No amount of bloggy rapture from here or other local outlets can save a promising local band from the usual frustration and wanderlust. And so it goes that Stonefox, the Boca-based trio (and sometimes foursome) over which I've publicly geeked out, is likely no more.
The band has already been a bit geographically fractured -- that fourth guy, bassist Ross Fuentes, has always lived in Atlanta. But now he, and most dramatically, singer/guitarist Jordan Asher Cruz, are decamping to Brooklyn (where else?) within the next two months. The other half of the band, drummer Jeff Rose and guitarist Dave Barnard, have no immediate plans to follow.
"The fact that I'm all the way down here and so far removed from the rest of the fucking country boils my blood," says Asher Cruz. "I've been talking to my other bandmates about moving for about 4 years, and it consumes my mind anytime shit slows down here. There's only so many times you can play the Poorhouse, there's only so many times you can play Propaganda, or Respectable's or anywhere else."
Don't take him as an ingrate, though. "I love and appreciate my bandmates, and love and appreciate the fans who have developed into a humbling and amazing following over the past two years in Stonefox. I don't regret a single day in this band, and to this day it is the best band I've ever been a part of," he says. "[But] I have to throw caution to the wind and make a huge leap of faith in my life."
The frontman says he and Fuentes already have tentative plans to start a new band in New York. Rose says he will be joining an already established local act -- it's undergoing a name change, so he prefers not to divulge. Barnard, meanwhile, is "doing his thing," Rose says. "It is unfortunate the way things are turning out, but who knows, this may not be the ultimate end for Stonefox."
Tonight's show at the Fort Lauderdale venue 1921 is billed as the band's tentative send-off -- but there may be another gig or two planned in South Florida before Asher Cruz's ultimate move. Still, about which local rock and roll bands will we now wax ecstatically on this blog?! Someone please rush to fill in the tightly honed, garage-blues-rock gap. Stat.
Stonefox. Friday, January 22. 1921, 1921 S. Federal Hwy., Fort Lauderdale. Show starts at 10 p.m., admission is $5 or free with a donation of three canned goods for Haiti. Ages 18+ with ID. (No other info right now on the venue, sorry.)
