The Gaslight Anthem's Morrissey/Smiths Connection

S

Skylarker

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There is an excellent band from New Jersey that has three records out, soon to be four, called The Gaslight Anthem. They are by no means obscure but neither are they big, at least not as big as they should be. They are a rock and roll band; there's no other way to describe them really. Muscular without being macho; melodic without being cheesy, lyrical without being pretentious.

Honestly I think they are the greatest band out there and if you enjoy great verse/chorus/verse rock music with brilliant lyrics and no scenester affectations, then check them out.

ANYWAY...

It turns out that they were originally called This Charming Man.

This is a quote from Brian Fallon (guitarist/lead singer/ songwriter)'s Wikipedia page:

This Charming Man (2004–2005)

In 2004, Fallon along with Michael Volpe, Chris Clementi and Mike Leboeuf founded This Charming Man. Fallon remained the only original member when Benny Horowitz and Alex Levine joined in late 2005. In early 2006, Alex Rosamilia was brought onboard, thus bringing together the present lineup of The Gaslight Anthem.

This Charming Man's only full release was Every Little Secret in 2005, with the original lineup. Another song by the original band called She Coulda Raised the Titanic later became The Gaslight Anthem's 1930 song on the Sink or Swim album.
"


This didn't totally surprise me; even though Gaslight and The Smiths don't "sound" the same; a lot of the differences are superficial. Both are extremely powerful bands with very charismatic frontmen whose lead singers truly understand and depend on that mystical relationship between song and listener. And both bands are incapable of anything other than pure gold.

Everything I heard in The Smiths (when I found them at 15) is what I hear in Gaslight at 35.

Now...

In late 2011, Fallon and Gaslight's guitar tech Ian Perkins did a side project called "The Horrible Crowes" (basically a slowed down, Tom Waitsy version of The Gaslight Anthem) and released an album called Elsie. In an interview regarding the best song on Elsie, Behold The Hurricane, Fallon said,

"Behold the Hurricane came about with a riff I had been playing around with for a couple of days on tour, and it sounded like a good idea. We wanted to have a song on the Elsie record that was upbeat enough to catch a listener on the first try and then be really depressing on the lyrical side.

That probably comes from listening to the Smiths as a young man. There's nothing Ian and I like more than a good pop song that's about something awful happening.

I was really proud of that song when we finished it. Lyrically, I felt it was the first song that I had achieved saying something profound and moving with very few words. At least, very few words for my writing."



Sincerely, check out Fallon/Gaslight Anthem/Horrible Crowes. You won't regret it and if you do, it's your loss.

I'm gonna spam the shit out of them here, because I can.

Here are a few of their best songs:







 
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Oh that's awesome! I love the Gaslight Anthem, and I had no idea that they used to be called This Charming Man. I would also highly recommend that people listen to them.:)
 
I like a few Gaslight Anthem songs, but This Charming Man is a f***ing horrible name for a band.
 
I like a few Gaslight Anthem songs, but This Charming Man is a f***ing horrible name for a band.

I love all of their songs immensely but I agree with you about This Charming Man being a terrible name. Maybe at some point they wised up and that's why they changed it.
 
It's all a matter of taste of course but did nothing for me.
I didn't hear anything different than a well polished,well rehearsed band doing a stranded rock sound.
All been done before.
Good fun to sing along with at a concert and shake your head.
But fall in love with and listen to for the next thirty years like The Smiths.I don't think so.
There are countless other bands who do this sound.
Weezer came to my mind straight away.
As I said it's all a matter of taste and I hope the pair of you will be happy together.

"Everything I heard in The Smiths (when I found them at 15) is what I hear in Gaslight at 35"

If this quote is true then you found The Smiths later than some here.
To live though 80's Britain with all that was going on,then have The Smiths(The light that never goes out)arrive as a your salvation has a lot to do with my affection for them.
I don't even like all their stuff.
Plus the context that the sound was very different to what was about at the time.

"Both are extremely powerful bands with very charismatic frontmen"

I really can't see it.
Sorry.
 
I didn't hear anything different than a well polished,well rehearsed band doing a stranded rock sound.
All been done before.
Good fun to sing along with at a concert and shake your head.
But fall in love with and listen to for the next thirty years like The Smiths.I don't think so.
There are countless other bands who do this sound.
Weezer came to my mind straight away.

1960s+mad+men+perfection+smoking+GIF.gif
 
I don't understand how anyone could find any point of contact whatsoever between this and the Smiths. They sound to me utterly conventional, landfill powerpop. Comparing them to Weezer is far more than they deserve. The singer's voice is a particularly unlikeable generic half-rasp. The sort of band whose theoretical pinnacle is to be the soundtrack on a commercial for something forgettable. If I happened to be somewhere they played, I'd leave during the second number. They are to guitar rock more or less what the horrible woman winger on Ally McBeal was to female folk music. So utterly and essentially and unbearably mediocre and talentless. Ugh.

So, not to put too fine a point on it.... I have some reservations about your point. :)
 
I don't understand how anyone could find any point of contact whatsoever between this and the Smiths. They sound to me utterly conventional, landfill powerpop. Comparing them to Weezer is far more than they deserve. The singer's voice is a particularly unlikeable generic half-rasp. The sort of band whose theoretical pinnacle is to be the soundtrack on a commercial for something forgettable. If I happened to be somewhere they played, I'd leave during the second number. They are to guitar rock more or less what the horrible woman winger on Ally McBeal was to female folk music. So utterly and essentially and unbearably mediocre and talentless. Ugh.

So, not to put too fine a point on it.... I have some reservations about your point. :)

Your entire tirade can be quelled by the simple notion of Brian Fallon at 17 being stood up at coffeeshops by a beautiful tattoed girl in an old white Lincoln and he'd give up by ten after 1 and drive home playing I Know It's Over.

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Long live Brian Fallon; long live The Gaslight Anthem and The Horrible Crowes.
 
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"The car, being crazy, fit the girl."

 
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Death to Death. Long live Life. Rock and Roll will never die.
 
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