gallaramy: the humble beginnings, the epic journey

This blog has always acted as a place to talk about music that happens to be kicking around in the heads of we three dudes who write it.  We get music submissions, but really, it’s never been a place that was designed to act as a promotion or publicity tool.

Until now!

That’s right.  You see, I am one half of Washington, DC’s best-ever fake country music duo.  I feel entirely confident saying that, as I don’t believe there are many other fake country music duos in DC, let alone the universe.  In that sense, I suppose it’s a fair statement to call us the best band in the universe in our genre.

We’re called Gallaramy.  And, if I do say so myself, we’re actually an interesting story.

My friend Tim and I are two beginner musicians.  I guess it’s fair to call us musical hobbyists, though I hope even that doesn’t imply a level of musicianship that we simply lack.  We both know a few chords on guitar, and try our best to sing every now and then.  We both bought guitars not only because we’re passionate about music, but because we have friends who are good musicians, and we were sick of sitting around twiddling our thumbs when the guitars came out after a few drinks.

Those musical friends are no strangers to these pages: they are fellow A Cold Sweat writers smitch and jimmymontreal, who are members of the DC band The Roosevelt.  You can dig on this catchy little number from the boys’ debut EP:

“Codeine Cure” by The Roosevelt (from EP)

These two, encouraging our enthusiasm for getting into music, suggested Tim and I sit down together and write some songs.  Tim and I tried this, but found it easier said than done.

It was at this point that we decided on three things: 1) we would write country music, as country has got to be the easiest genre of music to play on guitar (a few chords and a waltz rhythm and you’re golden), 2) we would be called Gallaramy, an admittedly ridiculous combination of our last names that had cracked us up since it was invented during a game of darts, and 3) we would kick this thing off by writing 3 country songs in 15 minutes.  We needed a challenge to serve as motivation.

We wrote down a list of themes we could potentially touch upon– alcohol, women, trucks, desolate landscapes, etc.– and set a kitchen timer and produced three songs that, well, sounded like they had each been written in 5 minutes: My Whiskey Bottle, Roadside Diner and Momma’s Drunk (Again).

But it was damn fun.  So fun, in fact, that jimmymontreal and smitch helped us produce an album of nine original tunes.  (All four members of The Roosevelt, in fact, generously contributed their time and talents to the songs.)  We then hand-made 100 copies of the finished product and held a CD release party where we gave the CDs away to friends for free but encouraged donations to the Arlington Academy of Hope in Uganda.  We raised enough money to sponsor a kid for a year.  His name is Paul.

Here are two of the songs from that first album:

“My Whiskey Bottle” by Gallaramy (from Rose In Hand)

“Lying By Your Side” by Gallaramy (from Rose In Hand)

Now, as if this whole fake band business was not ridiculous enough already, smitch and jimmymontreal decided to bring it to a whole new level.  For reasons that will forever remain unknown, they decided to record a reggae tribute to Gallaramy, a la Radiodread.  They re-wrote and recorded reggae versions of the first 5 songs of Rose In Hand and named it, rasta-ly enough, Spliff In Hand.

The lengths to which my friends will go for a gag never cease to amaze me.  Check out their cover of the above Gallaramy song, and dig on smitch’s sax work.  Yeah, that’s right… sax.

“Lying By Your Dub” by Reggaellaramy (from Spliff In Hand)

So, that’s the background, the story, the legend that is Gallaramy.  And it is what leads me to proudly announce the release of Gallaramy’s sophomore album, Chesapeake.  Hey, Paul needs another year’s tuition.  Who was gonna pay it?  You?  Didn’t think so.

We’ve really kicked up a notch on this one, if I do say so myself.  Rather than existing only as a limited-printing physical CD, the album is available for sale on Amazon (and will soon be up in iTunes and eMusic).  Just like last time, the proceeds are going to AAH (well, to a point… once Paul’s tuition is covered, we may treat ourselves to a night out honkeytonkin’).  Also, just like last time, the album contains three songs that we wrote in 15 minutes (one them, “Roscoe”, is below).  And most importantly, the songs are better, the production is better, and the overall experience of being a fake-but-almost-kinda-real country band is more fun than ever.

Go pick it up and let us know what you think.  Here are two tracks to whet your appetite.

“Red & Josie’s” by Gallaramy (from Chesapeake)

“Roscoe” by Gallaramy (from Chesapeake)

Gallaramy on Facebook

Gallaramy on MySpace