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The Gunshy
There's No Love In This War
Coming October 16, 2007 on Latest Flame Records
About There's No Love In This War -
From 1943 until 1945, Paul Arbogast spent his days preparinging for, fighting, recovering from, and again fighting a war. The songs that comprise The Gunshy's There's No Love In This War are based on the 17 letters Paul wrote to the girl he met at the Ukranian Club at home in Allentown, Pennsylvania, the year before he left.
Paul and Julia were married six months after he returned and in 1947 she gave birth to their first child, my father Mark. Paul passed away at the age of 39 of a heart attack, attested mainly to the shrapnel still in his chest from wounds received at Anzio in 1944.
Though she never spoke in detail of Paul, to this day there has not been another man in Julia's life.
These songs are his, though they may not do him justice. I've never fought in a war and hope to always be able to say that.
- Matt Arbogast
About The Gunshy -
For the past seven years Matt Arbogast has been using the name The Gunshy to disguise himself from the songs he writes. What started in a Lancaster, PA, attic with a couple of friends and an eight track machine has evolved into a consistently touring and recording process of life for him.
Arbogast self-released those attic songs in 2002 as his debut album, To Remember/To Forget, and began a seven week tour immediately. His travels introduced him to a world of comradere, booze, and sleeping on floors that quickly became his home. His second album, No Man’s Blues, was initially self-released, then quickly re-released in 2004 by Latest Flame Records, who had been given a copy by his tourmates at the time, Troubled Hubble. Impressed by the album and Arbogast's conviction, they were anxious to offer their support. After critical acclaim and lengthy touring behind No Man’s Blues, Arbogast relocated The Gunshy to Chicago. With the big city came the addition of more instrumentation to his songs. The result was 2005's Souls, which was perceived by critics and admirers alike as a great step forward for The Gunshy. On the day of it's release, Julia Simon of Spin.com wrote, “If Matt Arbogast's debut as The Gunshy wasn't enough to catapult him into the storytelling ranks of Destroyer's Dan Bejar and Silver Jews' David Berman -- those kings of self-referential literariness -- his third LP, Souls, will.”
Though his songs have allowed him to travel the States nineteen times and join most of his favorite artists on stage, Arbogast still maintains the DIY ethics that initially allowed him to do what he loves. He books his own tours, often preferring art spaces or house shows to the typical club setting. "It's sad and frustrating that the most popular form of art is so often restricted to those of drinking age. I drink plenty, but would prefer to play a living room of ten people listening to songs than a bar of hundreds too drunk to listen," he says. He’s the type of performer you’ll find watching other bands play or drinking a beer with his host on the couch in someone’s living room, rather than hiding backstage with his rider of expensive liquor.
When he’s not on the road (which is only about half the year), you'll find Matt either at the Green Eye on Western and Milwaukee in Chicago, at a show around town, writing and recording songs, or keeping in touch with those he's met on the road. He may not be handwriting all of those correspondences as his grandfather did, but you will hear in these songs from whom Matt inherited his wordsmith abilities…Please listen to and enjoy There Is No Love In This War, out October 16, 2007 on Latest Flame Records.
The Gunshy's There's No Love In This War -
Matt Arbogast, Andrew Bryant, Kara Eubanks, Jeff Grabowski, Ben Grigg, Dan Hanke, Andrew Lanthrum, Adam Penly, Hawley Shoffner, Corey Wills.
PRESS
"Arbogast is now and has long been the kind of song making hero who seems incapable of doing anything less than living the songs he writes and Souls is just one more step toward making us realize that." - F5 Wichita
"Head Gunner Matt Arbogast gets nailed for aping Tom Waits so much, but that misses the whole point because he does it so well. When you do it as long and as well as he does, the purloined style eventually becomes all your own. And on this album, it finally does." - Detroit Metro Times
"A listen through this record and you'll feel like you've been sitting in a smoke-filled room, nursing a glass of whiskey as your friend tells you stories he's been meaning to tell for a long time." - Punk Planet
"His narrative storytelling plays like the guilty pleasure of a long departed pulp novel, a jukebox sympathy that one would picture unfolding from the speakers of a sparse and seedy Irish pub. Not the trendy sort, where hipsters flirt and drink Guinness pints and listen to Flogging Molly, The Tossers and Dropkick Murphys, but one that caters to miners and mill workers and serves cheap bourbon. Reminiscent of latter day Dylan, if only Dylan could have lost his voice with such conviction." - Copper Press
"It’s high time to take notice of the Gunshy; Souls is an excellent place to start." - Playback STL
"The gift of storytelling is handed down from generation to generation and it's obvious Arbogast was blessed with this extraordinary gift as he struggles through his cough-like vocals simple to say something to the listener." - Follow The Daiz
"The result is a powerful, moving collection of lyrically-smart, somber, yet melodic songs that thrive under the added production values and instrumentation, but still feel as immediate and close as always." - In Music We Trust
"The Gunshy's Souls is not an album for people who prefer easy songs hand fed to them. It is music meant to be explored, realized, and appreciated for what it is: brutally sincere. This heartbreaking album mesmerizes the mind with stirring melodies, gripping lyrical prose, and rightly placed horns." - Tastes Like Chicken
"Deadly, darker tunes that see the bottle or glass not half full but shattered on the barroom floor." - PopMatters
"In all, Souls is a beautifully written and recorded collection of songs offered with a startling degree of honesty. Gradually, the unassuming ten-track confessional disarms anyone who will listen with an amount of sincerity equal to the album’s, baring to them the soul of its professor. Rating" 5 out of 5." - SBI, University of Buffalo
"Someone talk this guy back off the ledge, he’s got a lot to offer." - Rockpile
"Forget the layers of solid sonic foundations that make up The Gunshy’s overall dark sound; forget the power behind the build-ups and the weightlessness felt during the breakdowns – what is most striking about The Gunshy is Matt Arbogast’s tortured voice. Arbogast belts breathy phrases about hurting the people he holds closest." - Pulse Weekly
"From his moniker alone, it's clear that The Gunshy's Matt Arbogast is pretense-phobic. His warts and blemishes aren't merely part of his music- these shortcomings, failed relationships and social anxieties form the centerpiece of his debut...Essential." - CMJ
"Though Matt Arbogast, a recent transplant from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, often enough enlists friends' help to perform and record as The Gunshy, he's essentially a solo artist hiding under a band name like a rattlesnake in the bushes. His brutally sad songs traipse between Americana and emo, with weird little keyboard and guitar fills jammed in at odd angles and drumbeats perfectly emphasizing his raw vocal lines. It's a bit like Springsteen as described by Dante." - Chicago Reader
""Matt Arbogast's The Gunshy takes the mellowest of Tom Waits and the sincerest of Elliott Smith and sows them into a curtain of sorrow, catharsis and ultimately, grace. His graveled voice mathes the frantic strumming of an acoustic guitar with unbelievable smoothness." - New City Chicago
"I give The Gunshy four and a half out of a fifth of Jack Daniels..." -Hybrid Magazine
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