to grammar school and high school there.” He even wrote a few stories for The Irvington Herald.
He came from a blue-collar family and remembered his father singing in the shower.
“He could sing Sinatra,” said Riccardello, who got into music at the age of 6 or 7. “I was a Beatles fanatic from day one.”
During his time in high school Riccardello mostly played in cover bands. Then he started to work at Vintage Vinyl in Irvington, and that’s when he became more aware of original music.
“Most of the bands at the time, they were all cover bands,” he said. “I’m not knocking it; those guys were pulling in crowds.” He talked about Mother’s nightclub in Wayne. The cover bands who performed there were huge.
“I had just gotten out of a cover band thing,” he said. “I was burnt out. I didn’t want to play out.”
While working at Vintage Vinyl, the owner Rob Roth was writing lyrics and asked Riccardello to put music to them. After writing a few songs they went into the studio.
“I didn’t have money to record,” said Riccardello, “but Rob was gung-ho about writing. He was a tremendous lyricist. It was just he and I, working in the store. When it was dead, we’d write. He and I wrote 60 or 70 songs.”
The pair went into a hole-in-the-wall 4-track studio in Irvington, which enabled Riccardello to play all the instruments, one at a time. “It came out pretty good,” he said.
Riccardello is a guitar player and could also play bass and drums.
Next, they went to an 8-track studio and recorded the single “Girl Trouble” b/w “Amplitude Modulation” (which means AM radio).
After the single was released, they decided to put a band together. Riccardello reached out to people he knew. Mark Higgins was a constant in The Modulators, while over the years they went through a couple drummers and bassists.
They began playing at The Dirt Club in Bloomfield and had a song “Down at the Dirt” released on The Dirt Club album. The song got airplay on WDHA. Around this time Riccardello and Higgins were joined by drummer Mark Westlake and they were a trio—with Riccardello on bass and lead vocals; and Higgins on guitar.
The Modulators went on to bigger venues like The Meadowbrook, Kenny’s Castaways, and The Bitter End in New York City. They did a bunch of shows with Jersey’s own The Smithereens.
When their single “She’s So Cynical” came out in 1982, it opened more doors for the band. Their music was popular on WLIR in Long Island.
During this time, they got a letter from A&M records saying, “Your single is the buzz of our office. Please send more
material.”
The Modulators went back into the studio. But by the time they sent their new material to A&M, the person who contacted them was no longer there.
Nevertheless, it was an exciting time.
“We were playing all over the place,” said Riccardello.
Eventually by 1985, things started to wane. “Some of the original clubs were drying up,” Riccardello said. “We started to play more covers. We morphed into a cover band.”
Then Higgins and Westlake had kids.
“We started going into the real world,” said Riccardello.
But they never stopped playing throughout the ’80s and ’90s. “Parties, low-key stuff,” said Riccardello.
In 2009 Riccardello was contacted by David Bash, CEO and founder of International Pop Overthrow Music Festival, who asked The Modulators to reform and play an original show in NYC.
Then in 2010, Bash invited them to play at the Cavern Club in Liverpool.
“It was a whirlwind,” said Riccardello. “We went to England, played Saturday, Sunday, came home Monday and went back to work.”
Riccardello ended up being an elementary school teacher and is now retired and works at a music school one night a week. Living in Neptune, Riccardello performs as a solo artist playing classic rock cover songs along the Jersey Shore.
“That’s my thing now,” he said.
The Modulators long-awaited second album “Try, Try, Try” was released in 2015. And in 2019 Omnia Music re-issued their first album.
“They put together a beautiful package with liner notes, a fold-out booklet, really well done” said Riccardello. “That is a beautiful job they did. I was knocked out. Way nicer than the original.”
Riccardello feels very fortunate. “We were lucky we got to do some things,” he said. “I can’t think of anything bad.”
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