Fanatic is a music marketing company established by Josh Bloom in 1997 to build fan-to-fan connections between artists and the media. For 25 years, Fanatic has continued to help launch careers through the strategic advocacy of creative talent.
Wednesday, November 22, 2023
“It was to be the jewel of his life’s work.” Originally issued on 9/11, Dan Bern’s “New American Language” gets new life via remastered vinyl edition.
“Even more important now, for a post-9/11 world,” said
WFUV’s Rita Houston. Hear epic “Thanksgiving
Day Parade” now. Remastered album
out Jan. 12.
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Dan Bern as photographed by Judd Irish Bradley
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“He’s been one of my favourite songwriters and
musicians for the past 28 years.” — Roger
Daltrey of The Who
“And the cops just blew on in here / And we’re in some
kind of raid / I just hope they will release us / For the Thanksgiving Day
Parade” — from “Thanksgiving Day Parade”
by Dan Bern
Read the full lyrics to Bern’s 10-minute epic here and listen
to the newly remastered audio (suitable for playing around the holiday dinner
table) at the links below.
“Veers from comedy to anger, conjectures to shaggy-dog
stories; he takes sidelong approaches to theology, science fiction, consumer
culture, art, love, and baseball. His lyrics bounce from image to image,
seemingly at random, then suddenly pull together all the stray thoughts.” — Jon Pareles, The New York Times
“Folk music has been tamed since the 1960s, when it
was a tool for protest. Most singer-songwriters now favor friendly meditations.
Not Mr. Bern. Ransacking history and
the present for subjects to attack, Mr.
Bern wrestles with the domesticated folk tradition.” — Ann Powers, The New York
Times
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Dan Bern | About
Jan. 12, 2024, will see the reissue, in a newly
remastered edition, of New American Language, the 2001
album by acclaimed American songwriter, Dan
Bern. Surprisingly, the occasion marks the first appearance of a Bern album on vinyl, during a career
spanning more than 30 releases.
“Dan’s epic‘Thanksgiving Day Parade,’ literally took two years to record,”
says the song’s producer, Wil Masisak
in the liner notes of the upcoming reissue. “The sense that we’d made something
worth hearing coupled with the knowledge that we couldn’t have done this alone
or without difficulty was immensely rewarding.
“Unfortunately, the release date was set for Tuesday,
September 11th, 2001, and so it is that this incredible collection of American
songwriting seemingly meant for those who did their best to carry on after 9/11
finds itself a little lost to time.”
“With Dan Bern’s
large and acclaimed catalog, I have no idea how he has never had a vinyl
release,” says John Young of Grand Phony Records (Mike Viola, Trapper Schoepp), the label that will reissue Bern’s landmark album. New American Language is my favorite
Dan Bern album, Young says. With “fresh and vibrant” remastered audio, it is
literally clearer that Bern’s lyrics
“have proven to be prescient, as if they were written yesterday,” according to Young.
“National treasure” is an overused phrase to denote
somebody whom Americans acknowledge as important. Someone whose contributions
to the American fabric are numerous, never in doubt, but rarely at risk.
Bern and his work is something more ingrained than what “national
treasure” can measure. What Bern has
offered throughout a 30-album and counting career speaks to something deeper in
us than any two-word workaround for actual criticism could define. Bern’s work takes those risks, and New
American Language is his career’s most precarious statement. In a world
filled with plenty of “safer” controversial subjects to write about, Bern could do that if he felt like it.
We are better for his decision not to.
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In addition to being a Jeopardy clue, Bern has
written thousands of songs, among such other notable career and personal
highlights as writing songs for the Judd
Apatow film “Walk Hard: The Dewey
Cox Story,” and Jonathan Demme’s
film about Jimmy Carter (which Carter recognized Bern for when introducing Bern
to his wife Roslyn, saying, “This is
the fellow that wrote that song.”) Bern
has opened for The Who (Daltrey has covered Bern’s songs), is a member of the Iowa Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and
taught tennis to Wilt Chamberlain.
The remastered, first-time-on-vinyl edition of New
American Language will be followed by the launch of a six-week Dan Bern tour in Atlanta. See dates
below. Starting Over, an all-new album of Bern songs is scheduled for release on March 1, 2024, via Grand
Phony. More info forthcoming.
Dan Bern is
available for interviews. Contact Josh Bloom
at Fanatic for more information.
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Dan Bern | On Tour
01/17/2024: Atlanta, GA @ Eddie’s Attic
01/18/2024: Carrboro NC @ Cat’s Cradle Back Room
01/19/2024: Vienna VA @ Jammin’ Java
01/20/2024: New York NY @ Mercury Lounge
01/21/2024: Philadelphia PA @ 118 North
01/22/2024: Providence RI @ Askew
01/23/2024: Woodbury CT @ Woodbury Brewing Company
01/25/2024: Cambridge MA @ Club Passim
01/27/2024: Montreal QC @ The Wheel Club
01/28/2024: Ottawa ON @ Live on Elgin
01/31/2024: Toronto ON @ Monarch Tavern
02/01/2024: Rochester NY @ Abilene
02/02/2024: Syracuse NY @ 443 Social Club
02/03/2024: Saratoga Springs NY @ Caffe Lena
02/04/2024: Northampton MA @ Parlor Room
02/06/2024: Buffalo NY @ 9th Ward
02/07/2024: Pittsburgh PA @ Club Cafe
02/08/2024: Ann Arbor MI @ The Ark
02/09/2024: Columbus OH @ Natalie’s
02/10/2024: Newport KY @ Southgate House Revival
(Sanctuary)
02/12/2024: St. Louis MO @ City Winery
02/15/2024: Louisville KY @ Red Room at Flanagan’s
02/17/2024: Memphis TN @ Hernando’s Hide-A-Way
02/18/2024: Fayetteville AR @ Folk School of
Fayetteville
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