Media Sightings : Performing Songwriter Reviews "The New Then"
on Jun 02, 2006 - By Mare Wakefiel

There’s a distinct classic-rock vibe to Pennsylvania resident Kate Gaffney’s latest record. Her vocals are husky and reminiscent of lady rockers like Grace Slick and Chrissie Hynde, and she’s got the music to back up the comparison. There’s a Hammond organ, there’s a rippin’ guitar lead, there’s a powerful voice telling us about the bitter cold and rough roads—everything you need for a perfect rock album.

Highlights include “Lone Wolf,” in which Gaffney admits, “I wasn’t looking for love, I had convinced myself I’d had enough.” Some Creedence Clearwater–style swamp guitar propels the tune along. “Tired Wired” has a driving drum beat that guides listeners through Gaffney’s story of laying “my head in a gypsy tent after all my money’s spent.” Mandolin joins the mix but still makes way for wailing electric guitar.

Have you been wondering where all the cool rocker chicks have gone? Gaffney knows—and she’s not afraid to reveal it.

Media Sightings : Given the chance, Gaffney rises above typical folk/rock fare - CD Review
on Apr 07, 2006
Review By Bryan Chambala - Press & Sun-Bulletin, Binghamton, N

On the back cover of her 2005 release, The New Then, Philadelphia-area singer/songwriter Kate Gaffney is holding a guitar and sliding out of the driver's seat of a blood-red vintage Cadillac parked under the sun in an expanse of grass and trees.

Images of artists pouting or slinking their way across CD booklets are usually dictated by strict conventions pulled from the record industry's myriad marketing strategy handbooks. But independent artists such as Gaffney claim the power to shape their own portrayal. In this case, the confluence of classic American style and the breezy, folksy feeling found escaping the confines of the city offer a fitting visual introduction to Gaffney's blend of classic rock, country and plugged-in folk.

The New Then opens with perhaps its strongest track, She Knows, a travelogue with a lyrical style in some ways reminiscent of Gram Parsons' solo work. It is a driving song, replete with a churning organ and bass line delivering Gaffney from the desert heat, the bitter snow of the mountains and the cold rain of Santa Fe.
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Media Sightings : The New Then - Inspired by men's songs of the '70s, Kate Gaffney adds a modern edge.
on Mar 17, 2006
Her latest CD is The New Then (TiredWired), a collection of 11 song that sometimes sound like Bonnie Raitt's blues-rock, at other time Beatle-esque in harmonies and instrumentation. Some of the song even have a Grateful Dead/jam-band sensibility

Ms. Gaffney has a low voice, a delicious contrast to many of the more ethereal sounding sopranos in the singer-songwriter world. Although she admires Ms. Raitt and Janis Joplin, and some in the business have said she sounds like a young Joan Baez, Ms. Gaffney says men in music have been a much bigger influence. If she doesn't ape the leather lungs of Robert Plant, she's absorbed his "body of work" with Led Zeppelin. Along with the Beatles, Crosby, Stills and Nash and Jim Croce, it's what got her through high school.
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Media Sightings : Michael Tearson Reviews "The New Then" in Sing Out! Magazine
on Mar 15, 2006
“Kate Gaffney’s exuberance buoys her debut full-length album Fr m the opening ‘She Knows’ to the mournful closer ‘Unleashed,’ s e commands the spotlight at stage center with a tough, tight ba d featuring Jesse Lundy’s guitar leads Kate’s songs show a wom n discovering herself more caught up in the journey than the goa Kate’s contralto voice is captivating Strong presence marks th s impressive effort. --Michael Tearson, Sing Out! Magazine, Spri g 20

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