Tag: rock

Categories
Features

Photo of the Week: Gaslight Anthem

Photo Credit: Wendy Hu

From the moment the Gaslight Anthem took the stage at New York City’s Irving Plaza the energy in the room skyrocketed. The day of their record release for new album American Slang, the New Jersey quartet demonstrated what a rock show should be. As fans clapped along at the right moment on every song, singing word for word and creating havoc by dancing and crowd-surfing in a mosh pit on the floor, the excitement of the sold-out show was evident.

For my complete review with additional photos, visit Venus Zine.

Categories
Concert Reviews

Gaslight Anthem at Radio City: A Review

Photo Credit: Tony Cano

New Jersey favorites the Gaslight Anthem packed Radio City Music Hall Thursday night for a marathon set of nearly two hours. While the band showcased songs from their entire catalogue, their gratitude to fans was apparent as frontman Brian Fallon continually thanked fans when he could find the words.

Shortly after 9 p.m. Radio City went dark while “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” played through the speakers. The band took the stage to screaming fans and powered through “High Lonesome,” “Boxer,” “We Came to Dance” and “The Diamond Church Street Choir,” an impressive variety of songs from their three full length albums before Fallon addressed the crowd for the first time.

“Radio City. We started playing in basements. Elvis might even show up. I know we’re in New York, but I imagine New Jersey is represented in the crowd tonight.”

For the complete review, visit BumperShine.

Related Links:
• You Sing, I Write’s Top 5 Concerts of 2009
• Band of the Week: Gaslight Anthem
• Five Albums to Prolong Your Summer
• All Points West: Music, Mud Wrestling, and Beer Gardens

Categories
Song of the Week

Song of the Week: “American Slang”

If you’ve been following You Sing I Write at all over the past two years, you know of my love for Jersey boys The Gaslight Anthem. Earlier this week, they released the music video for “American Slang,” the title track and debut single off their new album.

Set in New York, the music is agressive with unrelenting percussion and soaring guitar riffs, all underneith frontman Brian Fallon’s powerful vocals. Watch it below! And, if you missed my review of their album release show, you can read it here.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAqbnTKQBIY]

Related Links:
• You Sing, I Write’s Top 5 Concerts of 2009
• Band of the Week: Gaslight Anthem
• Five Albums to Prolong Your Summer
• All Points West: Music, Mud Wrestling, and Beer Gardens

Categories
News

Gaslight Anthem Unveil “American Slang”

Yesterday, Jersey favorites The Gaslight Anthem released their first single and title track to their upcoming release, American Slang. Produced by Ted Hutt (producer of their second album, The ’59 Sound) the highly anticipated third album from the band is due in stores June 15.

Rolling Stone spoke with frontman Brian Fallon a while back and he talked of the album. “The songs sound like Tom Waits’ storytelling and the Clash playing as a band, but with some big Motown-style choruses in there.”

Longtime fans will be happy to know the band hasn’t abandoned their Jersey roots and sound. Their vivid lyrics combined with Fallon’s vocals and guitar and percussion intensity on “American Slang” are enough to keep fans anxiously awaiting their June release.

You can listen to “American Slang” on MySpace and Facebook. The complete track listing and lyrics for American Slang are below:

1. American Slang
2. Stay Lucky
3. Bring It On
4. The Diamond Church Street Choir
5. The Queen of Lower Chelsea
6. Orphans
7. Boxer
8. Old Haunts
9. The Spirit Of Jazz
10. We Did It When We Were Young

“American Slang”

Look what you started,
I seem to be coming out of my skin.
Look what you’ve forgotten here.
The bandages just don’t keep me in.

and when it was over, I woke up alone.

and they cut me to ribbons and taught me to drive.
I got your name tattooed inside of my arm.
I called for my father but my father had died.
while you told me fortunes, in American Slang.

Look at the damage,
the fortunes came for the richer men.
while we’re left with gallows,
waiting for us liars to come down and hang.

and here’s where we died that time last year,
and here’s where the angels and devils meet.
and you can dance with the queen if you need,
and she will always keep your cards close to her heart.
before they tear you apart.

What do you think? Is American Slang an album you will be buying?

Related Links:
• You Sing, I Write’s Top 5 Concerts of 2009
• Band of the Week: Gaslight Anthem
• Five Albums to Prolong Your Summer
• All Points West : Music, Mud Wrestling, and Beer Gardens

Categories
Song of the Week Videos

Song of the Week: “Great Expectations”

Last night I witnessed Jersey’s own Gaslight Anthem firsthand at a packed Terminal 5 in New York. Definitely the most energetic crowd I have yet witnessed at a concert, fans started a mosh pit even before frontman Brian Fallon sang his first lyric. Performing for over an hour, the band showcased many songs from their most recent and revered release, The ’59 Sound as well as older classics from debut album, Sink or Swim and EP, Señor and the Queen.

While the audience showed their appreciation singing word for word, it was the band that looked in awe watching the craziness taking place on the floor as fans crowd surfed and moshed during most of the set. Having performed well over 300 concerts this year alone, the band’s current tour is winding down as they work on new material for The ’59 Sound‘s follow up. Rolling Stone reports the release is expected next year as Fallon stated in the issue, “The songs sound like Tom Waits’ storytelling and the Clash playing as a band, but with some big Motown-style choruses in there.” A must-see act, the Gaslight Anthem have a bright future ahead of them.

Watch the video below for “Great Expectations,” and for music and tour dates visit them on MySpace.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2Leo9HSaGQ]

Related Links:
• Band of the Week: Gaslight Anthem
• Five Albums to Prolong Your Summer
• All Points West : Music, Mud Wrestling, and Beer Gardens
• Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band: Giants Stadium Night One Recap

Categories
News

Gaslight Anthem Tonight At Terminal 5!

I’ve been following the Gaslight Anthem for a while now. In fact, it was just around this time last year that I stumbled on their feature in Rolling Stone, realizing I knew one of the members from working on the newspaper, The Daily Targum, together at Rutgers. To say they’ve blown up since then is an understatement. By far the hardest band to get an interview with or cover, you’d think it would be easier since I know one of the members.

Gaslight Anthem have been selling out venues throughout the US as well as abroad, even sharing the stage with Bruce Springsteen (see video below). I’m psyched to be catching their show tonight with some former Targum friends. A lot has changed since college, that’s for sure!

Follow along with me at the show tonight via Twitter.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ul0XCTeJx_o]

Related Links:
• Band of the Week: Gaslight Anthem
• Five Albums to Prolong Your Summer
• All Points West : Music, Mud Wrestling, and Beer Gardens
• Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band: Giants Stadium Night One Recap

Categories
Song of the Week

Song of the Week: “The ’59 Sound”

Back in October I featured The Gaslight Anthem as my “Band of the Week.” Since then, they’ve been featured on many Best of 2008 lists for their album, The ’59 Sound. I’ve been listening to the album myself continuously this past week and highly recommend it if you haven’t picked it up yet.

“The ’59 Sound” was declared one of Rolling Stone‘s “100 Best Singles of the Year” and I keep hearing it everywhere I go — most recently during a set change at Highline Ballroom. Check out the music video for it below and be sure to catch the band on “The Late Show with David Letterman” next Friday!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1lq40tR72Q]

Categories
News

Preview New Bruce Springsteen Album!

Although it’s not due to hit stores until next Tuesday, you can preview all the tracks on Bruce Springsteen‘s upcoming album, Working On A Dream on his Web site. Click here to listen to the audio snippets. The much anticipated 2009 release will be the Jersey rocker’s 24th album. If you like what you hear, be sure to pick up a copy next week! Track listing for Working On A Dream below.


1. Outlaw Pete

2. My Lucky Day

3. Working on a Dream

4. Queen of the Supermarket

5. What Love Can Do

6. This Life

7. Good Eye

8. Tomorrow Never Knows

9. Life Itself

10. Kingdom of Days

11. Surprise, Surprise

12. The Last Carnival

Bonus track:

The Wrestler



Categories
Band of the Week

Band of the Week: The Gaslight Anthem

It’s one of those moments you never imagine happening. You open up Rolling Stone and see someone’s band you know being featured within the pages of the magazine. So surreal. That’s what happened to me last week when I was flipping through the October 2nd issue of Rolling Stone. I turned to the “Breaking” section and did a double take. Low and behold, there was Benny from Targum (the former night pro manager of Rutgers University’s daily newspaper, The Daily Targum).

It’s funny, actually, from the countless hours I spent night editing during my four years working at the newspaper, I knew he was in a band, but didn’t know the name of it or that he played the drums. But, I couldn’t be happier turning the page and reading the raving review of their latest album, The ’59 Sound. This is what Rolling Stone contributing editor, Christian Hoard had to say about the album:

“The ’59 Sound [is] the New Jersey quartet’s excellent second album, a collection of tuneful, passionately sung stories about working-class folks and young romance . . . Though the Gaslight Anthem are signed to the SoCal punk label SideOneDummy and they regularly open for mohawked acts, their sound is only sort of punk: It’s more like a supercharged version of early Bruce records or a no-frills take on the Replacements.”

Many reviews have been comparing the Jersey-based band to fellow Jersey native, Bruce Springsteen. While I definitely hear the influence of The Boss, there’s something more. Their music is catchy and you can listen to each story within every song while rocking out to the solid drum beat and guitar accompaniment. Like Hoard wrote, it has that punk feel to it, but also a mix of that classic Springsteen sound. In fact, it’s hard to pin the Gaslight Anthem down to one genre, which for a band is often a good thing. Watch their video below for “The ’59 Sound” and see for yourself.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOBb13yDnzo]

If you like what you heard, be sure to check them out on MySpace and let me know what you think!
For more of the Rolling Stone feature and video on the Gaslight Anthem, click here.