The Shaky Gallows Saloon

What does the new album have in store for the Shakyheads?

Stay tuned.

Eleven more songs of revolution from the Gallows. This time, the band stretch their songwriting out a bit and try some new things (yes, that is Mean JD banging on a pot with a knife during the guitar solo on "Shelter Me"). Don't worry, though, there's still plenty old school SGHB pain here too.

Mean JD: This album's a bit like The House That Love Built in that there's a certain, well-worn sound about it. Some of it hurts to listen to, but then that's part of it's charm, isn't it? If you want pretty, go find yourself some sweet little pop singer. If you want real, you've come to the right place.

Shakes: I wanted to call the album New Cuts and Old Festering Wounds, but the cover image was just too nasty, so I gave in.

Mean JD: We knew the songs we were writing this time around were cutting straight to the bone, so we wanted to do something special with the release to celebrate that fact. That's why the original release date was June 19th, 2005. That's Uruguay's national holiday in honor of José Gervasio Artigas. Artigas was a patriot who fought with passion and courage in an attempt to win freedom for his people. Like so many freedom fighters, he died while in exile on foreign soil, never to see the hills and valleys of his beloved homeland again. We wanted to recognize this extraordinary man's courage in the face of conflict, his determination in shrugging off the shackles of oppression, and his cast-iron belief in a better, independent future for his people.

Hammerin' Hank: Then the long arm of the law tried to slap the cuffs on JD and Shakes' good buddy, Tom Ames. They did the right thing and stepped up to help him. The album got pushed back, but I got left with more whiskey drinking time, so it worked out alright.

Shakes: In the end, we decided that the final release date should reflect our respect for another one of our heroes: Neil Young.

Mean JD: We put the album out on July 27th, 2005, twenty-two years to the day after the 1983 release of Everybody's Rockin' by Neil Young and the Shocking Pinks. That was also the date of a performance by Neil and the Pinks in Portland, Oregon. Thanks, Neil. This note's for you.

For the first time, the band stayed sober long enough to record an entire album of original material. The sound is raw and cutting, perfectly capturing the SGHB's signature take no prisoners sound. The album contains the epic "Moonshine Monkey", which has been played at both weddings and funerals (as luck would have it, on the same day).

Mean JD: We were a little nervous doing an entire album of our own stuff. It's one thing to butcher someone else’s song, but doing it to your own is another thing entirely. That being said, all in all, it turned out pretty good. It's certainly not perfect, but that's not what we are all about anyway.

Shakes: The album allowed us to explore some of our favouite themes: sin, redemption, revolution, and inebriated primates.

This album was a direct response to the excess of the previous one. Short and to the point, the music was entirely acoustic for the first time since Four Tracks. The title song is also the beginning of Dean and Munro as a songwriting team.

Shakes: The album is harsh by design. I hit some dark times around then. The bottle wasn’t enough to get me through, so it came out in the recording. It’s funny, though. It actually saved the band. Gave us a new focus when Jim suggested we write something for the title track.

Mean JD: It was the next step in the band’s evolution. We’d gone as far as we could with the cover songs. It was time to put ourselves on the line. So we sat down with a couple of acoustic guitars and a bottle of Jack, and we became songwriters.

Hanna ‘Jackknife’ Williams (folk singer): That album changed my life. Before that, I thought songwriting was something only Neil Young and Bob Dylan could do. The Gallows showed me that even a couple of drunks can string some words together over a few chords. They might do it half-assed, but they still do it.

A lengthy album born out of Dean and Munro’s shared love for the man in black’s music. These started as healing sessions for the two, but quickly degenerated into the typical Gallows chaos.

Mean JD: When Cash died, we set out to lay down a few of his songs. Just a little personal tribute. Then it got bigger…

Shakes: Just listen to “The Wanderer.” There’s a damned church bell on there! It was a nice idea in the beginning, but as the thing got more and more bloated, it practically brought us down again.

Gordan Calma (roadie): Shit! It was bloody amazing. When they went through that window… The bastards were lucky to get through that one alive.

Ten favorite cover songs and one banjo and slide instrumental done lo-fi in the band’s own studio, Swamp Baby’s Shack. Songs like the painfully slow “Beast in Me” and the epic version of Dylan’s “Tangled Up in Blue” illuminate the evolution of the Gallows style. Though it’s hard to imagine, the intense darkness on this album is only the beginning.

‘Blind’ Willie Doyle (piano player): Slow and painful. Them boys is playin’ some real hurtin’ music. I admire their dedication to the bad times. We’ve talked about workin’ together, but it hasn’t happened yet. I guess I haven’t been beat down quite low enough yet. Maybe next year.

Mean JD: Four Tracks was just us killing time during a day off on the road. This was where we set out to create something on record.

Shakes: There were some knockdown fights during those sessions. Too much moonshine in the studio. It came out all right in the end.

The band’s first shot in the recording studio. Though credited to Tom Ames & the Shaky Gallows House Band, only Dean and Munro made the sessions. Fueled by the cheapest wine (twist-off caps only), plans for a full length album were derailed when the studio’s dilapidated equipment gave out after only five songs were completed.

Shakes: We could have scrapped the whole thing, but we figured the tunes that we did get on tape captured a moment for us, and that’s what the best music does. It’s not pretty, but it tells a story.

Mean JD: There’s some rough stuff on there, but it gets the job done. We tried to do something a little different with each track. “Sympathy For the Devil” is a good example. We took it back to its origins as a slow folk song, the way that Jagger wrote it.

Bernard Valemont (music critic): These five songs are the beginning of a slow slide into the depths of despair.