Honoring The Hortonsphere—

Danbury’s Gasball Festival Returns Sept. 16

By Shannon Hicks

DANBURY — This weekend will see the return of Gasball, a music festival that has been presented on the CityCenter Green in downtown Danbury for six years. The seventh presentation starts at noon on Saturday, September 16, and will run, as promoters put it, “from noon to moon.”

The show will present one of its largest and most diverse line-ups this year. Fourteen bands are expected to take the stage at the green’s bandshell, performing music ranging from techno/house and bluesy soul rock to what Screaming Headless Torsos calls “funk-oramic soul in stereo” and post groovy break-beat science by a band called The Fantastic Superheroes.

(Additional details and a full list of the bands playing Saturday afternoon appears in this week’s “On The Road with Shannon Hicks.”)

“It’s great that this thing has been able to continue because there aren’t a lot of places up-and-coming, and especially the more alternative, bands can play in this area,” John Murray, the drummer for The Parting Gift, said this week. “This is a great opportunity for a lot of people.”

The Parting Gift formed in 1998, when Murray and long-time friend Rob Marcicano teamed up with Kim Leaman. Leaman, a lifelong Newtowner, had been playing acoustic coffee house shows since the age of 13; Marcicano and Murray had also been playing music for a number of years, and wanted to try something new.

“We decided it was time to collaborate and put something different out there,” Mr Murray said this week. So with Leaman’s vocals (and songwriting talents) and guitar playing, Marcicano’s bass playing and Murray’s percussion skills, The Parting Gift was on its way.

Having written since she was in eighth grade with the intent of one day putting her words to music, Leaman fell easily into the spot of handling the songwriting duties for Parting Gift. While the other members sometimes help with the arrangements, it is Leaman’s words that go on top of the original songs played by this band.

Right around the same time The Parting Gift was forming in Danbury, a Newtown-based band was making its own sound. A foursome called ElectricWater was getting some good feedback and playing around the local bars and clubs. Among the members of ElectricWater was Chris Morrison, a Newtown guitarist. In early 1998 Morrison also teamed up with fellow Newtowner Mike Biegel to do some acoustic shows, with the duo billed as Live Acoustics.

While Morrison was doing his thing, The Parting Gift was doing its own… only it kept losing its guitarists.

“It’s been a long road,” drummer Murray said this week. “We’ve gone through a slew of guitar players!”

“We’re still on good terms with them,” Leaman added. “It just didn’t work as a band.”

Earlier this year, Parting Gift members found themselves once again in that familiar place: looking for another guitarist. Enter Morrison, who by this time had moved out of Newtown and into neighboring Oxford. Leaman and Morrison had both attended Newtown High School, and Leaman said this week she knew her former classmate was a good guitarist. She extended an invitation for Morrison to join her band about three months ago, and it’s been good so far.

“We’ve regrouped with the best lineup we’ve had to date,” says Murray, a Danbury resident who manages a pawnshop by day. “This is the best we’ve had, I can say that for sure. I think we’ve all gone through a lot, and we’ve all grown up. We know what we have to do to make this work, and we do it.”

Parting Gift performs what Leaman calls “moody indie rock,” and all of its songs are originals. On Saturday, the band will be playing the sunset set, around 7 pm.

“We played at that hour a few years ago and it’s a good time,” Murray said. “The crowds are at about their peak by then. It’s a great hour.”

The band practices at least twice a week at its bass player’s home in Danbury, which is a long drive for Morrison in Oxford but is also the only residence of the four band members large enough to handle the amount of equipment a band needs; Murray alone has three sets of drums he can leave at Marcicano’s house full-time. The group was holding its final pre-Gasball rehearsal on Wednesday night this week.

Not only are things starting to work well with Morrison as the band’s guitarist, but more people are beginning to notice the band as a whole. The group has been playing at Danbury clubs, including Hat City Ale House and Colorado Brewery (a number of the bands playing this year’s Gasball actually played a pre-Gasball 7 benefit performance last weekend at the brewery), and the word is getting out.

“We’ve gotten a pretty big fan base in Danbury since we’ve been playing out more,” Leaman said. “The coolest thing is, people sometimes stop me on the street now and I don’t always know who they are. That makes me want to do this even more,” she laughed.

The Gasball was created and first presented in 1994. The event is the Danbury area’s answer, say its creators, to something to do. The festival continues to highlight the sights and sounds emerging from the greater Danbury area.

The festival is a feast for the eyes and ears. In addition to all the live music up on stage, artists also line the green with their table and booth set-ups, presenting artwork in a variety of mediums.

Admission to the ten-hour festival is free, and the event is open to all ages. Food and soft drinks will be available for purchase, and vendors will be set up with CDs and other concert gear for the full run of the concert.

The festival takes its name from the huge propane tank just off nearby Pahquioque Drive. Officially called a Hortonsphere by owners Yankee Gas, the tank has long been referred to by locals as “the gas ball.”