Two Gallants (band)

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Two Gallants
Two Gallants: Adam Stephens (left), Tyson Vogel (right)
Two Gallants: Adam Stephens (left), Tyson Vogel (right)
Background information
Origin San Francisco, California, United States
Genre(s) Indie rock
Lo-fi
Folk-Rock
Years active 2002–present
Label(s) Saddle Creek
Alive Records
Website Two Gallants
Members
Adam Stephens
Tyson Vogel

Two Gallants are a indie rock duo from San Francisco, California. The name comes from the title of a story by James Joyce in Dubliners.

Contents

[edit] History

Two Gallants are made up of Adam Stephens (b. 1981) on guitar, harmonica and vocals and Tyson Vogel (b. 7 November 1981) on drums and vocals.

Stephens and Vogel started gigging around San Francisco as Two Gallants in 2002, when both were twenty; the two had been making music together since the age of twelve. They made two separate self-released CDs, which are now out of print. Those recordings were spread around the US during the early years of touring (house shows, warehouses, street corners, parks, etc.) After recording their debut, The Throes, for Alive Records, they kept up the touring but started playing more clubs. In July of 2005, the band signed with Saddle Creek records. In August of 2005, they played their first shows overseas in London as well as Reading and Leeds festivals. In February of 2006 they released What the Toll Tells on Saddle Creek records. This spawned two singles: "Las Cruces Jail" and "Steady Rollin'". They toured Europe at the start of 2006 after the album release, played the Saddle Creek SXSW showcase in March, and then toured the US and parts of Canada in May and June. They were invited to play numerous European festivals throughout the summer and then picked up again in September to tour the US and Europe for the second time of the year. They released a self-titled album, their third full-length, in September 2007 on Saddle Creek, which included the single "Despite What You've Been Told".

[edit] Sound

Two Gallants in 2005
Two Gallants in 2005

Two Gallants feature a duo of guitar and drums, and their music is rooted in the blues. However, Two Gallants are more influenced by the delta blues and folk music (such as Robert Johnson and Skip James) rather than the White Stripes' electric blues, which is based on the music coming out of Chicago and Detroit. Stephens plays bass, melody, and harmony simultaneously in the blues tradition, but with folk fingerpicking. Vogel's percussion is a trap of a hi-hat, 2 ride cymbals, 2 floor toms, a snare drum, and a bass drum with an even smaller trap for acoustic concerts. His play is melodic rather than rhythmic. Themes of their lyrics include archaic stories of murder, theft, the old west, Antebellum South and racism along with more personal accounts.

[edit] Walter's On Washington Incident

A Two Gallants show descended into chaos on Friday, October 13, 2006 in Houston, Texas, when a police officer investigating a noise complaint at the club Walter's on Washington allegedly attacked the band and several fans present. Trainwreck Riders and Langhorne Slim opened for the band. After receiving a noise complaint, the Houston Police Department sent officer G.M. Rodriguez to the club. Rodriguez took the stage during the band’s set, and demanded that the band stop performing. When they refused, a melee ensued.

Adam from Two Gallants, Andrew Kerwin from Trainwreck Riders, Two Gallants’ tour manager, as well as a fourteen-year-old boy were Tasered by the police at the club (the fourteen-year-old went into seizures). Tyson Vogel (drummer from Two Gallants), Sean Kohler (bassist from Trainwreck Riders) and Andrew Kerwin (vocalist/guitarist from Trainwreck Riders) had to pay $1,400 each to post bail to get out of jail. Adam Stephens was Tasered but escaped. As he told in a Rolling Stone interview: "I just went around the corner. A lot of kids, I think the kids kinda helped me out as far as blocking my way behind me and then I just ran around the corner and just kept running and running and running. I got, I think, five or six blocks. And then I was kind of hiding in shadows, and there was a helicopter flying over with a search light on it."

In the scuffle a 90-year-old stand-up bass belonging to opening act Langhorne Slim was also destroyed. Although the band plans to make some sort of legal action, they could not reveal what, exactly, that would be at this time.[citation needed]

The story exploded on the Internet and many eyewitness accounts, photos and videos surfaced on message boards and sites like YouTube and MySpace.

Interviews with the band about the case can be found here[1] and here[2]. Videos taken by members of the audience can be viewed here[3] and here[4].

[edit] Discography

[edit] Albums

[edit] Singles & EPs

[edit] EPs

[edit] Internet Singles

[edit] CD Singles

[edit] Vinyl

[edit] External links

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