Late September will mark the official release of Gerry Stanek's new EP, "Demo's From a Long Winter". There are songs about red-haired girls, buckshot and gravity. This collection presents an intense lyrical trip:
"I wish I knew another soul, as well as I know mine. And the cruelest cut would always know where to place the knife. I wish I had a problem solved. And knowledge wasn't power at all..." from "Gravity".
Or from "Buckshot": "That shotgun's only dust, hidden in a corner...Rust on the barrel, like junkyard cars and dashboards..."
Bio
As a youngster, Gerry Stanek was obsessed with the Beatles. While other kids were playing ball and swimming, he was writing his first song—a song about unrequited love— with the fervor that only an 8-year old could apply to such a task. When he finally began performing in public during that same year, he went at it with what Kerouac might have called, “The energy of a benny addict,†playing whenever and wherever he could. By the age of 15, he was populating the stages of bars and clubs in Pennsylvania with the unfortunately named band, Neon. Despite the moniker, Neon provided invaluable experience and planted the seeds for a career.
One look at Gerry Stanek’s torn and beaten guitar cases—or the cigarette burn on the headstock of his Fender Jazz bass—tells the story: these instruments belong to a working musician who actually WORKED! There were many bands, including western Pennsylvania favorites The Impostors and major label (Epic Records) cult fave’s The Lost, based in New York City. He even did a tour of duty with Pittsburgh’s hardest working rocker, Norman Nardini. After playing bass with Asbury Park’s Outcry (Polygram) in the late ’90s, Stanek retired to western Pennsylvania for some good old fashioned log splitting, truck driving adventures. Behind him lay the ashes of more than 3,500 gigs played between 1978 and 1998!
The songs on “Coal Miner’s Sun†are just a small part of the catalogue of songs Gerry Stanek has amassed; proof that he took his job as a full-time musician very seriously. The countless nights spent on stages in 45 states and Japan were followed by days working on songwriting, which, to Gerry, was the most important part of his “job.†The songs on “Coal Miner’s Sun†and the forthcoming “Demo’s From A Long Winter†stand up and beg to be noticed, worthy of Gerry’s favorite songwriters; people like Freedy Johnston and Steve Earle; Shawn Colvin and Michael Penn. This music is worth a listen, or two or three.
Gerry Stanek is a purely American songwriter with a passion for all things literary. The imagery inherent to these songs will grab you and keep you interested. “I don’t care if this train’s on time,†sings Stanek in “Brakemanâ€, right before the brakeman lays a hammer to the conductor’s head. Music for the blue-collar worker in all of us? Maybe…Listen, let the songs speak for themselves and come back for regular updates.
Gerry Stanek released "Coal Miner's Sun" in 2007---this after a 9-year hiatus from the music business.
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