Steven Gullett's songs are musical short
stories.
Steven Gullett releasing 3rd CD
Go!
Magazine - Rock Insider 11/14/03
by Don Thrasher For the Dayton Daily News
Songs
About Them & Me and You is an apt title for the latest solo CD from Steven
Gullett, a local songwriter with a growing reputation for crafting memorable,
musical short stories about real-life troubles, insecurities and loss. His
believable character studies and personal confessions set to simple acoustic-guitar
accompaniment (with occasional electric guitar overdubs) are a perfect musical
soundtrack for this age of reality TV and overt voyeurism.
Faking It All for You is a biographical sketch that captures the claustrophobia
and hopelessness often prevalent in small towns where options are limited
and disappointment is a top ten word.
In Look What Music Did to Me, Gullett takes a humorous look at the good and
bad aspects of being a hard-core music fan with a penchant for wearing flamboyant
glam-punk clothing.
Angels Are Never Enough is a powerful first-person account about coping with
the untimely death of a loved one.
Gullett truly reveals his gift for storytelling in Whatever Comes Closest,
a melancholy portrait of a glorified secretary whose biggest regret is never
getting married. The epic tale traces the unhappy woman's life, from losing
her innocence at 15 with four beers on her breath and her parents down the
hall, through a hippy phase in college, to being a lonely, overweight woman
in a house filled with sadness and a couple of cats. Gullett's attention to
detail helps create well-rounded characters like this song's protagonist who
"looks good from a distance, but up close slightly misses, like a first
glance full of wishes on a falling star . . . She don't stand out in a crowd
and she stares at her feet when she walks."
Songs About Them & Me and You, Gullett's third solo album in less than
two years, will be officially released when he performs at Canal Street Tavern
on Sunday (Nov. 16). Gullett will perform solo, but he will also be joined
on several songs by guest musicians Tod Weidner of Shrug and Josh Hoag of
Nicky Kay & the Kay-tones, the American Static and Maery Lanahan. Weidner
and Minneapolis-based songwriter Ben Connelly also will perform solo sets
that evening.
Gullett, who works in the library of the Dayton Daily News, is a busy man.
In addition to his solo work, the former singer and guitarist for glam punks
Freak Strobe, Love Lies Bleeding and the Mystery Addicts, leads his own band,
Star Heartless, and plays guitar for the American Static.
To find out more, visit www.stevengullett.com.
Rock Insider, by free-lance arts and music writer Don Thrasher, gives a behind-the-scenes
view of the Dayton music scene. It appears every other week. Contact Thrasher
by e-mail at [email protected].
