That level of excitement is only going to increase with the band’s SideOneDummy debut, THE ‘59 SOUND. Whereas last year’s full-length SINK OR SWIM (XOXO Records) was recorded in under two weeks, for THE ‘59 SOUND the band—which also features bassist Alex Levine, drummer Benny Horowitz and guitarist Alex Rosamilia—spent six weeks in the studio with producer and former Flogging Molly guitarist Ted Hutt (Chuck Ragan, The Bouncing Souls) to craft an album that reconciles the band’s love for classic rock and soul icons such as Bruce Springsteen, Otis Redding and Tom Petty with their New Jersey punk roots to create a unique musical amalgam that transcends genres and stereotypes. “Making this record was a completely different recording process than anything we’ve ever done before,” Horowitz explains. “It’s the first time we ever worked with a producer and I think we all had to get used to that, but it allowed us to do a ton of stuff that we wouldn’t have tried before.”

However, despite the professional set-up that went into making THE ‘59 SOUND, the disc retains the band’s dynamic and youthful live energy, which has become a hallmark of the band’s performance style. “We tried to make these songs feel as alive as possible and approach it like we were writing a set list,” Fallon describes. “Instead of thinking about it like writing a record, we just wanted to write the coolest live songs that we could. We wrote this record with the intention of playing it live and it’s really a preview of seeing us onstage,” he adds. The result is an album that is so timeless that it could have been recorded in 1978 or 2008, eschewing distorted guitars and endless layering in favor of carefully arranged tracks that were painstakingly thought out and flawlessly executed.

Correspondingly, from the anthemic rallying cry of title track “The ’59 Sound” and the arena-ready syncopated rocker “Miles Davis & The Cool,” to stripped-down ballads such as “Here’s Looking At You, Kid” and the neo-soul crooner “Even Cowgirls Get The Blues,” THE ‘59 SOUND is far and away the most adventurous release in the band’s short but prolific career, picking up exactly where the band’s recent Señor And The Queen EP left off. “When I was a little kid listening to Springsteen I remember thinking these aren’t songs, these are gigantic rides you went on—and I thought if I could even attempt to do that that would be excellent, so that’s what we tried to do this time around,” Fallon says, noting that aside from The Boss, The Gaslight Anthem were highly influenced by classic soul artists like Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye and Sam Cooke, each of whom are directly referenced in the mythology of THE ‘59 SOUND.

Lyrically, Fallon isn’t afraid to wear his influences on his tattooed sleeves, and his growth as a songwriter is evident in the way he’s been able to step outside of himself on THE ‘59 SOUND. “I’m actually telling a few stories about some of my friends this time around because it fits in with this theme of growing up and stepping into adulthood,” Fallon explains. “Some of my friends are having kids, some are getting married, some are getting divorced,” he says, adding that like many songwriters, when he writes in the first-person it isn’t necessarily about him. “This was the first time any of us had gone through these things in life and I kept talking to them on the phone and all these things came out. I felt like I should tell their stories instead of just my own, because after you write so many songs you get bored writing about yourself.”

This summer the band has already completed headline tours of Europe and Australia, as well as a string of Warped Tour dates. September 2008 will see them headlining around the Eastern US, followed by joining Rise Against, Alkaline Trio and Thrice on an extensive tour of North America throughout October and November.

Unlike a lot of today’s rock sensations, The Gaslight Anthem aren’t going to take a single second of their ride for granted. “We’re not that young and we’ve already had our hands in the real world, working terrible jobs,” Horowitz explains, adding that The Gaslight Anthem’s line-up has never changed, and that there’s a bond between all of them that’s difficult to describe. “We didn’t go straight from underground music to this fantasy world of being a professional musician, we all did the other side and didn’t like it,” he summarizes, sounding palpably excited. “If this is in front of us and this is actually possible, well that’s the best thing in the world, you know,” he adds with a grin, “and we’ll smile every time we play, that’s a fact.”

The first several years after the band’s formation were spent in relative obscurity; however, they began to see a drastic spike in popularity between 2003 and 2006 thanks in large part to very favorable reviews from prominent music publications such as NME and Pitchfork Media. They were also the subject of an episode of the MTV2 documentary series This Is Our Music in 2006. The song “Collarbone” has been featured in ads for both Jaguar’s 2007 “Gorgeous” campaign as well as Miller Lite’s “Bar Stool” directed by Tarsem Singh.

The current members of the band are:

Steve Lewis (Fujiya): 2000–present (synths, beats, programming and backing vocals)
David Best (Miyagi): 2000–present (vocals and guitar)
Matt Hainsby (Ampersand): 2005–present (bass guitar and backing vocals)
Lee Adams: 2008–present (drums)

The story of how they met and formed the band variously reports a mutual hero-worship of world heavyweight wrestler Kendo Nagasaki, and a shared interest in krautrock and early-nineties electronica discovered while warming the subs bench during Sunday league football.

Fujiya & Miyagi recorded the track Butterfingers with Bomb the Bass for the latter’s 2008 album, Future Chaos. The song was Bomb the Bass’ second single from the longplayer, released on 12″ vinyl and in download stores on 3 November (or 25 November in the USA) through !K7 Records. The song’s video, which features a puppet keyboard, had been released onto the internet many months before the single release, and had in February 2009 been viewed over 500,000 times on Youtube.

History

Originally formed in 2003 while the members attended SUNY Purchase, the band— with Jamie on guitar and vocals, Gabe Darling on banjo, David Rogers-Berry on drums, Jesse Newman on bass, and Bob Pycior on fiddle—played a series of shows at the now defunct Apocalypse Lounge in NYC, and quickly began building a fanbase with their reverently twisted take on Americana filtered through a wealth of musical influences as divergent as Bill Monroe, Prince, Neil Young, The Microphones, and The Misfits. For these shows, O’Death put together a very raw, 10-track CD-R, entitled Carl Nemelka Family Photographs, to sell to concert-goers.
As O’Death worked on new material for their second, self-released LP, Head Home, the five-piece perfected their stage show. They played over 100 shows in 2006[citation needed], and took the stage alongside acts including Battles, Dr. Dog, Art Brut, Langhorne Slim, The Big Sleep, and Old Time Relijun.

The band’s nonstop touring caught the attention of the New York-based Ernest Jenning Record Co., who re-released Head Home in June 2007. Later that Summer, UK-based label City Slang released Head Home in Europe.

O’Death continued to tour the US and Europe throughout 2007, putting out a limited edition (500 copies) vinyl version of Head Home on Ernest Jenning Record Co./City Slang, followed by a 7” single of two new songs, “Low Tide” and “I Think I’m Fine,” as well as a cover of The Pixies’ “Nimrod’s Son” as an internet bonus track. Head Home was nominated for a 2007 Shortlist Prize.

On February 5, 2008, Gigantic Music released a new 7”, which features songs “Spider Home” and “Silk Hole”.
The band also participated on Vincent Moon’s The Take-Away Shows and a Ukulele Session for the Belgian newspaper Le Soir, recorded by Noahm in their studio (New York).

Band Members

Bob Pycior (fiddle)
Gabe Darling (banjo, ukulele)
Greg Jamie (vocals, guitar)
David Rogers-Berry (drums)
Jesse Newman (bass)
Dan Sager

“The rhythm is what our band is about,” Bernard enthuses. “We write with rhythm and dancing in mind.” Launched with the “The Plank,” an ode to meeting one’s maker, The DMT’s infectious amalgam of styles talks the talk and it walks the walk right out of the starting gate.
jimmy

From the outfit’s badass, backporch blues ode “Ten Feet Tall” – which is alive with three-part harmonies – to “Shades,” a wry look at barstool hugging daytime drunks, Pete, Lucia and Cooper create music that is pleasingly dissimilar to most other bands in modern music. Early critical praise of its self-produced recorded entry has earned comparisons to the likes of The Violent Femmes, Steve Earle and The White Stripes.

“I grew up listening to a lot of old blues music when I was young,” explains Pete, who was raised in rural Vermont and first befriended McBean in the eighth grade. “He was the only person I knew who was into the same style, although he leaned more toward the country side of things. When we started out playing, we were doing punk and rock.”

Fast forward a decade as The Devil Makes Three took shape in Santa Cruz, California. Pete moved west right out of high school with Cooper soon following suit. After first settling Olympia, Washington and playing in an ill-fated band, McBean – who by now had the name of his home state tattooed across his neck – again joined musical forces with Bernhard. In turn, they later teamed with New Hampshire-native and U.C. Santa Cruz attendee Lucia.

A spiritual fit, her enthusiasm made up of for her initial lack of ability. “Lucia had always wanted to play bass,” says Pete. “Cooper and I had already rented a stand-up bass for the group. And the main reason we were really excited about letting her give it a shot was because she didn’t know how to do anything we didn’t want her to do. And our music is simple, so the last thing that we wanted was someone who was overplaying for fear it would ruin the songs. She wound up learning really quickly, and it wasn’t long before she surpassed us.”

With the goal of being “an acoustic band but to play our shows like a rock show,” the band changed notions of what acoustic music could be. “A lot of it is really calm, and performances are sort of a ‘sit down, don’t talk, don’t move’ kind of an event. Thinking back to the old blues, ragtime and jug band music, it was house music, party music. That was what we wanted to do. And there really aren’t any other bands doing that.”
louie

That festive spirit carries forth to the live favorite “Old Number Seven,” a blistering homage to Jack Daniels Whiskey. “I didn’t set out to write about a particular product, but it just came to me. I had the chord progression, and the next thing you know I was singing.” More cerebral, but no less celebratory is the upbeat “Beneath the Piano.” Written about a New Year’s Party he attended back east, Pete says, “A bunch of people just wound up getting totally wasted and passing out under the piano. And I was one of those people. So that gave the chorus its life.”

If the equally eerie and pensive “Graveyard” is elevated by exquisite finger-picking, and matched by Bernhard’s haunting, soulful delivery of lines like, “Just leanin’ on my shovel in this graveyard of dreams”, “The Bullet” balances a punky feel with a noticeable affinity for Bob Dylan.

“It’s a traditional story-song,” Pete says of the tune, which is loosely based on the idea of Mississippi John Hurt’s “Stagger Lee”. “I wanted to try character writing. While most of my songs come from my experiences, that one doesn’t. But it’s the story of a criminal. I knew a couple of people who had been in jail. Their mentality afterwards was that they never wanted to go back. It didn’t reform them, but made them into more of a die hard, suicidal kind of criminal, who would rather die than end up incarcerated again.”

Speaking of Hurt, his immeasurable influence over the band is fully realized on The Devil Makes Three via one of four new bonus tracks. Of his trio’s forceful rendition of his American Blues staple “Nobody’s Dirty Business,” Bernhard says, “He was one of the great finger-pickers I loved. We were actually lucky enough to have recorded that while we were on tour in France.”

While McBean takes inspiration from folk fixture The Reverend Gary Davis, Doc Watson and axe-wielding guitar gods The Fucking Champs, and Turino counts Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, The Pixies and Gillian Welch, Bernhard was heavily swayed by the art of Lightnin’ Hopkins, the aforementioned Dylan, Tom Waits and Robert Johnson. The end result is genuine blues music that thrives as much in a live setting as it does on The Devil Makes Three.
from thuh back

“We play mainly rock venues where it’s not seated,” Pete explains. “Everybody dances. And except for the instrumentation and the fact that we don’t have a drummer, it’s pretty much like a rock gig. It can get pretty crazy, people are dancing and drinking and yelling. And that’s the way we like it.”

Proof that mayhem can be found without a drummer, Bernhard adds, “Our thinking is, ‘Let’s get people to have a good time and get together and go crazy.’ And they should treat seeing us like going to a punk rock show, even though it’s something that sounds considerably different.”

Different but alluring and undeniable, as evidenced by the ferocious “Dynamite”, which is upheld by what Bernhard calls, “stream of conscience lyrics,” The Devil Makes Three intend to spread its fiendish blues across the fruited plain in support of its first proper album.

“We thought these recordings are the best representation of what we can do,” Pete says. “And the word is spreading to a vast array of music fans, from Deadheads to punk rockers, bluegrass barflies and beyond.

Of their ability to draw a wide spectrum of fans from all genres and ages, Bernhard says, “I’ve never really understood it, but I’ve always been really happy about it.”

“We’re not really a genre-specific band,” he concludes. “I’ve actually had people come up to me and say, ‘I don’t listen to anything but hip-hop, but I love The Devil Makes Three. So I think we’ve always tried to keep it so you can’t really define our band. That always keeps things really exciting.”

Lucy was born in London, but was raised in Amsterdam and New York City. She has a very musical background: her British father is a composer and conductor and her New Yorker mother is a musicologist and an opera singer. Lucy attended a public high school in the Bronx. She started off singing in jazz cafes and singing for tips or dinner. “You sing with a piano player and a tip jar on top of the piano,” she said in an interview on NZGirl. With a unique sound, the artist contributes some of her influences to singers Etta James and Betty Hutton.

In 2005, Woodward proved there is life after labels when she won a BMI Pop Award for writing the hit single “(There’s Gotta Be) More to Life” featured on Stacie Orrico’s self titled album. She also recently appeared on the major motion picture soundtracks ‘What a Girl Wants’, ‘Ice Princess’ and collaborated with David Schommer on the soundtrack for ‘Accepted’.

Lucy’s most recent accomplishment is the release of her first independent album: “Lucy Woodward… is Hot and Bothered” which can be heard on iTunes. The single ‘Use What I Got’ has been featured on the 2007 Lifetime Television movie ‘Write and Wrong’ starring Kirstie Alley. The physical CD is exclusively available through Barnes & Noble stores and Barnes & Noble.com.

Influences

Although classically trained, Lucy cites Debbie Gibson as an early influence. “I was amazed that she sang and wrote, and that she had written and produced and played on everything herself. And I was blown away by that.”

One of her early musical influences was her grandmother who used to sing a Yiddish lullaby her kids and grandchildren. Lucy took this melody and made this lullaby into a love song about desire.

Inspired by the likes of Prince, Carole King and Stevie Wonder and musical genres such as Motown, hair metal and classic rock, Ianuzzi is a classically trained pianist and saxophonist who uses her musical inspirations to create witty songs loaded with wordplay and pop-culture references.

Ianuzzi has perfected her live performance after numerous standing room only shows at clubs like Manhattan’s famed Cutting Room, Metropolitan Room, Piano’s and The Canal Room. The show is a heart pounding energetic production in which Lauren not only writes and sings all of her own songs, but she handles all the musical and stage direction of her four piece band.

History

The band’s history stretches back to when banjoist Dave Johnston and mandolinist Jeff Austin were still in college. Having met in Urbana, Illinois, Johnston requested Austin to join and sing in his band The Bluegrassholes. Austin, who played no instrument, revealed to Johnston that he owned a mandolin, who then told him to come to the performance and “play anything, just play fast and loud.”

After the collapse of The Bluegrassholes, Johnston moved to Boulder, Colorado, in order to further his bluegrass musical skills. Similarly, Austin moved to Colorado, but instead took up residence in Nederland. Johnston soon joined him there. It was during this time in Nederland that Johnston and Austin met bassist Ben Kaufmann and guitarist Adam Aijala at a local club named the Verve. In December of 1998, the four musicians formed Yonder Mountain String Band which was to open for a band at the Fox Theatre in Boulder. They have since developed both a bluegrass and jam band fanbase, and can often be found on tour. Their debut album Elevation was released on Frog Pad Records, an independent record label run by the band, in fall 1999.

From 1999 to 2001 they performed as one of the many attractions at NedFest, a music festival held in the band’s hometown. By 2000, the group was also playing larger venues, such as The Fillmore in San Francisco, California. The band has released several live albums with material from live performances, but fans are welcome to record the concert they attend for themselves, as the band is taper-friendly.

In 2008, the band performed at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver.

In February 2009, the group canceled its February Cabin Fever Tour.

Biography

Growing up in a born again Christian family, Walker spent her childhood in Indiana. She attended Avon High School (Indiana) from 1996-2000 in Avon, Indiana with actor Steve Talley. She is the former singer of downtempo electronic group Daughter Darling. Her musical influences include Alison Krauss, Jewel and Beth Orton.

Urban Angel, her solo album debut, was co-written by Walker with producers Dan Chen and Nate Greenberg. Walker has said that she wanted each song to be unforgettable.

Natalie’s second album, With You is a marked sign of maturity from this former lead singer of Daughter Darling. It was produced by the Brooklyn-based Stuhr – the same duo that produced her debut. “A sophomore record is really tough,” Walker admits. “I had no idea how difficult it would be. I know I wanted give myself some room to experiment with a lighter and more upbeat sound, but it was really challenging for me to keep things simple. I wanted to force myself to get out of my comfort zone – and I did.”

Albums

Walker’s first album as a solo singer has been the acclaimed Urban Angel. A Billboard copy-editor said of the album, “A hypnotic undercurrent lingers beneath her music’s drowsy sensuality.” Songs from the album include “No One Else”, “Quicksand”, and “Circles”. “Circles” featured in a fourth season episode of Grey’s Anatomy. Thievery Corporation’s remix of “Quicksand” has been featured in Sofia Coppola’s “Marie Antoinette”.

She released her sophomore album With You on August 19, 2008 featuring tracks such as “Over and Under”, “Empty Road”, “Monarch”, “By and By”, and “With You”. Her latest EP Live At the Bunker on January 28, 2009. Songs from With You have been featured on 90210 (“With You”, September 30, 2008), MTV’s The City (“With You”, January 5, 2009), and Smallville (“Empty Road”, January 29, 2009).

Jonah Smith (born in 1975 in Syracuse, New York) is an American musician.
Recorded his first indie album “Industry Rule” in 2000 at engineer Matt Stein’s studio in New York. The album was completed in under a week and featured Jonah’s regular line up of musicians for the next several years: Marko Djordjevic – drums, Bob Reynolds – sax, Ben Rubin – bass and David Soler – guitar, pedal steel guitar as well as harmony vocals by Maya Azucena, a frequent guest at his live shows. The sound of the album was a mixture of soul, jazz and country and the material was mostly inspired by Smith’s recent move to New York to pursue music. The album was well received by the New York press and soon led to a regular spot at the famed 55 Bar after Jonah was discovered by its owner, Queva Lutz. Coinciding with Smith’s gaining stature in New York was the band’s popularity in Spain due to the influence of guitarist, David Soler. Soon Smith and his band were touring regularly in Spain as well as on the East Coast of the United States.
In 2003 after a fair amount of touring Smith returned to the studio to record his follow up, “Beneath the Underdog” with co producer, Jason Olaine. This album refined Smith’s sound a bit further weaning out most of the jazz influence in favor of a more rootsy rock sound. The line up of the band, however, remained intact. The album was again well received by critics but failed to get Smith a wider audience.
In 2004, Smith entered his song “Tell it to the Mountain” from his album “Beneath the Underdog” into a songwriting contest held by Relix Magazine. The song won and Smith was invited to play at a showcase in New York where he met the owner of Relix Magazine, Steve Bernstein. Their relationship continued when Bernstein decided to relaunch Relix Records – a label that had long been dormant. Smith was the first artist signed to the new Relix Records.
In 2006, Relix Records released Jonah Smith, the self-titled “debut”. It was produced by Lee Townsend and featured the same line up as the other two albums with the addition of guests like Garth Hudson of The Band,Carrie Rodriguez and the Mason Brothers. Starting that year and into 2007, Smith embarked on several cross-country tours in the United States as well as an extended tour in Spain. He landed the opening spot for several well known artists including Madeleine Peyroux, Little Feat, Martin Sexton, Taj Mahal, the Subdudes, James Hunter and others. The tracks “My Morning Scene” and “When We Say Goodnight” received heavy airplay at many triple A radio stations in the US as well as Satellite radio. In early 2007, “My Morning Scene” won in The 6th Annual Independent Music Awards for Best Folk/Singer-Songwriter Song. Around this time, guitarist Andy Stack became a regular in his working group. This record, being the first promoted on a national scale, gained Smith a wider audience and landed him a spot at 2007’s Bonnaroo Festival in Manchester, TN. and the Langerado Festival in South Florida in March of ‘08