Abigail Henderson at Apocalypse Meow 2009
Photo Courtesy: Mat "Slimm" Adkins
Abigail Henderson at Apocalypse Meow 2009
Photo Courtesy: Mat "Slimm" Adkins
Abigail Henderson
I spent a lot of time writing in secret books when I was a kid, crouched on the heating register in an apartment in New York. I grew up and moved around a lot but my constant was scribbling bits of this and that. When I landed in Kansas City, I started going to shows .. actual real live shows not arena production numbers or massive outdoor festivals. There was something about being in an intimate space with a band right in front of you. That did it.
I got my first guitar at 22. A surprise birthday gift from my mother picked out by one of my favorite musicians on the sly at a pawn shop. She was an Alvarez and her name was Evangeline. She’s still around. The interim between then and now began with me crouching next to another heat register with my cat in the gnarled heart of Midtown. Mad props to Otissa Blue the cat who had to deal with me back then. I was awful. And terrified.
But not terrified enough to not book a show with a friend of mine with no songs and no band. That’s how Trouble Junction started. I was lucky enough to fall into a band with mad geniuses my first run out the blocks.
Then The Gaslights happened and that was insane. I lucked out when another amazing guitar player thought I wrote an ok song. Chris Meck swaggered into my life, all mad-riffs and snarl, and I never was the same. The Gaslights put out three records, made 5, toured endlessly and incessantly for several years, made a few International jaunts to play for the good people of Europe, said hello and goodbye to 9 bass players, three drummers, and one van.
Tiny Horse, the duo, came next. We miss the bass and drums however. So now there is Atlantic Fadeout as well.
I am a lucky girl.
Chris Meck at Apocalypse Meow 2009
Photo Courtesy: Mat "Slimm" Adkins
Chris Meck at Apocalypse Meow 2009
Photo Courtesy: Mat "Slimm" Adkins
Chris Meck
I grew up in a small Missouri town where if you wanted to buy a record, you went to Wal-Mart. We could sort of get like three radio stations in; a country station, a classic rock station, and a top 40. I didn’t like what I was hearing on the radio, but I was 16 before we got MTV in Marshall, (which was where my family stopped moving long enough for me to go to high school.) They didn’t sell Husker Du records at Wal-Mart, so Muddy Waters was my alternative rock, at least in the early stages of learning to play guitar. That and my dad’s record collection-Beatles, Stones, Led Zepplin, Hendrix-the usual stuff.
I bolted out for college as fast as I could, where I majored in alcohol abuse and minored in oversleeping for class. I tried the army for a while after that, sensing that perhaps I could use the discipline, but it didn’t really take. After my short stint was up, I tried college once more, but my heart wasn’t really in it. There just wasn’t anything I wanted to DO with that piece of paper.
I started playing in bands somewhere in there; and my obsession with the guitar really took hold. I drifted away from college and to Kansas City in search of musicians to play with. I played in some good bands that just didn’t get anywhere. I started doing some live sound and got interested in recording. I met my wife Abigail Henderson, and together we started a little alt.country band called The Gaslights which went all over the place including Europe three times, but in the end, it was just we two, sitting on a pile of bags on Christmas eve at the airport. We tried a couple of times to soldier on, but it was time to blow it all up and start over…
We had a rough couple of years with cancer (among other things), but Abigail and I started doing some shows just as a a duo-me on electric guitar/atmospherics and Abigail on acoustic. We called it Tiny Horse. People liked it, and we liked it too, but we missed the power of bass and drums. We got our old friend Amy Farrand to play drums and my buddy Dutch Humphrey to play bass, and Atlantic Fadeout was born. It’s a LOT more rock and roll, and I’m really enjoying it. I get a little itch now and then for Tiny Horse to do some more shows and record some stuff too, so I figure both have a future. We’ll see how it all plays out, I guess.
