While you wait in eager anticipation to find out, you can satisfy your thirst for all things Danielson by checking out a great new extended interview with Daniel Smith by Matt Fink in Busted Halo.  Click here!  You can read it while you order tickets to the date that was just added to the Danielson Concert Calendar:

June 12
Toquet Hall, Westport CT (All Ages!)
w/Sidewalk Dave, Midi & The Modern Dance
http://www.manicproductions.org

ALSO…THESE BOOTS WERE MADE FOR SQUAWKIN’!:
The new limited-edition, custom-designed Danielson Shoe by John Fluevog is now in stores! Those who beheld these shoes with their own eyes during last November’s Danielson tour can attest to the fact that never has a cooler piece of footwear graced a foot. Furthermore, any of the fine Danielson musicians who played on this tour can attest to the fact that never has a more comfortable piece of footwear graced a stage. They’re good for dinner parties! Weddings! Bowling Championships! Kicking around the house! Napping! Whatever the occasion, you’ll want to wear them. Call your local Fluevog store to reserve your pair now. Get em’ while they’re hot, as there is no guarantee that more will be made!

MOVIES!:
Finally, we are very pleased to share with you two brand new music videos created especially for Secretly Canadian’s Season of Danielson this past November. Click on the images below to watch! "Body English" (created by James Elaine, edited by Brian Rogers & William Basinski, and starring Deng Tai).

"Fetch the Compass Kids" (created by Harrell Fletcher; Live at Real Art Ways, Hartford, CT 2003).

Take care, all. We’ll see you at the shows (in your new Danielson Shoes)!

"Clarksboro-1955" photograph by David Eugend Edwards

]]> http://danielson.info/site/index.php/archive/up-in-your-grill/feed/ http://danielson.info/site/index.php/archive/get-cosmic/ http://danielson.info/site/index.php/archive/get-cosmic/#comments Wed, 01 Apr 2009 20:54:19 +0000 danielson http://danielson.info/site/?p=143

Hello Everyone,

Daniel Smith has been busy producing a lot of different projects over the past several months, and one of them is the latest Dan Zimmerman record.  It’s a thing of beauty, and well worth checking out.  Read on for details!!!

Dan Zimmerman Biopic - Woodshop Films
Woodshop Films is an independently owned multimedia company housed in a working woodshop in Philadelphia, PA. Founded by artist Marc Brodzik, the company serves as a think tank for the creation and production of cutting edge documentary films and multimedia work pieces. They have just recently finished a mini documentary about Dan Zimmerman. The backbone of the film is a fascinating interview of Dan by Daniel Smith at the Zimmerman home. Pull up your Easy-Boy recliner with a bag of popcorn, and click play on the screen below!

‘An Afternoon With Dan Zimmerman’ - Woodshop Films from Sounds Familyre on Vimeo.

‘Cosmic Patriot’ Release and Pre-Order
On April 21st, Cosmic Patriot will be unveiled to the wide-world, and pre-orders start April 1st (today!). Important note: if you pre-order from Sounds Familyre, not only will you get your copy of Cosmic Patriot on the release date, but you also get a special code to download THREE FREE BONUS SONGS! These bonus songs come with pre-order only, so don’t miss out. Order here.

Also, we’ve set up a ‘Cosmic Patriot’ listening station. Hear the whole album for free here!

The Word on the Streets
“In a music landscape often dominated by twentysomethings and their casio beats, Dan Zimmerman descends from the mountain glowing and wild-eyed, the madman prophet singing molassed-gravel sonnets and with a burlap sack of rattlesnakes slung over his shoulder. A supreme joy and danger to listen to.”
Michael Kaufmann/Asthmatic Kitty Records

“The happy marriage of Dan Zimmerman’s ever-deepening songwriting skills in concert with Daniel Smith’s coming-of-age as a producer has produced what just might be the most starkly beautiful and entrancing collection of songs I have heard all year. This LP is a force to be reckoned with.”
Kramer

“…I’ve always been surprised by how such a big voice with such great words of thunder and lightning could come from such a mild and gentle guy. I tried to kick up some fuzz, literally, whirling around like monkeys, but he seemed to enjoy it like a baby enjoying its pillow for a nap.”
Emil Nikolaisen/Serena Maneesh

Shows

May 1 - ‘Cosmic Patriot CD Release Party’. This will be an incredible show at The Auction House in Audubon, NJ. Joining in the celebration will be Danielson, Ben + Vesper, Ortolan, Leopulde, and Lenny Smith. An unbelievable night of music that is not to be missed!

May 15 - The Mercury Lounge. Come to one of the hippest venues in New York City to enjoy performances by Dan Zimmerman and Danielson. For more info on these and other shows, click here.

Take care, happy spring, and get COSMIC!

Danielson and Everyone at Sounds Familyre

]]> http://danielson.info/site/index.php/archive/get-cosmic/feed/ http://danielson.info/site/index.php/archive/scrapple/ http://danielson.info/site/index.php/archive/scrapple/#comments Fri, 20 Feb 2009 15:49:42 +0000 danielson http://danielson.info/site/index.php/archive/scrapple/

]]> http://danielson.info/site/index.php/archive/scrapple/feed/ http://danielson.info/site/index.php/archive/danielson-tour-diary/ http://danielson.info/site/index.php/archive/danielson-tour-diary/#comments Fri, 06 Feb 2009 14:44:13 +0000 Josh http://danielson.info/site/index.php/archive/danielson-tour-diary/

One of the more recent additions to the Danielson lineup is Patrick Berkery: drummer extraordinaire with a rapier wit and an all-around wonderful guy to be with. Patrick also happens to be a pretty terrific writer and regular contributor to Modern Drummer magazine. One of his latest columns is a tour diary of last November’s Danielson Sojourn Across These Here United States (19 shows in 23 days–whew!!). While the Danielson van drove hither and yon, Patrick kept everyone in good humor, on the right roads, in time on stage, and hipped to the better dining establishments throughout the Lower 48. It’s a fun read, so check it out here.

When listening to the Odd Nosdam “Our Givest” remix you’ll hear the blown out sound of 60’s garage rockin’ records (early Kinks/ the Sonics) coupled with an incescant groove, slightly psychelicized, in glorius mono with a touch of shoegangster shoegaze haze. In the words of Daniel Smith, “I have met a bunch of the Anticon guys and have worked with Why? already. When it came to thinking about another remix, I always thought the groove in “Our Givest” could be pushed out more. I talked to my buddy Josiah from Why? and he said that Odd Nosdam was the man for this. Josiah was right as always.”

With the remix of “Jokin’ At The Block” Dymaxion picks up the thread to commemorate the Famile with a patchwork quilt, stitched from handclaps and heartbleats, banjo and bass, call and response. Gather the folds around you and drop the needle back in the haystack. What’s Daniel’s take on this? “For years I have discussed with Jeremy the possibility of Dymaxion doing a remix of ‘Jokin’ At the Block.’ I could imagine him having fun with that tuba. And what would a remix of a 12 minute song sound like?”
Tracks
Our Givest (Odd Nosdam remix)
Jokin’ At The Block (Dymaxion remix)

To purchase, click on the album cover above!

“The broad outlines of the story are by now familiar. How a certain young man from Clarksboro, NJ, one Daniel Smith, having for a time turned his back on the culture and musical milieu in which he was raised up, which is to say having (temporarily, to go off to school) turned his back on impeccable folk and gospel bona fides in the person of his father, and having left behind the aggregation of his family, a large, singing musical brood, headed out into the world to see a few things. And yet in the course of doing so this Daniel Smith realized, with the kind of suddenness that we might associate with insight or revelation, that his family was a blessing, and that he needed to sing about this family. And not only did he need to sing about his family and the faith that sustained it, he needed, again, to sing and play with his family. The year of this revelation was 1994.

Not such an unusual tale, really. It’s one that goes all the way back to St. Augustine. And yet in this case, the young man was no ordinary musician. On the one hand, in his not-really-missing years, Daniel Smith, had drunk deep of the dark fringes of indie rock and outsider art, including and not limited to the likes of Sonic Youth, Captain Beefheart, Yoko Ono, Pere Ubu, Andy Warhol, Howard Finster, et al. And on the other hand he was not kidding about the purity and complexity and seriousness of his faith. He wrote (and writes) fearlessly about spiritual experience, in a way that ought to be the envy of all these gauzy and simulated gospel artists you hear out there. This Smith was loaded down with paradoxes. He was alpha and omega, he was light and dark, he was sacred and entertaining, he was folk/gospel and he was indie/prog/punk.

All of which is to say: the vision was fully articulated, was perfected, at the moment at which he assembled his brothers and sisters, Megan, Rachel, Andrew, and David, to play in the band (at his thesis exhibition at Rutgers, excerpts available online and in the documentary Make A Joyful Noise Here, for those who need proof), although a host of later collaborators didn’t hurt, including Chris and Melissa Palladino, Sufjan Stevens, Daniel’s wife Elin, and many others. Fresh from the success of the first Smith family recording sessions, immortalized on A Prayer for Every Hour, Smith moved with his brothers and sisters through an incredibly fertile period including the drone-oriented Danielson Famile release Tell Another Joke at the Ole Choppin Block (1997), the two-disc Dante-esque epic poem of Tri-Danielson (1999), and the summa of the Danielson Famile output, Fetch the Compass Kids (2001), a Steve Albini-produced effort that benefits from a perfect mix and the increasing vigor and confidence of the two-brother percussion section of Andrew and David. And if this music’s inspired qualities were not enough, there was also the visual art and the performance art sideline to the Danielson empire, which was just as singular–the nurse’s uniforms with hearts painted on the sleeves, the tree outfit in which Daniel often strummed his acoustic guitar, as well as a myriad of spin-off products, creams and eye shades and t-shirts, all designed to amuse and instruct in equal measure.

Yet what began as an evocation of family commenced in the first post-millennial decade, to suffer with some of the complexities of family life in general. In short, the Smith family, first wellspring of Daniel’s musical work, began to grow up. Sisters got married, became mothers themselves, moved far across the country; the drummers, barely out of their single digits on the first record, grew up and went off to college. In order to preserve some forward momentum, as well as the possibility of experiment, Daniel became Brother Danielson, which personage effectively reared his head first on a portion of Tri-Danielson. Now he was anew this solo artist, on Brother Is to Son (2004). Likewise, on 2006’s Ships, Smith metamorphosed again into that third part of his tripartite recording entity, Danielson, a collaborating and more outwardly directed version of himself, with a more wide-angle intensity and focus.
Trying Hartz samples the first decade of the Danielson/Danielson Famile/Br. Danielson oeuvre (all the years before Ships), attesting generously to the movement of the work as a whole, from proto-minimalist eccentric gospel band to prog-metal-dread outfit to music hall choir to indie rock one-man band to outsider art celebrity to family man and family member. It’s a perfect starter volume for listeners who have not had the pleasure of engaging with the evolution of this unusual, surprising, and incredibly moving musical consortium. And yet: please note that no verbal account of the work can possibly summon the effect of the decade digested in this assemblage. After all, as Daniel sings, “My Lord is known by His song.” Not by His press releases. The ecstatic vision of the Danielson project is the unnamable part, the impossible to describe part, and this ecstatic vision is cumulative. It’s not what Daniel says, though he always says it well, it’s the circumstances in which he says it, with family gathered around him, whether related by blood or not; it’s the reiteration of the spiritual thematic material, a reiteration that sounds nothing like early 20th century gospel–it’s far more poeticized, it’s far more elemental–but which has all the seriousness and all the joy of that long ago music. Ecstatic vision. You won’t get it by reading these lines, nor even by reading the lyrics. You will get it by listening to this distillation of ten years’ work and the earlier albums and going to the shows. Then you will experience the humble but devious and complicated grassroots movement that is Danielson. Trying Hartz is an essential place to start.”

–Rick Moody (The Ice Storm, Garden State)

Tracks
Now Try
Body English
Flip Flop Flim Flam
Singers Go First
Jersey Loverboy
Animal In Every Corner (version of lil’ restraint) Remixed by Kramer (MP3)
Rubbernecker
Sold! To The Nice Rich Man! (Live)
Thanx To Noah
Rallying The Dominoes
The Lord’s Rest (Live)
A Meeting With Your Maker
Daughters Will Tune You
Runnin’ To Brother

A No No
Good News For The Pus Pickers
Don’t You Be The Judge (Live)
The Wheel Made Man
Fetch The Compass Kids (Live)
Idiot Boksen
Nice Of Me (Live)
Cutest Lil’ Dragon (Live)
Pottymouth
Southern Paws
I Am My Beloved’s (Live)
Hammers Sitting Still (Live)
Smooth Death
Cheer Hart

To pre-order, click on the album cover above!

And take a gander at the mock-up for the new tour uniform! Pretty hip, no?

Finally, listen the interviews below (conducted by Lilly and Ida Smith) about the phenom of Danielson attire.

Why Wear Costumes?




Why Dress Up?

Click here to hear more interviews!

in a hot-air balloon…

over the South Eastern Pacific at the mercy of every whim of the elements…

and haven’t seen land,

(or more importantly)

an internet port,

for days…

If that’s the case, you might have missed a great little gem that popped onto the intertube cyber-waves a couple days ago. We care an awful lot about our hot-air ballooning friends, so we’re posting it here too. Said gem is the wonderful new animation of Danielson’s “Idiot Boksen” by animator-extraordinaire, Tom Eaton . It was created as part of the Season of Danielson, which culminates November 4, 2008 (December 1 in the U.K.), in the release of Trying Hartz, the Danielson retrospective of all things pre-Ships.

So click on the cartoon, enjoy, and be sure to check out the very hip commentary from Tom Eaton about the making of…

Idiot Boksen from Sounds Familyre on Vimeo.

“It was tough to pick a song from Trying Hartz… some of my favorite Danielson tunes are from the very early days, and it would have been a great opportunity to animate to one of those tracks. But I’d also always loved “Idiot Boksen,” and it lent itself really well to a short cartoon, what with its punchy beat, literal lyrics, & relatively short length (always a nice thing for an animator!) so I chose that one.

I also agree with the song’s anti-TV theme. Dan & I talked about growing up without television as a big part of our lives, which I think is a good thing. So in the video, the opposite of watching tv is engaging with your friends and going outside. I also wanted to add the element of focus group testing, which is such a big part of kids television these days, as a framing device.

(Just for the record, although I believe TV rots your brain, internet video is perfectly ok.)”