HEADLINES

Monday Favors We’re So Messy

Harry Nagle grew up in a small town in Pennsylvania. He was adopted when he was a handful of days old. The only important information about his lineage was provided by a priest who told his adoptive father, “He should be exposed to good music.” Harry's parents took him to see Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Bach, Cole Porter. His older cousins, who babysat him, exposed him to the Beatles. Only later, as an adult, he found he was the grandson of famous big band singer Skip Nelson.

 “As far back as I can remember, I used to make up songs, either on the bus on the way to school when I was a kid, or walking around the city later. “I began writing songs on piano after trying to read music unsuccessfully. My hands and imagination would jump out ahead of my brain.” Later, Inspired by the Who, Neil Young, and the Punk revolution, Nagle got an electric guitar. “I was 16, felt misunderstood and pissed-off. I needed to make a big sound - I needed to scream. So, I co-founded a punk band. My first amplifier was my parent's Magnavox Voice of America reel to reel tape recorder. I'd overdrive the speaker in it to get some kind of distortion. It made a really raunchy sound.”

Nagle moved to New York at the age of 20. He soon joined the hardcore punk band "White Plastic." The band played among other venues, the famous hardcore matinees at CBGB's. After leaving White Plastic Harry joined with Barb Morrison for a short-lived 80's new wave project called "Freudian Slip. He then teamed up with his old friend, bass player and singer Chris Whitaker and formed the avant-garde band "Trial and Error." The band played various venues in the East Village. Eventually the band turned toward jazz forms and left the idea of vocals behind, rather opting for Ornette Coleman's harmolodic music approach. Harry next played guitar for the East Village band "Bloodsuckers From Outer Space." The music veered from Goth rock to blues to King-Crimson-influenced dissonance with odd-time signatures.

1990’s Itchy Trigger Finger
In 1992, Nagle rejoined Barb Morrision who was fresh off the disbanding of the band Gutterboy and they started NYC rock mainstays Itchy Trigger Finger. Nagle co-wrote songs and played lead guitar in the band which opened for such acts as Ben Folds Five, Everclear, Face to Face and Freedy Johnston. In 1995 they toured with the Lollapalooza Festival.

1998 – Folk, The Astrid Tapes Nagle wrote and recorded an 18-song CD called "The Astrid Tapes," named after the woman whose liaison with Nagle inspired all 18 songs. An intimate portrait of a relationship, the CD package includes love letters, original pictures, poems. “I wrote most of these songs over a 4-month period and I realized after a while that when I put them all in the order in which they were written, they told the story of me and Astrid. One of the “Astrid songs” was chosen for the soundtrack of the feature film, "Drowning on Dry Land" starring Barbara Hershey and Naveen Andrews. 

Early 2000’s Film work, Sonic Cover and Hip-Hop production 
Nagle co-wrote music with Barb Morrison for “Raising Victor Vargas” and scored other indie films. He also penned the song “Burst” which was featured in the award-winning indie Anthony Rapp film “David Searching.” Harry Nagle released an electronic music album entitled “Tambourine Slang” under a  pseudonym called Sonic Cover in 2001. Soon thereafter, he teamed up with Barb Morrison again and worked on various file music projects including a short for Tamara Jenkins (Slums of Beverly Hills, Savages.) Nagle and Morrison, under the moniker “Sonic and Buzz” also worked on Hip-Hop and R&B production for various artists in the NYC area.

2010 – Cynthia’s Smile 
2010 brought a more song-based and atmospheric indie EP release named "Cynthia's Smile." I was trying to find the perfect blend of clean electric guitar and piano in romantic setting.’

2012 – Penitentiary of Dreams 
In 2012, inspired by a new fascination with baroque-rock and Scott Walker, Nagle released an 18-song rock album called "Penitentiary Of Dreams." If life is made up of tiny moments both happy and sad, then POD was a mirror of those moments and even more. Grandiosity, loneliness, anger, yearning, fatalism and ecstasy all combine to make "Penitentiary of Dreams" a journey worth taking. Songs veered from bombastic rock drama to intimate confessionals. Childhood friend Tom Hamilton played all the excellent drums and percussion.

2014 - The Evacuation of Summer Lane 
The title "The Evacuation of Summer Lane” was a kind of homage to old film titles like “The Panic In Needle Park, “The Day of The Locust, “etc… But really it goes back to the song “Evacuation,” which is about leaving a polluted, uninhabitable Earth but only to trash a newer planet. “Most songs were written during the final stages of mixing my previous album, “Penitentiary of Dreams.” Some of the songs were written during the blackout after superstorm Sandy. We had no power but my piano still worked. Recording this album was a lot easier than the previous. I knew what I was doing a whole bunch more as an engineer. RawRamp’s Neil Mach said of the single "All The Things I Need” ‘All The Things I Need’ has a bunch of joyful and chaotic rhythms. Crystal bowls of licorice-strand sounds built up over time…”

2015 – Monday Favors and The Tongue That Licks, The Teeth That Bite 
Harry created the Monday Favors persona while embarking on a newer electro-pop sound and, in late 2015, Monday Favors released “The Tongue That Licks, The Teeth That Bite.” The album was a large paean to 80’s music, using modern and retro-80’s synthesizer and guitar sounds, and was packed with pop melodies to create atmospheres ranging from extreme claustrophobia to romantic grandeur. Of the single “The Ghost of You,” Phil King wrote ”OK, Soft Cell and the Bauhaus had a baby, and out came Monday Favors. Add a touch of Siouxsie. This band is amazing. I am so happy. I want to go back to the 80’s and dance and dance and dance to this song."

2018 - the RESIST! album 
Inspired by recent political events, Monday Favors released the RESIST! album. As Nagle notes, “the RESIST! album was a labor of love and hate, an urgent mission that I felt I had to undertake and work on every night for nearly two years. It was exhilarating but also exhausting. What I do best is make music and this is my gift to the resistance effort.” RESIST! contains protest songs, street anthems, hate letters, cries in the dark, etc. etc. - all set to a blend of rock, pop, funk, African and reggae music. There are protests against authoritarianism, school shooters, stormtroopers, racist dehumanization of others all with a final urge to “Stay Woke.” Not politically correct and, at times, full of dark portending, RESIST! is necessary listening for this moment in history.

2019 – We’re So Messy 
The forthcoming Monday Favor’s album is called “We’re So Messy” and features the synthpop-infused single “No Matter Where You Go.” Messy is more synth and funk-based than the RESIST! album. It features some dark and heavy moments as with the tracks “Can I Burn You” and “Stronger.“ There are also still political statements, as with the title track’s anthem to diversity and the plea for moderation in the rock anthem “Love and Devotion.” Joined with Harry on the album are his longtime drummer, Tom Hamilton and funk/soul bassist Wayne Parham.

Though he was featured in recently released Lifoti's September 2019 issue 09, you can check it from below link's for your country:

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