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Gasoline Heart
Nostalgia Ain't What It Used To Be
"What's the worst thing that could happen? The same shit that's always happened?"
Louis is that guy.
Everyone knows one, the dude you grow up with who continues to do his thing against, as they say, all odds (or at least mountains of credit card debt). You know, the guy who you feel writes songs just for you and your friends, who has a window into the heartbreaks and indignities of modern life, who aren't just a band but your favorite band, who embodies the age old cliche of 'why isn't this band huge?'
"No one has liked my band for a long time."
The short answer is that rock & roll bands aren't huge anymore, not unless the members were born in the 1960s or earlier. So sadly, these modern troubadours are forced to pay their own way around the country one $7.45/hr shift at a time. It sort of becomes a higher calling, a zen monastery for the debauched and insane, when all you've ever done your entire life is play in great bands to no acclaim.
"People think I'm an over-confident, over-weight, degenerate over the hill rocker, so I might as well go with it."
Gasoline Heart as we know it today was begun eight years ago when Defabrizio decided to strike out on his own, the rationale being that he couldn't get kicked out of his own band. Somehow along the way he became a sort of unwitting conduit for writing the kind of heart-on-sleeve song songs that you associate with masters of the form like Joe Strummer, J Mascis, and Eddie Vedder. And luckily, for those of us who have had the chance to see it, he wasn't really content to belong to the school of Rock That Does Not Rock like many attempting to keep the bloated corpse of rock & roll animated. This is a dude who's life was changed by watching Guns 'N Roses on MTV, for God's sake. Talk about a road to Damascus moment, except this time God was saying "You can take anything you want, but you better not take it from me."
"It's rocker John, stoner Jeff, and fucko me."
So they're a real band. Guitars, Bass, Drums. They play loud, drink til the sun comes up, and sit around wondering how it got so bright. With John Fortson (ex-Squad Five-0) on bass, Jeff Irizarry on drums, and epic road dog Erich Jackson on guitar, their shows are more like prime time Replacements or The Who than some kind of singer-songwriter stroll in the park. It's strangely thrilling to go see a rock & roll show these days that doesn't make you want to head to the bar or slit your wrists, but somehow this last gang delivers it. Again, against the odds set by that great rock bookie in the sky, here is a guy that actually becomes his best self on stage, who can make you laugh, cry, or sing out loud because you know he believes in what he's doing, and you'll be damned right along with the rest of humanity if he doesn't end up making you believe it too.
"I like one note. I also like many notes."
They made a record two years ago called "You Know Who You Are" that was recorded by Steve Albini, but he wasn't so hip to the amount of blood in their alcohol so they produced the new one themselves at a studio in Atlanta. Drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes, the guys added a pound of flesh to Louis' bedroom jams that were written on his broken down acoustic guitar, woefully bereft of a few of it's strings.
"I wanted to call the album "Everybody's Got Their Shit."
"Nostaliga Ain't What It Used To Be" is the new album from Gasoline Heart. It's sort of a heartbreaker, but what great record isn't? Part of life is new chances, new beginnings, but also dogged determination in your vision, in that great thing you have that no one else does, the gift you have to give that could just well keep on giving. But you know what else life is? It's the love that's never received. As Louis says, what's the worst thing that could happen?
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