Some bands are just always going to have a place in your heart. We’re going on 19 years since Halfway to Gone released their 2004 self-titled third album through Small Stone, and there’s still some part of me waiting for a follow-up. What can I say? It’s a universe of infinite possibilities. That could be one of them. If believing that makes me sentimental, I’ve been called worse.

Formed in my beloved Garden State of New Jersey around the turn of the century, Halfway to Gone made their debut in a 2000 split with Alabama Thunderpussy released by Game Two Records and spent the next half-decade or so on a ripper course of three albums and multiple tours, playing a kind of Northeastern take on semi-Southern heavy rock and roll. Their first long-player, High Five (discussed here), surfaced through Small Stone in 2001, Second Season (discussed here) followed in 2002, and their self-titled third album — the band firmly declaring who they were throughout 12 hard-hitting, riff-propelled tracks, workman-like in their everyday-woes and lyrical middlefingerism and sharp in their expression — came two years later and remains a moment of arrival for the three-piece of bassist/vocalist Lou Gorra, guitarist Stu Gollin and drummer Danny Gollin, who had a hand in producing along with Robert Burrows and Bob Pantella (Monster Magnet, Raging Slab, subsequently also The Atomic Bitchwax, etc.), the latter of whom also mixed. So thanks, Bob, I guess, for making “Slidin’ Down the Razor” sound so massive but still move. Thanks everybody, maybe.

The phrase ‘dirt rock’ didn’t really exist at the time, as much as it does now with any meaning behind it, but it’s hard to find another designation that suits the 41-minutes of Halfway to Gone as well. Careening ragers like “Couldn’t Even Find a Fight” and “Burn ’em Down” show the band at their most brash — it’s not as fast, but the penultimate swing of “King of Mean” should be on that list as well, for Danny‘s drums as much as the lyrics — thick in tone and groove but thoroughly in control, confident in what they are doing and never as sharp or efficient in their songwriting. Rolling first track “Turnpike” wastes no time on introductions. It places them squarely in New Jersey but drips with attitude and grievance in its lyrics (so yes, New Jersey), while its jammy side B counterpart “His Name is Leroi (King of Troi)” loops guitar effects and noise — Billy Reedy, Small Stone‘s own Scott Hamilton, and Big Chief‘s Phil Dürr (R.I.P.) are credited with album guest spots on guitar, feedback and “ridiculator,” respectively — as a kind of breather before “Burn ’em Down” takes off at full speed, mirroring “Couldn’t Even Find a Fight”‘s launch after the heavier midtempo push of the opener.

Of the many, many heavy rock covers of Deep Purple‘s “Black Night” that have surfaced in the last half-century, Halfway to Gone‘s stands among the most off-the-cuff, let’s-take-a-crack-at-it casual, and the grit they kick at that famous, bouncy start-stop riff makes it feel right at home alongside the blues of “Hammers Fallin'” and the are-you-guys-making-fun-of-Dixie–Witch slide guitar in “Out on the Road,” on which Danny joins Gorra on backing vocals, which is probably something that could’ve happened more often than it did. Harmonica scorch tops the outset of the more severe fuzz crashes in “Good Friend,” but the song is ultimately more about the turn in its second half, Stu taking another in his series of ripper solos — some folks are just born to play lead guitar, and then they work at it too for a few decades and get even better — as the trio turns to more of a gallop, Gorra finishing with the shouty refrain, “I still get by/I still get high for free,” in and out in just over three minutes.

It was alluded to noted, but while Halfway to Gone sounded mean and dirty, one of its most vital aspects — then and now — is its ability to get in, kick ass, and get out. Each song offers something to distinguish it from the rest, bolstering and broadening the whole impression of the record, but the tones are consistent, the structures are steady and the performances are tight even in a looser-rolling piece like “The Other Side,” which pulls back on the general intensity from “Burn ’em Down” just before, finds Gorra with a more melodic take on vocals, and allows a grunge-via-blues spaciousness to flourish for a few moments before they head down the highway in “Out on the Road,” the lyrics in the hook of which namedrop the band, “I’m going for broke/Out on the road/Halfway to gone,” with lines rearranged the second and third times through, the last of which is especially soulful in finishing the song. The momentum keeps going. After that pair, “King of Mean” feels like a relative surge, and the Hammond-led blues jam “Mr. Nasty Time” seems at last to let go of the tension that’s run like an electrical current through most of what’s preceded, meandering for a few minutes before giving over to the sample of the actor George C. Scott from 1979’s Hardcore repeating “turn it off” in increasingly guttural fashion as his reality comes crashing down on him.

That kind of self-effacing humor is quintessential to understanding this record, this era of heavy rock. Halfway to Gone weren’t about to take themselves too seriously, even though they had to know they just put everything they had into making this record. And like many of the pre-social media mobilization, pre-streaming era, their work remains ripe for reissue and as much contemporary as it is classic, but I won’t pretend not to be nostalgic. A month or two ago, the town of Long Branch tore down what was an epicenter of New Jersey’s heavy rock scene in the Brighton Bar, and thinking about the shows seen (and a couple played) there, including the last time I saw Halfway to Gone now over a decade ago (review here), I feel old enough to know that some things go and you don’t get them back and that’s it. I wouldn’t want this band to just do another record for nothing, but if Lou, Stu and Danny had it in them, I do think it might earn them some of the respect they’ve long since deserved. This was the last of their albums I hadn’t written about, as you can see from the “discussed here” links above, and so finishing this makes me a little sad. So it goes.

As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.

—

Oy vey, this week.

I’m not sorry to see it go.

Like a lot of people presently being ripped off by the increasing costs of everything — gas, food, lodging — we’re about as broke as we’ve been since moving back to NJ. They raised the price of eggs a dollar and it matters. That kind of broke. The holidays apparently destroyed us, and the stress of locking down spending, as it will, has bled into the general mood of the household. To tell you something you likely already know: it sucks. Paychecks are gone before they’re here, and especially with it being winter, dark and cold, there’s just not as much to do with the hours of the day. The Patient Mrs. posits this as part of why The Pecan has been throwing punches and kicks as much as he has. In any case, it is a harsh moment in which to exist, and the fact that I am not gainfully employed — as much as parenting is “work,” and it is, it brings nothing in terms of income (please do get me started on UBI and the child tax credit) — weighs as heavily as my own e’er-expanding, middle-aged ass.

I hope you enjoyed the Quarterly Review. That’s 100 records I’m mostly glad to have covered. I’ve been doing QRs for about eight years now, so if we say it’s usually 50 per, four times a year, that’s 200 a year, times eight is 1,600, plus another couple hundred for extended QRs like this one and the last, and it’s probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 2,000 QR reviews at this point. It’s become a big part of how I’m able to get stuff in, and there’s always more, which is amazing and humbling in kind.

Next week is back to whatever normal is around here, some premieres, etc. Monday I’ll review the event demos/rarities collection from Samsara Blues Experiment basically as a favor to myself — there’s a new Fuzz Sagrado record as well (that being the new project of ex-SBE guitarist/vocalist Christian Peters, now based in Brazil), and I’ll get there too — and then it’s on from there.

I think new merch is dropping today. Check http://mibk.bigcartel.com/products if you get a second. Any support is deeply appreciated.

Have a great and safe weekend. Hydrate, watch your head. See you back here Monday for more of whatever it is we do around here.

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Tags: Halfway to Gone, Halfway to Gone Self-titled, Long Branch, New Jersey, self-titled

This entry was posted on Friday, January 13th, 2023 at 11:30 am and is filed under Bootleg Theater. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.