Chris Brown, Neighbor

I am the owner of Center Stage Music Lessons in Scotch Plains, NJ.  We are located at 2014 US HWY 22 East, Scotch Plains.  We are accessible from Scotland Street, off Mountain Avenue in the same building as Scoops Ice Cream.

I've lived in Scotch Plains now for around  4 1/2 years, having been raised as a kid in Westfield and then in high school to Basking Ridge. I am also a guitarist in Brother John Brown, a Union county based cover band of 60's and 70's rock and pop music.  

We offer lessons in Guitar, piano, voice, drums, bass guitar, harmonica, Cajun fiddle and beginner ukulele. 

Please give us a call and get your musical needs met today!

908-288-7494

You can find more information and teacher profiles on:

<strong>website</strong>: www.centerstagemusicnj.com

<strong>HQ</strong>: http://hqchannel.com/organizations/centerstagemusiclessons   

<strong>Facebook</strong>: Center Stage Music Lessons

<strong>emai</strong>l:  centerstagemusicnj&#64;hotmail.com

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Here&#39;s an article patch wrote on the band:

Band Works to Keep &#39;60s and &#39;70s Sounds Alive

Brother John Brown has been playing together since 2002.

By Chuck Beardsley | new   

Let’s start with the hard facts: Brother John Brown is a cover band. There, we said it. Please keep reading.<br> The fact is, there can be a bit of shame for those in a cover band. For one, there are a lot of them out there, and people sometimes look askance when they ask a cover band if they play their own music, only to hear “No, we only do covers.”<br> “It’s really true—when people ask you if you do any originals, you’re always a little embarrassed when you say no. It’s like they’re saying well, ‘I guess you don’t have any ambition.’ But I have my own ideas,” said Chris Brown, guitarist and vocalist for local &#39;60s cover band Brother John Brown.<br> To be sure, the difficulty of being in a cover band is that it it’s not easy for a band to play beloved music that we all know, while also putting their own personal style and spin on it.<br> Brother John Brown has managed to successfully do so, though, and they’ve been working hard in the Scotch Plains area since 2002 to entertain people with the music they love.<br> “When you’re playing covers, you have to really work hard to entertain people, because they know the songs already,” Brown told Patch. “All you have is that music, and a hundred other bands who play the same music. So, we have to try harder. “<br> Brown says it’s an unspoken dynamic within the band that they are trying to entertain,  while also trying to put their own personal touch on a song.<br> “When you play music with other people there is a spiritual bond, there’s something that’s unspoken, definitely some kind of spiritual union,&#34; Brown said. &#34;That’s why it&#39;s so painful when bands break up. And we’ve gone through some hard times when we weren’t speaking to each other much. But, we get up and that’s where we speak—we speak to each other on how we interact musically.”<br> Brown is a Scotch Plains resident who is living his dream, making a living playing and teaching music. He grew up in Westfield, and began playing in garage bands in and around Union County when he was 12. In his early 20s, he became a born-again Catholic, and joined a Christian rock band called Spirit Song, which was sponsored by his college and toured the Eastern part of the country playing churches and schools.<br> “We received a stipend from the college and some free tuition for playing in the band,” he said. “Then I began to sing more when Karaoke came out.”<br> Karaoke actually helped Brown to improve his singing chops, he says. After a 7-year stint on Wall Street, he returned to his music ambitions to teach guitar. He’s taught guitar for several music shops before finally deciding to open his own shop.

Brother John Brown was formed in Cranford on July 4, 2002, and since then they’ve played over 600 gigs together, including this Sunday&#39;s show at the Riverside Inn Bar in Cranford. They’ll also be playing at the St. Michaels Festival in Cranford in October, and numerous other gigs in and around Union County, including street fairs, bars and clubs on the shore, and even the occasional wedding. The other members of the group include Ed Helmstetter on guitar and vocals, John Rickerhauser on drums, Steve Blaufeder on bass and vocals, and Maria Adubato on acoustic guitar and vocals.<br> Brother John Brown has a slogan: “All the music you grew up with.” That means the band plays &#39;60s and &#39;70s rock/popular music, such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, ZZ Top, Doobie Brothers, Badfinger, and many more.<br> “People who come to see us know the songs—and like to hear the songs they want,” Brown said.<br> But like many of the bands of that era—the bands that started live rock and roll—Brother John Brown doesn’t work with a set list. They usually do their entire show on request from the audience.<br> When asked if the band ever gets a request they don’t want to play, Brown named the bar anthem everyone always seems to want to hear: “Freebird” by Lynyrd Skynyrd.<br> “People always request &#39;Freebird,&#39; and usually it’s a joke,” he said. “People just like to yell out &#39;Freebird,&#39; but of course we play it if people really want to hear it.”<br> With such a wide variety of music listed on their website, from Hendrix and the Stones to the Beatles and Dylan, one could wonder how Brother John Brown determines the type of music that they play each night.<br> “It depends on the venue and the mood of the crowd,” Brown said. “If people are yelling out songs, we try to play them. We don’t have a set list. I just keep a book next to me to make sure we don’t have any dead air, but we basically try to play whatever the crowd wants.”<br> But with the more gigs they play, and the larger their fan base grows, the more challenging it gets to stay fresh, Brown said.<br> “We’ve played at Crossroads in Cranford 27 times, so we have mix it up,” he said. “We try to keep it very organic.  But, when we’re doing a wedding, you have to really be on your toes to keep it entertaining. Like when you enter a bar and it’s already buzzing, you really have to be on your toes. But when we play on Sunday’s in Cranford at the Riverside Cafe, its very relaxed, it’s a very intimate setting, and we encourage requests. It’s just very laid back. “<br> Brother John Brown is playing at Riverside in Cranford this Sunday from 6 to 9 p.m. For more information, visit www.brotherjohnbrown.com.