Dan Reeder Dan Reeder Oh Boy Records By Danté Dominick There are different motivations for making music. Music was a different form of entertainment in the days before radio and television. People participated in music directly as opposed to ingesting music from a distinct performer-listener one-way route. The abundance of packaged music available everywhere has had two results: fewer individuals play their own music as a means to simply entertain themselves and the overwhelming motivation to learn music is now to have your music heard by others. Dan Reeder is a painter. He works more hours than he wants to, he has a wife and three kids. Just like anyone else, surely there are times that life's obligations become taxing and so a distracting hobby becomes a very good thing. And so Reeder began to write and play his own songs. He never aspired to hit the stage, nor was he hoping for a record deal. It was, plain and simple, his hobby, his personal time. It all started when he and a friend "were looking for something fun to do." No, he didn't set out to learn some musiche had to make the instruments first, after all. Yeah, that's rightmake the instruments. Says Reeder, "I spent about two years making guitars, ukuleles, basses, electric guitars and wacky unplayable instruments." C.F. Martin & Co. may recoil at their visage, but, not only do they work, the rest of us are extremely impressed. And when Reeder says, "my guitar," it means a lot more than his instrument. Soon he had a computer that could handle audio recording. Only problem was he had no pre amps or mixers. So Reeder built some, "meant I had to learn some electronics," he offers. Reeder became fascinated at the ability to sing harmonies with himself. These new toys were sure working out to be a lot of fun. "When I ran out of campfire songs, I started writing my own." While escaping reality Reeder pens bluesy-folk tales that are often consumed with reality. This is not so ironic. Early blues was an extension of chain-gang work chants. The only way to truly remove oneself entirely of struggle and stress would be to remove oneself from the Earth. This is not a compelling option, and so confronting our troubles directly and turning them into song has been a common therapeutic practice for ages. If you can sing, mock and chortle about something it can't be all that bad, after all. Soon enough you find yourself feeling much better and singing about eating food, chasing women and watching the rain. This is the case if you're Dan Reeder, at least. "I'm not a musician," Reeder plainly states today. But the hobby that started with building a guitar in 1995 resulted in a collection of songs recorded to compact disc in 2003. A monumental do-it-at-home DIY project: Reeder wrote, performed, recorded, mixed and produced the entire project himself. Now what to do? He had no plans to do anything really, but did burn a copy and sent it to John Prine as a thank you gift. Reeder found solace in Prine's songs for decades and wanted to offer something in return. In a handwritten letter to Prine, Reeder explained he made the disc, "pretty much for the hell of it hope you like it." It turns out Prine didn't just like it...he loved it. When Reeder noticed an e-mail from Prine's record label, Oh Boy Records, in his "Inbox," he thought it was especially polite they should send a thank you note to him. He opened the message to discover a contract offer. Prine loved the disc so much he released it as is, imperfections and all. Initially available via direct order only, Dan Reeder received considerable praise and will hit retail stores mid-March. "I'm still stunned," says Reeder. Its beauty is its stark minimalism. On most tracks it is only Reeder's vocals and his homemade guitar. Bluesy-folk dominates, but hints of doo-wop, nursery rhymes and...uh...Dan Reeder are apparent. He fingerpicks simple progressions and kept audible flubs (and background hiss) intact. His lullaby voice (surely honed from singing his children to sleep) entreats listeners to pay close attention. The full, lush richness stemming from the layered vocal tracks, when added to his low-key scruff, is mesmerizing. Dan Reeder, the disc, is 18 songs brief. The forty-two minute run-time is made possible by a few, very brief one or two sentence observations. Other songs unfold in the more standard formula of multiple verses and chorus. In both formulas Reeder demonstrates ability to play with words and thoughts like a child playing with a ball. Some of the sparsely worded songs are remarkable. A Japanese haiku conveys more substance in 17 syllables than a three-hour speech by a politician and so, too, do Reeder's one or two-minute odes convey far more emotion than any 20-minute jam ever recorded. Take "Work Song." Expletives can be a very useful dialogue feature. When used liberally they loose all of their emphatic power and the word basically becomes a hiccup, akin to speakers who fill their conversation with "like" incessantly for no grammatical purpose. Reeder plays the gamut of his homemade instruments on the album, but for "Work Song," he set them all down. He simply claps and repeatedly sings one line, "I got all the fucking work I need." It is superb! He places the emphasis on the word "all," holding it long and layering himself similar to a round. That one line repeated over and over, emotional and surprisingly uplifting. A bond is created, some joy in sharing common feelings with a stranger and some humor is inescapable as you sing along, "I got all the fucking work I need." Soon I answer, "damn straight!" and wind up sitting on my front porch like a vegetable. The happiest fucking vegetable in the garden, mind you. Other songs settle without the lightheartedness. "The Tulips on the Table" is among the most wrenching songs I've heard in some time. Similarly wrenching, but like the best of hymnals in offering a sense of hope amidst despondence, is "Fight My Way Out." Both are more poetic and developed, but their ideas are so blunt they make me shudder. The obvious intimacy of the recording adds to the effect. On the contrary, "Here in the Kitchen" is the greatest paean to pleasure from nothing (and thereby everything) I've heard since Jerry Jeff Walker's (1976) "Getting By." Dan Reeder abounds with original quips that come off like familiar axioms. The bizarre, unconventional approach and structure notwithstanding, I found myself endeared to this record. So interested, I checked up on Oh Boy Records and learned the story behind the work (as outlined above). I swear I obliviously muttered, "oh boy," but I may be making that up in my mind now. Return to Dan Reeder Press