Born and raised in New Jersey, singer/songwriter C. DeSarno grew up with a love of American roots music. Learning guitar in his teenage years, he could often be found playing the music of his major influences, who included Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie and Tom Waits. While attending college he began playing acoustic guitar and harmonica in local bars and coffee houses. Slowly his sets shifted from cover songs to original material.
Shortly after graduating college, DeSarno claimed to have met the Jersey Devil, the legendary flying biped said to inhabit the Pine Barrens of south Jersey. As DeSarno tells it, the Jersey Devil challenged him to a game of horse shoes. After losing the game, the Jersey Devil growled what sounded like the words “gallery two” and disappeared into the night. DeSarno cites this experience as his major influence for creating music.
In 2007, after several years of recording demos with a rotating cast of musician-friends in local apartments and home-studios, DeSarno decided to independently release a 10-song album under the music project name, “Gallery 2.” The self-titled debut was described as "future-traditional folk music." Often light-hearted or absurdist in nature, most of the music of Gallery 2 adhered to a minimalist philosophy with stripped-down, mostly acoustic instrumentation. DeSarno's love for traditional blues and folk is apparent in the music and lyrics.
In 2009, Gallery 2 released a second album, titled “Outliers” containing songs dealing with a variety of subject matter including outsourcing, the miracle on the Hudson, bartenders with drinking problems, mathematicians with gambling problems, and the Garden State Parkway during rush hour.
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