Album Notes

It is a mired, ugly universe this little world of rock n' roll. Folks want to call you something, put their little fingers on you. Sometimes they can't. Out of the gut of American music, the trash trough known as "Americana", come The Gaslights, influenced as equally by Loretta and Hank as Keith and Booker T. They've got some songs about losing, and loving, and losing again (and perhaps getting the better of someone the third or fourth time around). Some songs about folks who have left, folks who are leaving, and folks who've long been gone. And then there's the drinking and the sinning and the cussing.....

Formed in late 2003, Chris Meck (Kristie Stremel, Pendergast) and Abigail Henderson (Trouble Junction) joined forces, recruiting Glen Hockemeier (Keely Zoo) on drums and banged out a set. Several bass players later, Mr. Monty Black stepped in to handle lo-end detail. And so it was. They're just three hard-working men and a lady playing music, sweating, drinking, and roving the Middle West in a big old van.

They hit a stage hard with their own take on American twang, as Henderson's vocals are layered on top a tough-as-nails backbeat, punctuated by the ever present swagger of Meck's guitar.

The Gaslights' debut record, "Midwest Hotel" (released Fall 04'), is a testament to their DIY ethic, recorded and engineered in house at The Rock Salon, KCMO by Meck and the rest of the band. It's a spot-on representation of what the band can do live, not some over-produced fancified version, as Henderson's vocals were tracked with minimal effects and no slight of hand digital editing. Proud bearers of the Analog torch, the record is just that, a recording of actual people making music, trapping all the energy and delicious heartbreak that that entails.

The Gaslights are fearless, not for the faint of heart, and ready to rip up the house with their own brand of twang-n-roll.