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.
“Ransacking history and the present for subjects to
attack, Mr. Bern wrestles with the domesticated folk tradition.” — Ann Powers, The
New York Times
+++
Dan Bern as photographed by Judd Irish Beadley
+++
Dan Bern | About
“He’s been
one of my favourite songwriters and musicians for the past 28 years.” — Roger
Daltrey of The Who
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 Bern’s 2001 masterpiece New
American Language is out now. Starting Over, an all-new album of Bern songs is scheduled for release on March 1, 2024, via Grand Phony.
About the upcoming new album Starting Over, Bern explains, “I started playing with
the Jane’s Great Dane guys out of
Boston after a snow blower incident that cost me a couple of fingertips and put
me out of commission as far as playing the guitar for a while.
“Then, In the middle of the pandemic, Jonathan Plaut, from the band,
suggested I come out to Connecticut and record some songs with them. I hadn’t
been in a room with other musicians for over a year! Those sessions led to a
second session, some months later, and eventually, Starting Over.”
Dan Bern is
available for interviews. Contact Josh Bloom
at Fanatic for more information.
Listen to “Starting Over” by Dan Bern
via Rock and Roll Globe here
or at the link above.
“For nearly 30 years, Dan Bern has established himself as a true songwriter’s songwriter
whose ability to transform thoughts and observations into poetry is
unparalleled,” says Rock and Roll Globe
in its premiere coverage of the title track taken from the new Bern album Starting
Over, out this Friday, March 1.
“‘Starting Over’ is about a kind of
freedom,” says Bern. “Of always
having a corner to turn. No matter how bad you think a situation may be, just
keep going. You never know what’s around the bend. I read once that a certain
group of Japanese painters, no matter how well-known they got, would change
their names every seven years or so, and start again. I thought that was kind
of cool.”
Listen to “Bible” by Dan Bern via Glide
Magazine here
or at the link above.
Glidecalls“Bible” by Dan Bern, “a piano-driven work of folk-pop that carries a chorus
that speaks to our current climate of divisiveness. Littered with pop culture
and political references, not to mention a colorful history lesson, the song is
both humorous and poignant in its lyrics and message.
“We also get plenty of grandiose rock and roll guitar,
making this the kind of clever piano-rock that would make Warren Zevon smile.”
Bern says, “In the midst of so much rancor and division, ‘no one in the
Bible was white’ was a phrase that I had seen somewhere, and it seemed worthy
of a song.”
“In a series of brisk, moving sentences… he begs God
to send him back in time, saving the good and destroying evil.” — The
Washington Post
Thirty albums into his
career, the genius tunes of Dan Bern finally hit wax as the revered
songwriter’s 2001 masterpiece New
American Language gets a remastered double-album reissue.
Today sees 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.
“Delete The World” follows-up recent DOC NYC fest
premiere of Lunachicks documentary feat. Debbie Harry of Blondie, Dexter
Holland of The Offspring, more.
+++
Gina Volpe as photographed by Jayme Thornton
+++
Gina Volpe |
In The Press
“Catchy, swaggering dance-punk.” — Brooklyn Vegan
“Channels modern angst via detuned metal guitars and
rattling 808 beats.” — Rolling Stone
“Layered with chunky riffs, pop, and dance sounds.” — She Shreds
“‘Drink Me’ was inspired by my occasional tendency to lean precariously on vices — wine in this case — but also the collective experience of friends I had been in conversations with about obsession and addiction,” Volpe explains. “The lyric, ‘one foot in the grave, the other in my mouth,’ is a cheeky observation of how messy and dangerous our habit of running to the nearest exit can be.” See the video now via Brooklyn Vegan or at the link above.
+++
+++
Gina Volpe, prolific NYC-based artist and founding member of
punk rock royals, Lunachicks, enters
the next phase of her career as a solo artist with the release of the debut
album Delete The World, out now.
Produced by Barb
Morrison (Blondie, Franz Ferdinand, Rufus Wainwright), who deftly captures Volpe’s soaring, crunching riffs and sultry magnetic voice while
also delivering flashes of Brian Eno,
Delete
The World follows closely on the heels of a Lunchicks renaissance.
The late 2023 premiere at the world-renowned DOC NYC documentary film festival of “Pretty Ugly: The Story of the Lunachicks”
featuring Debbie Harry and Chris Stein of Blondie, Dexter Holland
of The Offspring, Donita Sparks and Jennifer Finch of L7,
and others, is the perfect primer on Lunachicks’s
lasting influence, which began when Volpe
co-founded the ferocious punk band with her fellow high school classmates in
the 1990s. Lunachicks released a
half-dozen albums, toured the world numerous times, and staked a claim in rock
history.
Gina Volpe is
available for interviews. Contact Josh Bloom
at Fanatic for more information.
Gina Volpe, prolific NYC-based artist and founding member of
punk rock royals, Lunachicks, enters
the next phase of her career as a solo artist with the release of the debut
album Delete The World, out now.
Produced by Barb
Morrison (Blondie, Franz Ferdinand, Rufus Wainwright), who deftly captures Volpe’s soaring, crunching riffs and sultry magnetic voice while
also delivering flashes of Brian Eno,
Delete
The World follows closely on the heels of a Lunchicks renaissance.
The late 2023 premiere at the world-renowned DOC NYC documentary film festival of “Pretty Ugly: The Story of the Lunachicks”
featuring Debbie Harry and Chris Stein of Blondie, Dexter Holland
of The Offspring, Donita Sparks and Jennifer Finch of L7,
and others, is the perfect primer on Lunachicks’s
lasting influence, which began when Volpe
co-founded the ferocious punk band with her fellow high school classmates in
the 1990s. Lunachicks released a
half-dozen albums, toured the world numerous times, and staked a claim in rock
history.
Now Volpe
brings decades of chops, experiences, and attitude to Delete The World, adding
brooding, textured, and experimental sounds that combine on lead single and
video “Drink Me,” recently called “a
catchy, swaggering dance-punk song” by Brooklyn
Vegan. Heavy bass riffs and retro synth sounds pair perfectly with the
visually arresting music video created by award-winning pop surrealist Stänzii.
“‘Drink Me’ was inspired by my occasional tendency to lean
precariously on vices — wine in this case — but also the collective experience
of friends I had been in conversations with about obsession and addiction,” Volpe explains. “The lyric, ‘one foot
in the grave, the other in my mouth,’ is a cheeky observation of how messy and
dangerous our habit of running to the nearest exit can be.”
While Volpe
is known for her furious guitar solos, Delete The World proves that she is
a true musical nomad at heart, a fact that becomes even clearer when asked
about her influences.
“I am always so careful about who I cite as an
influence because it doesn’t make a lot of sense in relation to what I’m doing,”
Volpe explains. “Pink Floyd, I mean, I sound nothing
like them. David Bowie’s Scary
Monsters, Donna Summer’s ‘I Feel Love.’ I also love Death From Above, but I sound nothing
like them. ZZ Top... I don’t hear
any of them in my music either!”
Volpe also mentions her fondness for newer bands such as Idles, Dry Cleaning, and Viagra
Boys before using this question about influences to point out a reality
that follows proactive female artists like herself.
“I feel like there can be a binary way of thinking in
the music industry,” she says. “Even in the streaming platform’s algorithms,
which suggest gender is a genre in and of itself. This conversation vexed me my
whole career. My influences span the gender spectrum.”
Like the societal borders that Volpe rightly reminds us about, she describes Delete The World as “a
disintegration of not just traditional stylistic borders, but also mental ones.”
Many of these songs reflect on coping mechanisms gone
awry, unintended consequences, and how perception can cut you loose or keep you
confined. It is a dubious assumption that humans are in control of anything,”
she says.
Volpe is absolutely in control of her ability to take
everything she has absorbed during her prolific career and turn it into a
singular solo statement. “With Delete The World, I get to color
outside the lines and be as messy as I wanna be.”
Delete The World by Gina Volpe is out now. Lead single and
video “Drink Me” are streaming now.
Carpenter by day, Dave Boone, offers, “a swampy groove with a bit of a mid-1970s tint to it
a la peak Fleetwood Mac” (Treble) at
night; Album out March 15.
+++
Dave Boone of Alberta
& The Dead Eyes as photographed by The Dead Eyes
+++
Alberta & The Dead Eyes | In The Press
“Just as interested in the past as the future.” — Various Small Flames
“A journey to the heart of human vulnerability.” — IGGY (France)
“It’s a joyful, playful sound built on the blues.” — Alt 77
“Covering ample stylistic ground... It’s a winner from
the first.” — Neufutur
“Vocal styling similar to legends such as Amy
Winehouse.” — Lost In The Manor
Listen
to “Slow Fool,” the latest single
from the upcoming album Give Or Take by Alberta & The Dead Eyes via The Big Takeoverhere
or at the link
above.
“Kicks off without any fuss or fanfare and then builds
slowly, gathering almost imperceptible musical weight as it adds layers of
tones and texture around it along its journey. There is a simplicity and
spaciousness that is rare in music making circles today. But, when done
correctly, as it is here, that’s all you need.” — The Big Takeover
“I was living in the recording studio that whole year,”
Dave Boone of Alberta & The Dead Eyes explains, “and it was wearing on me. I
locked myself in the control room for an entire day just for a change of pace
and I was listening to the radio. Sure enough I got bored and wrote this little
junker. This is one of those songs that just spilled out. ‘A little too low to
be that high.’ Pretty self explanatory to me.”
Listen to “Spiff,” the first single from the upcoming
album Give Or Take by Alberta
& The Dead Eyes via Treblehere
or at the link
above.
“The song carries a swampy groove with a bit of a
mid-1970s tint to it a la peak Fleetwood
Mac, but with a rich backing of organ and layers of vocal harmonies that
rise into a brief moment of transcendence that fades nearly as soon as it
arrives. But vocalist Dave Boone’s
hollers and yelps make the path to and from that climactic chorus just as fun.
— Treble
“False hope or pure will sums up this song quite a
bit. The narrator never lets on too much here one way or the other. An edge of
confidence makes one believe both characters (the narrator and whomever they
are talking to) will get out of whatever they are in.
“The last line, ‘We know
what we’re in for this time.’” Yeah. I have some confidence there; I still
don’t know if I believe it. I know I want to by the end of this tune. I think
that’s the whole point of this song. Even the bass part mimics that sentiment,
swimming back and forth from root note hard rhythm to kind of solo counter
melody.” — Dave Boone, Alberta & The Dead Eyes
Alberta
& The Dead Eyes is the
giant-sounding band that in reality is the majority work of one real-life
carpenter, David Boone (or D. Boone as he often signs off, evoking
another literal and figurative giant of musical history, D. Boon of The Minutemen.)
In fact, Boone’s
songs contain that same ramshackle joy and conversational, inclusive tone that Boon’s do. It’s the sound of a natural
talent letting it fly.
“I’m a carpenter by day and sometimes even by night,” Boone says. “A fine carpenter at that,
but a better musician.”
You may want to leave the page now to find out more
about Boone, but don’t bother. He
made the right choice. The choice that none of us made and many wish we had. Boone is nowhere to be found on social
media.
He lets the songs do the sharing.
Alberta
& The Dead Eyes will release its
new 11-song album Give or Take on March
15, 2024. The album is preceded by “Ghost Kitty,” a four-song EP of additional songs, out now.
The songs on Give or Take represent a man in
withdrawal from a two-packs-a-day cigarette habit that went on for 15 years.
“Mama, did it fuck me up more than I expected,” Boone confesses. “I wrote the entire
record pretty much curled up in a ball.”
Grieving his relationship with nicotine while
composing, Boone kept company with
his influences, numerous and varied. So numerous and varied that mentioning a
handful isn’t going to help you any more than looking for Boone online will.
“I love Billie
Holiday. And The Stooges. And The Band. And Outkast. And Duke Ellington.
And Cole Porter. And David Sedaris. And Bill Watterson. And the Detroit
Pistons. And John fucking Prine.”
Boone doesn’t mention The
Minutemen, but likely would, if prompted.
“I mean Jesus, should I keep going?”
Get it?
The thing about Boone
as musician that isn’t likely is how much Boone
as carpenter makes it into his music. He doesn’t mention the Grateful Dead either, but the steadfast
focus that underpins Boone’s
freestyle nature is kinda Alberta &
TheWorkingman’s Dead Eyes.
“I’m a complete ‘no one is coming to save you’ type of
person,” he explains. “Keep your head down and do your job. Musician schmoosician. Do what your
supposed to fucking do. Write good songs. Play good shows. Show up on time. Be humble and be fucking nice.”
A real-life carpenter keeping it real-life real.
Refreshing.
It should be even less surprising now that musician Boone rejected Instagram squares for
T-squares just like he painfully swore off smokes cold turkey for the clean
lungs that arrived with the songs, or as Boone
sees it, he arrived to them.
“The songs are just there, hanging out, waiting for
someone,” he says.
Now that someone is you.
Alberta
& The Dead Eyes will release its
new 11-song album Give or Take on March
15, 2024, preceded by “Ghost Kitty,”
a four-song EP of additional songs, out now.
Dave Boone of Alberta
& The Dead Eyes is available for
interviews. Contact Josh Bloom
at Fanatic for more information.
