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In The Press – 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004

Singer with cancer works to get health care benefits for fellow musicans

Kansas City Star, By Tim Finn – November 10, 2008

The epiphany followed a downpour of bad news.

In December 2007, Abigail Henderson and her husband, Chris Meck, returned from a tour of Europe with their
band, The Gaslights. All was not well. Henderson was suffering from a severe cold and an ear infection that would
need medical attention. Meck’s favorite guitar was stolen from their van. The band’s drummer quit. Then her
father died.

That’s when Henderson, 30, decided it was time to take stock of her life and to stop working without a safety net.
Like so many local musicians, Henderson works part time at a restaurant and isn’t eligible for benefits.

“If I worked full time, I’d have to work weekends,” she said. “I can’t do that and be in a band.”

By spring she’d taken her own advice and enrolled in a catastrophic health-insurance plan.

“I got it in case I got in a car wreck or hit by a bus,” she said. “Then — ha ha ha! — I got cancer.”

The cancer emerged as a minor skin eruption.

“It looked like I had a detergent rash on my left breast,” she said. “I thought it was nothing.”

But the rash was persistent, so in July she made an appointment to see a doctor. The exam was hardly routine; it
included a biopsy and a skin punch. But Henderson wasn’t too alarmed.

“The rash didn’t seem like anything too weird,” Henderson said. “But I felt like [the doctor] knew something was
wrong. She gave me a prescription for Xanax before I left. When she called the next day, the first thing she said
was, ‘Are you sitting down?’ ”

The diagnosis: Stage 3 inflammatory breast cancer.

WDAF-TV Fox 4 News

By Tess Koppleman – November 07, 2008

A Picture of Hope: Abigail Henderson fights cancer – and rallies musicians for health care

The Pitch, By Jason Harper – November 06, 2008

Abigail Henderson feels best when she’s onstage.

The drummer pounds away behind her, the bass player rides the roots and the fifths in a country-rock lope.

Her man stands stage-right, tall and blue-eyed, twisting licks on his guitar like he’s squeezing limes over a drink.

The tuning pedal and the set list are at her feet. The guitar neck is in her left hand, the pick in her right.

She starts to sing. She feels nothing.

Weekends are hardest for this 31-year-old, so having a gig works out well. She usually gets the chemo treatment on Thursdays, and the god-awful poison hangover kicks in Saturday evening. It’s the perfect time to play with her band, the Gaslights, and to forget about the cancer in her body.

Local Band News: The Gaslights Back Together

The Pitch, By Jason Harper – April 23, 3008

From Gaslights guitarist Chris Meck:

After taking a couple of months respite, and playing a duo show in which … well … we kinda sounded like The Gaslights … we’ve elected to carry on. Ryan Johnson (Buffalo Saints, Golden Republic, etc..) is on drums and Erik Voeks is playing bass. Whether or not they’ll be permanent or not will depend on scheduling, etc. But The Gaslights is still a band, and active as of May 4th at P. Ott’s.

Regular Pitch readers will know that country-rockers the Gaslights have been through just about everything — make that way more — than an unsigned, hard-touring band could get itself into, including a van-totalling collision with a moose, a subsequent inner-band marriage, and several trips to Belgium. Earlier this year, the band had called it quits, with only Chris Meck and Abigail Henderson continuing to play together (it helps that they’re married). Well, it looks like the flame refused to die. Hopefully this signals a new, re-energized direction for the Gaslights.

The Gaslights – 16 Addresses (Self-Released)

The Pitch, By Andrew Miller – January 31, 2008

The Gaslights certainly live the country-song life, weathering vehicle breakdowns, van break-ins, emergency surgeries and lineup instability. But judging from the fiery material on 16 Addresses, the band’s three remaining original members would rather brandish broken-off bottles than cry in their beers. Abigail Henderson, whose voice pairs rich twang with husky volume, snarls the phrase I’ll never be your pretty little thing with enough corrosive disdain to stop the roughest roadhouse hecklers cold. Guitarist Chris Meck opens smoldering ballads with surf-style shivers, cuts country-rock songs in half with crisp solos and ends the standout track “Silver Ring” with a solid minute of ringing lead. Drummer Glen Hockemeier maintains a steady marching pace, shifting to a stomp when the group’s raucous honky-tonk numbers reach a boil. 16 Addresses kicks like a boot with blood-stained spurs, and the Gaslights make no apologies for their aggression: I’m not easy, Henderson sings, nothing worth much ever is.

Hometown Jams: Stuff the stockings with locally grown music – 16 Addresses

The Kansas City Star, By Tim Finn – December 13, 2007

They sound like a Bloodshot band if ever there was one. But the Gaslights also bear that post-roots sound, a fusion of punk, country, rock and folk that was born in the 1980s (Lone Justice, X, Jason & the Scorchers, the BoDeans) and is not of the No Depression era.

The band’s prima voice is singer Abigail Henderson, whose range runs from a siren-wail (“Texas”) to a soul whisper (“Ponchatrain”) and whose twang is as soupy as a Delta bog (she says Tennessee as “Tayn-uh-sigh”)

It’s useful to compare her voice to other country divas and their offshoots, from Loretta Lynn and Dolly P. to Maria McKee, Neko Case and Miranda Lambert. But more and more Henderson sounds like a singer others ought to compare themselves to. The other voice here comes from her husband, guitarist Chris Meck, who knows that less can be a lot more, when what you say is clever and incisive. The broader picture is just as rewarding: the 12 songs here are a bracing mix of the rough, rowdy and melancholy — country-rock with attitude and sentiment, but no compromise.

The Pitch’s Critics Chose – The Gaslights CD Release

The Pitch, By Richard Gintowt – November 29, 2007

The past 18 months have dealt the Gaslights a bum hand: an album scrapped because of band defections, a van-totaling moose, and carpal-tunnel surgery for drummer Glen Hockemeier. By the time the Kansas City band finally hit the studio in September, the only thing left to do was channel enough piss and vinegar to justify the hardscrabble journey. Judging by the LP’s first two singles (“Last Dollar” and “Silver Ring,” downloadable on the group’s MySpace page), 16 Addresses is going to be just that: a Sturm und Drang purgefest of a record informed by first-name country icons such as Loretta, Lucinda, Waylon and Willie. With barroom-silencing singer Abigail Henderson leading the charge, the band’s upcoming European tour should burn all the right bridges.

The Gaslights Keep The Flame Alive – 16 Addresses Shows How Far The Band Has Traveled

Present Magazine, By Pete Dulin – November 20, 2007

The Gaslights are Chris Meck (guitar/vocals), Abigail Henderson (guitar/vocals), and Glen Hockemeier (drums/vocals). These three musicians formed the band in late 2003, toured across the Midwest and throughout Belgium, released the lean and low-down debut, Midwest Hotel, in 2004, and followed up in December 2005 with Lines and Wires. The past two years have been a whirlwind of topsy-turvy shifts in direction and personnel.

Not many bands could withstand multiple lineup changes, a van accident, and a drummer’s emergency surgery for carpal tunnel, then find the wherewithal to continue intact. With their latest record, 16 Addresses, the band shows how far they have traveled.

PresentMagazine.com chats with Chris Meck and Abby Henderson about the band’s history and latest album produced by Chad Meise. It’s full of buzzing rock songs and unsentimental vignettes that highlight Henderson’s twangy wails and soothing drawl, guitars with a heap of fiery country attitude, and Hockemeier’s expressive drum work that keeps the whole show on the tracks.

All The Rage – The Pitch Music Showcase: There’s no better reason to leave the house

The Pitch, By Jason Harper – August 02, 2007

In the past year, the Gaslights’ two-man rhythm section (Jon Stubblefield and Quentin Phipps, formerly of the Bad Ideas) came and went, the band’s van got totaled by a moose in Montana, and its drummer (Glen Hockemeier) had carpal tunnel surgery. The shake-ups scotched a CD release but didn’t thwart a two-week European tour. The Gaslights can endure just about anything with Chris Meck’s old Nashville licks and singer Abigail Henderson’s bronc-busting delivery, which is the vocal love child of Rosanne Cash and Ani DiFranco.

Kansas City Public Library Announces HearAbout KC Noontime Concert Series Line-Up

April 25, 2007

The Gaslights close out the concert series on Friday, September 14. Representing the local alt.country scene with a little twang, a little swagger, and a lot of soul, the band features Abigail Henderson on vocals and the lead guitar work of Chris Meck. If Loretta Lynn and Keith Richards got into a bar fight, it might sound something like this hard-working and oft-touring band’s most recent record, Lines and Wires. Having scored opening slots for artists like Shooter Jennings, John Dee Graham, and the Bottle Rockets, The Gaslights have earned a loyal following from here to Holland.

The Gasights / Casey Reid / Dirty 30s

Riverfront Times, By Jason Harper – February 14, 2007

While some bands are torn apart by bad record deals, members leaving, girlfriends cheating or just the sheer exhaustion of touring, it took a van-totaling collision with an 800-pound moose in Montana to slow Kansas City country rockers the Gaslights down. And even then they didn’t think about calling it quits: They just holed up in a small-town bar for a couple of days after the accident and figured out what to do next. Part of that involved the band’s firecracker singer Abigail Henderson getting married — right there in the bar — to tall, blue-eyed, Telecaster-slingin’ guitarist Chris Meck. Touring, writing and recording constantly, the Gaslights are almost too busy to even think about getting a label contract, and they’re too realistic to dream of fame. If hard work, heartbreak, twang music and laughter at the day’s end are your speed, then the Gaslights are your band. Casey Reid and the Dirty 30s round out the bill.

Light My Fire – When The Gaslights Say L-U-V, you better believe they mean L-U-V

The Pitch, By Jason Harper – February 08, 2007

Chris Meck and Abigail Henderson were married on a summer night last year in Montana, after their van was totaled by an 800-pound moose (female, halved). On the night of the accident, a humorless state trooper informed Henderson that if she decapitated the moose and mounted its head on the wall of the van, as she had expressed a sardonic desire to do, she would incur a $500 fine. Meanwhile, Meck was standing by the wreckage, repeating phrases such as “Why couldn’t I have just liked numbers? Why couldn’t I have been an accountant?”

Instead, Meck is a musician. So is Henderson. She writes the songs; belts them out like a smoother, countrier Janis; and strums an acoustic guitar. He smokes and peels notes off a Telecaster. Together they lead the Kansas City country-rock band the Gaslights.

Meck and Henderson say they keep their love life out of band business. That may sound unromantic, but, Meck says, “I’ll take whatever strain that comes with this, because we get to go through it all together.”

And they’ve been through some crazy shit.

The band’s other guitarist at the time of the moose slaying, John Stubblefield (who is also an ordained minister, apparently), officiated at the nuptial ceremony, which was held at the Talking Bird Saloon in a town called St. Regis. The bar is named in honor of its talking bird, George, who had learned to say “Rock and roll, George” by the time the Gaslights left town in a new van, which Meck bought for $11,000 after hitchhiking to Missoula and getting a loan.

For a while, Meck and Henderson wore hair ties around their ring fingers. Now they wear simple, matching silver bands. “We got more important shit to spend money on,” Henderson says. “Like brakes!” Something’s always going wrong for the Gaslights, sometimes colossally so. That’s not because the band is ill-managed or cursed. It’s because the Gaslights operate by putting it all on the line.

Take the time that all five members quit their jobs and moved to Springfield, Missouri, intending to tour three weeks a month with the help of a booking agent. Crammed into an A/C-lacking, down-by-the-river cabin owned by Henderson’s grandmother were core members Meck, Henderson and drummer Glen Hockemeier, plus newbies Stubblefield and Quentin Phipps.

The moose incident, followed by the end of the band’s relationship with its booking agent, broke up that happy, two-month-old home. Then Phipps and Stubblefield quit for personal and financial reasons. As a five-piece, the Gaslights had recorded an entire album, called 15 Hands, with Springfield producer Lou Whitney (who has worked with the Bottle Rockets, Jonathan Richman and Wilco, to name a few). The disc had to be shelved because the Gaslights couldn’t play the songs live without their ex-members. Also, Stubblefield had contributed songs to the album.

This has all happened in the past eight months, and yet, in a week or two, the Gaslights will be touring Europe.

Having recruited It’s Over bassist Bill Sundahl (known around town as Roach) on a temporary basis, the group will play shows all the way out to New York. From there, they’ll fly to Brussels and hit clubs — and a couple of prisons — around Belgium and Holland.

They played much the same route last year, minus one of the jails.

There, things got a little surreal for Hockemeier when the Jeff Spicoli-like drummer met a European version of himself coming out of a bathroom. Not only was the Belgian fellow similarly long-haired and also named Glen, but the two also had the same distinct laugh — always the same pitch, of telephone-ring length, and frequently in use. (In crowded areas, Henderson and Meck have used Hockemeier’s laugh as a homing beacon.)

Anyway, thanks to a couple of Belgian bookers named Gert and Ludo (spelling approximated), plus the European audience’s affinity for merch, the Gaslights are able to execute the tour in a cost-effective way, barring disasters.

And even when disaster strikes, the Gaslights are trained to take it in stride and laugh about it later. Safe travels, kids.

Pitch Music Showcase Guide

August 03, 2006

The Gaslights play country music from a mythical place, a site carefully drawn in songs of theirs such as “Sundays and Interstates” and “Lines and Wires.” Lately, they’ve also taken to spreading the Americana urge as hosts of regular roots jams. Chris Meck’s guitar draws those highway lines with the kind of ringing guitar that Nashville left behind decades ago, Abigail Henderson’s singing fills every molecule of a bar’s cigarette smoke, and the band’s new rhythm section (Jon Stubblefield and Quentin Phipps, formerly of the Bad Ideas) pushes hard enough to make the Gaslights a reasonable fit in the rock category.

The Gaslights with Rhinestone Diplomates, Aviette, & Kentucky Air at Lee’s Liquor Lounge

How Was The Show?, By Kristine Lampbert – June 01, 2006

“If Rhinestone Diplomats asked why we are so jaded, then Kansas City’s self-confessed whiskey band The Gaslights gave us our reasons with songs titled “Wicked Love,” “I Fall Down,” “Gone,” and “Not Again.” This band includes Chris Meck on guitar and vocals, Johnny Eggerman on bass and vocals, Glen Hockemeier on drums and background vocals, and Abigail Henderson on lead vocals and guitar. I’m pretty sure that Johnny Cash was giving this band a wink from above during their double-timed version of ‘Long Black Veil.’ After the set, Henderson cited Loretta Lynn and Lucinda Williams as her main vocal influences; but I think she sounds like a Dolly Parton who would and could kick your ass.”

The Gaslights Lines and Wires (4-1/2 Stars)

Freight Train Boogie, By Don Grant – December 2005

This is going to be one band worth watching. On their first release, Midwest Hotel, the Kansas City based Gaslights demonstrated a high-octane energy approach to their music. That same energy is present here on the follow-up, one year later, but this go-round, some of that vitality has been diverted into some of the more reflective musings of singer/songwriter/guitarist Abigail Henderson. Here’s a lady whose writing abilities have grown enormously and admirably in the interim, and the result is a well-balanced transition from where the band was, to where, evidently, they are headed. Check out songs such as “Trashed”, “Red Dirt”, “A Place to Fall”, and “Tattoo”, to name but four examples. It was written here less than ten months ago that echoes of Lone Justice were perceptible on their debut; that statement can no longer be justified. Henderson is charting her own course, both vocally and lyrically, and Meck’s lead guitar work is, in a nutshell, tight, controlled, and tasty. A lot of the time a rhythm section tends to get overshadowed by the front-men, but, hey, don’t sweat it guys; just how far could an aircraft fly without its wings to get it aloft? A band is the whole sum of its members, and this band is getting a whole lot better.

New Music Reviews

Enigma Online, By Thomas Martin – October 27, 2005

Here at Enigma, we do things a tad bit different. We pride ourselves in seeking out music as much as we enjoy having music sent to us. And I get a lot of ‘promo copies’, usually three or four songs stripped of all artwork or physical description of the band. These discs get pitched in the garbage can at other arts/entertainment publisher’s offices. Here they are scrutinized. Here the little man gets a chance. You don’t need to make a one hundred thousand dollar album for it to be good. And this week The Gaslights three-song promotional copy says everything I want to say about music. Music is a sound and if it is a good sound it is good art.

Country outfit The Gaslights have a knack for arranging bluegrass standards and making them electrified western crossovers. The good news is it’s not ready for CMT and probably never will be. The Tammy Wynette, Lucinda Williams rounded vocals might be a bit much for domestic audiences right now. This one deserves a smoky bar and a room full of folks who have worked their asses off all week.

The Gaslights are this week’s underdogs that faired well. Come back to Chattanooga and treat us to some raw country rock. Keep sending those three song demos out because they make a difference. Also, send me the full length please.

Top 10 Picks for January

Sauce Magazine – January 04, 2005

8. The Gaslights: Jan. 12 – Frederick’s Music Lounge
The Gaslights are a band that rocks like Charles Bukowski reads, playing pure unbridled, unashamed, sincere, believable, head-nodding roots-rock/country that is gritty and beautiful at once. Dark in the middle and brilliant around the edges, lead vocalist Abigail Henderson sounds sometimes heavy and slow like syrup, other times driving, fast and tight, like Brenda Lee coming on strong.

The Gaslights Midwest Hotel (4 Stars) – Think of Lone Justice on Amphetamines

By Don Grant – Fall 2004

The driving force behind this CD would appear to be a lady named Abigail Henderson, writer and lead vocalist, and, when I say drive, I mean drive. This girl has her throttle fire walled here. Think of Lone Justice on amphetamines. Why? She has a sound and delivery that could make her Maria McKee’s sister, and, her band, fronted by guitarist, Chris Meck, steamrolls along, his style akin to that of Justice’s Hedgecock when he’s rockin’, and, the amphetamines? The pace is sheer steamroller/jackhammer deluxe here. The slowest tune, “Sundays and Interstates”, is about 68/60, if I recall my old tempo measurements correctly. That would be at the lower end of a normal pulse rate, so, if you’re on heart medication, approach this one with caution. I’ve always been attracted to bands that attack their art: no quarters asked, none given, no apologies, this is us, what we do, here we are. Gotta like this one.