Reproduced with permission from the New Jersey Daily Record, 12/03/2004 edition.

12/03/04 - Posted from the Daily Record newsroom

No plugs, amps for singer Hermus

By Robert Hicks, Special to the Daily Record

Singer-songwriter Gary Paul Hermus of Morris Township has followed many paths in his lengthy music career, but he now feels acoustic folk music is the best way to express his musical identity.

Jack of all trades is an apt description for Hermus, who journeyed through bluegrass, Latin jazz and country music before finding his voice as a songwriter and performer of traditional and contemporary folk music. The Brooklyn native, who holds down a day job as a computer systems coordinator in Staten Island, left music while pursuing two master's degrees, one in public administration, the other in computer science, for nearly two decades. Two years ago, he found his way back to songwriting.

Dec. 4 he's performing solo on acoustic guitar at Rockingham Coffee Lounge in Boonton in anticipation of his forthcoming, debut full-length CD, "Sid's Gaseteria."

Hermus, 54, and his wife moved to Morris Township to escape rising property taxes in Maplewood more than a year ago. He enjoys the intimacy and down-home feeling of small clubs and coffee houses in the region where he can tell the personal stories behind his songs.

"We're tax refugees," he said. "At the time, we thought it was a terrible thing, but we found a lovely house in Morris Township. It's the law of Buddhism. There's no good thing or bad thing, or least you can't tell until it's happening. We've lived out here for a year and a half and it turned out to be the nicest thing that could have happened to us."

He has written more than 30 new songs and has spent the past two years honing them through live performances throughout the Northeast. Good crowd reception has encouraged him to record an album of songs at his home studio. He plans to employ guest guitarist Tony D'Ambrosia from Middletown, N.Y., for the project.

Hermus plays in a fingerpicking style and sings in a sweet-toned voice in melodious, personal songs that reflect his upbringing in Brooklyn, summers spent at square dances at his grandparent's house in Vega, N.Y., and his current experiences in New Jersey.

"I really look at the personal aspect of the tale of the human condition," he said.

Hermus likens his songwriting to portraying a character in a play or a movie. In that sense, he feels his songs are cinematic, poetic and dramatic in their storytelling.

One new song examines the life of a computer programmer whose job has been outsourced to India. The song's narrator looks at his own unemployment from the perspective of his father who had to find work during the Rust Bowl years.

Another song relates his efforts to help his younger brother out of a difficult dilemma. The story humorously focuses on the burden of being an older sibling and always having to be responsible for other's actions.

His song, "Sid's Gaseteria," taps into his teen experiences in Canarsie where he knew friends who worked on "muscle" cars and became local heroes.

"That's really what I like to look at. The human side of it," he said of his songwriting. "That's far more interesting and fulfilling than proselytizing or preaching. It's something that the audience knows in its hearts. They've lived this stuff."

Robert Hicks can be reached at (973) 428-6200.