![]() Reeder’s music has been featured on TV shows SMILF and Weeds, and Swiss musician Stephan Eicher recently covered Reeder’s “Born a Worm” ( “Né un ver” in French) on his Homeless Songs album this past September. His appeal mixes today’s antihumor with a suspiciously overt sincerity (à la Tim Heidecker’s Heartland rock). He’s a folk-singing boomer with a surreal sense of irony that fits the millennial age. His songs blend elements of folk, blues, and roots they exude the innocent naivety of Daniel Johnston and the comic charisma of Flight of the Conchords. His website describes him as “self-made.” Self-made, but not unapproachable. Embracing the expressive autonomy and stylistic simplicity associated with an “outsider artist,” Reeder has graced his releases with his own cover art, played all of his compositions himself, and designed and built many of his instruments and recording equipment. There he had already established himself as a visual artist before he sent a copy of some of his musical work to John Prine, whose Nashville-based Oh Boy Records would release his debut album in 2004. I talk, they listen.” If Cohen fashioned piercing beauty out of the futile balancing of existential alternatives, then singer, songwriter, and visual artist Reeder sees a cosmic farce instead, drawing on his dry wit and cynicism to dismiss the illusion of choice with a childish playfulness.īorn in Louisiana’s Cajun Country in 1954, the California-raised artist has been a resident of Nuremburg, Germany, for over three decades. Neither are Reeder’s paintings, which include Buddhas who “just sit there” and a prophet so self-satisfied that he declares “It’s great. In his song “Bird On The Wire,” Leonard Cohen lamented: “I have tried in my way to be free.” Of course, the tune itself was a kind of “bird on a wire,” precariously seated between overstatement and understatement, or between “asking for more” and “not asking for so much.” Attempting to dramatize that (in his own way) over 30 years later, Dan Reeder sings “Love and pain / go together like thunder and rain / like bitch and complain / like choo choo and train.” No, not so subtle. ![]() I have a feeling he will be on my playlist for some time to come.Album artwork for Dan Reeder’s recent releases. And to my old pal Clifford who lives out in the greater Amesbury area, thanks for the intro to Dan Reeder. I am also throwing in a lovely, gentle song called Maybe that has a real Prine feel in its tone and message. It’s one of those pieces I wish I had never let go. The song I am showcasing is Clean Elvis just because it made me smile - not always an easy things these days– plus I wanted to show the old painting at the top, a favorite of mine called Elvis in the Wilderness from 2006, I think. You can hear echos of the John Prine influence in his music but he definitely has his own frank perspective on the world. It’s considered “ outsider modern folk” which is probably an apt description of John Prine’s music as well. That this Reeder follow was Oh Boy was enough to make me want to give it a listen. My friend had stumbled on this fellow and had discovered that he was on Oh Boy Records, the label that John Prine recorded on and founded almost forty years ago. A few days ago, a good friend introduced me to a singer/songwriter I had never heard, a fellow by the name of Dan Reeder.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |