Glenn Morrow needs no introduction to music fans.
With his band "a," he helped launch the Hoboken music scene of the '80s by being the first group to perform at Maxwell's. Later, with the Individuals and Rage to Live and as the owner of Bar/None Records (which recently celebrated its 30th anniversary), Morrow has remained a vital part of the Mile Square City's pop culture. But for the last few decades, his influence was mostly felt behind the scenes, not on stage.
It was the sale of Maxwell's in 2013 -- when Morrow performed reunion gigs with the Individuals and "a" as part of the club's farewell festivities -- that planted the seed for what would become Glenn Morrow's Cry For Help.
The new group, which includes Human Switchboard's Ron Metz on drums and former Maxwell's doorman Mike Rosenberg on bass, will celebrate the release of an eponymous debut album with a slew of local appearances, including a slot at the Hoboken Spring Arts & Music Festival on Sunday, June 11, an acoustic set at Hoboken's Little City Books on Thursday, June 22, and an album release show at Manhattan's Hi-Fi Bar (formerly Brownie's) on Wednesday, June 28.
"I never really stopped writing songs or thinking about the idea of performing again," Morrow said. "Every so often I'd try something and it just wouldn't feel right. But then after the closing of Maxwell's -- or the semi-closing, as it turned out, when Todd Abramson and Dave Post sold the place -- I got to live out all my fantasies of playing with my first band 'a' again and also the Individuals. After that, I was able to put my past behind me and suddenly the thought dawned on me, 'Well, now what?' And I suddenly really felt this urge to move forward."
Morrow said it came as a surprise that he found himself writing songs at a furious clip for the first time in ages, and he decided to find some old friends who might want to play and record the new songs.
"Everybody in this band is someone I've known 25 years or more," Morrow said. "And it all sort of came together very quickly. I guess guys our age could just have decided to do a bowling night once a week, but instead we put the band back together."
"Glenn Morrow's Cry For Help," which will be released by Rhyme & Reason Records on June 23, finds Morrow in fine voice, working from the same template of melodic indie-pop that informed his work with the Individuals and Rage to Live.
"I really can't pretend I'm doing anything unique," Morrow said of his return to live performance. "There are a lot of people from my generation who are still playing in bands, especially here in New Jersey, and I think there's a reason for that. When we were growing up, music was very important to us. There weren't all of the other distractions that kids have today, from iPhones to video games. It was a different time and music -- especially the album format -- was the big new thing and the artistic format that people really embraced. So you find a lot of us who grew up in the '70s still making music, or going out to see music. There are so many people I know from the early days of playing music in my 20s who are still out there, either checking out music or making music."
No band embodies that aesthetic more than the Feelies, who record for Morrow's Bar/None label and, now in their 60s, continue to perform at the highest level of their career and release meaningful new albums. So the question becomes, why isn't Morrow releasing his own music on his label?
"Emmy (Black) from Rhyme and Reason, who shares office space with us, heard the record and was really excited about it, and asked me if she could put it out," Morrow said. "I guess it's really a sort of co-release, since I put money into the recording of it. But as someone who works putting out records, it really made sense for me to be working on the Bar/None artists and not have to worry about a lot of the day to day decisions with my own record.
"Besides," Morrow added, "Emmy and her team bring a fresh perspective and excitement that I might not have. They've come up with some marketing ideas that I never would have thought of. And the other thing is that if I put out the album on Bar/None, I'd probably feel guilty about spending time and resources on it when I could be promoting the other artists I'm working with. It can be a little schizophrenic working your own record, so it's really working out a lot better this way."
Morrow noted that while he never stopped performing altogether -- doing the occasional reunion or benefit performance over the years -- the fact that he hasn't spent decades touring steadily has paid off.
"The fact that I haven't been abusing my voice every night for years on end means that whatever kind of instrument I had, it's still there," he said. "It still sounds pretty good to me so I'm happy. And this whole project, working with these old friends as my band, is really a lot of fun."
Morrow noted that the decades he spent finding and cultivating new artists for his label, as well as just broadening his own listening tastes, has paid off in his songwriting.
"I definitely have to more to pull from now," he said. "More knowledge. So much more music has inspired me, from newer forms of music but also going back and really understanding where the music I like came from. I have a much better grasp of blues and early country and that kind of thing than I did in my twenties, when I was pretty much just reacting to the music I heard around me. There's so much to listen to, and with today's technology, like Spotify, it's so easy to find music to pull from and be inspired by and learn from."
Over the years, Morrow has brushed up against pop success; Bar/None broke They Might Be Giants in the '80s, released albums by Of Montreal and Yo La Tengo, and more recently helped launch New Jersey's The Front Bottoms to a major label career. But he's also seen the decline of the music industry from a front row seat.
So in 2017, with a new band to promote and a label to maintain, how does he feel about the future of music?
"In many ways, it does feel like rock is dead and pop music has moved into a more electronic, hip-hop based thing, as opposed to the culture being moved by rock 'n' roll," Morrow replied. "But then you get a bunch of kids banging on guitars and somebody's figured out some new angle and rock 'n' roll is back. I'm curious to see when and if that happens. There are always ideas out there that start out very underground one day and then wind up surprising everybody, and down the road those underground ideas become mainstream."
Glenn Morrow's Cry For Help Upcoming Shows:
Sunday, June 11 - Hoboken Music and Arts Festival, Hoboken
Friday, June 16 - Stoch's, 18-15 Maple Ave., Fair Lawn, with Fairmont
Wednesday, June 21 - Groove on Grove, PATH Plaza, 325 Grove St., Jersey City
Thursday, June 22 - Little City Books, 100 Bloomfield St., Hoboken (Record Release Party)
Wednesday, June 28 - Hi Fi Bar, 169 Avenue A, New York (Record Release Party)
Wednesday, Aug. 23 - Church Square Park, Fourth Street and Willow Avenue, Hoboken