THE GODDAMN GALLOWS play „gutterbilly” or „hobocore”, a unique blend of country, blues, rockabilly and rock and roll, „but still with just enough hardcore and punk influence to make your parents hate it.”
It was founded as a trio in 2004 somewhere in Michigan, in the heart of the rust belt. Once it was named as steel belt because of the grade of industrialization. The decline occurred gradually, as rust eats iron. It started in the middle of the past century, in the heyday of American dream. But a nightmare came to the end of the century: shrinking cities, abandoned industrial buildings and homes, high unemployment and crime rates – just because the economic courses were changed during the dreaming. For example there is Motor City, aka Detroit, where a music empire, the Motown, was established on the black workers. More than 1 million residents ran away from there, and the city lost 61.4 % of its population (1950: 1 849 568, 2010: 713 777).
The band moved forward West, where they lived in abandoned buildings, squatter camps, storage units and shoebox apartments, and mainly on the road. Where they picked up stray musicians along the way during endless tours, so the band is a quintet today, and you can find there such instruments like accordion, banjo, mandolin and washboard too. Fortunately their drive has taken them to Budapest at RNR666 PARTY. Here are more smashing shots about that frantic show by Márk Martinkó.
You can hear the latest album The Maker here. New album is coming in 2017.