Artist description Harry Nagle, solo acoustic music, with an stark, emotional intensity. Roots-rock with a country underbelly.

Music Style Rock, Folk Rock, Alternative Country

Musical Influences Beatles, Emmylou Harris, Wilco, John Lennon, Vic Chesnutt, Roxy Music, Whiskeytown

Similar Artists Alex Chilton, Neil Young, Wilco, Elton John, Radiohead

Artist History A songwriter/pianist/guitarist for over 20 years, Nagle’s latest gathering of moments involves a 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, most of the songs were written over a 4-month period. “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 together, apart, up and down.” Musically, the result is soulful acoustic-based rock with a stark, moody, introspective underbelly. The Astrid CD been critically praised by reviewers as “beautifully haunting,” and “raw yet poetic.” The song Halo has been chosen for the soundtrack of a new feature film, "Drowning on Dry Land" starring Barbara Hershey and Naveen Andrews. Also, Nagle penned the song “Burst” which was featured in the award-winning indie film “David Searching.” A number of his songs have also broken the top 100 on the website MP3.com. 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.” And he was. Harry's parents took him to see Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Bach and Cole Porter. His older cousins, who babysat him, exposed him to the Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and The Who. Recalls Harry, “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. As a young kid growing up in rural Pennsylvania, I learned to be alone with my frustrations, loves and fears. Songs spoke to me and for me. I didn't feel so bad when I’d sit on my bedroom floor and hear people like John Lennon (on Plastic Ono Band ) sing about some of the same feelings. In middle school, I used to be grounded a lot, stuck in my room with just the AM radio. I just sucked in and researched all the music I liked. I had big lists of song titles with all these misspelled band names. Research...” “I began writing songs on the piano after trying to read music unsuccessfully. I couldn’t read the notes on the page but I could play the notes that crept in my head.” Later, Inspired by The Who, Neil Young, and the Punk revolution, Nagle got an electric guitar. “I was 16, 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.” Harry co-founded, wrote for and played lead guitar in the band, Itchy Trigger Finger, which opened for such acts as Ben Folds Five, Everclear, Face to Face and Freedy Johnston and toured with the 1995 Lollapalooza Festival. After 7 years with the band, he decided to step out on his own. “I wanted to convey music in a simpler, more intimate fashion. Now I’m performing the songs I write, conveying the moods I feel, expressing myself...that feels good. ”

Group Members Harry Nagle

Instruments Guitars, piano, organ, bass, drums, pedal steel, mellotron

Albums The Annika Tapes

Press Reviews Charles Wright of A&E's Biography Magazine writes; "Nagle’s melodies and harmonies are informed by the rock canon of the 1960s and early ’70s, but nevertheless up-to-date or, better, timeless." “…has enough angst to keep any card-carrying depressive happy. Underneath the beautiful sadness, is a tunesmith raised on the quality songwriting of the Sixties, make no mistake.” - John Holcomb Sound Clips “Harry Nagle loved *****. A lot. No, we’re talking a soul full of love. When she left, these songs were his way of dealing with it. It’s a psychodrama. It’s embarassing yet marvelous; painful yet redemptive; raw yet poetic.” -- S.G. Laurence Immedia Wire Service

Additional Info former lead guitarist, songwriter for, and co-founder of NYC's Itchy Trigger Finger.

Location New York, New York - USA

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