Fanatic Promotion: Dan Bern announces summer tour dates (incl. support slots w/ Roger Daltrey); Remastered reissue of 2001’s landmark “New American Language” out now.

New album “Starting Over” includes controversial Bern cut “Bible” described as “the kind of clever piano-rock that would make Warren Zevon smile.” (Glide).

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Dan Bern as photographed by Judd Irish Beadley

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Dan Bern | Stereo Embers Podcast

“With close to thirty albums under his belt, the Iowa-born Dan Bern is one of the great iron men of rock and roll. Bern is one of the very best we have. Part traditionalist, part punk, Bern has proven over and over that he's one of the best and most durable songwriters on the planet.” — Alex Green, Stereo Embers Podcast

[LISTEN]: https://Fanatic.lnk.to/DanBern-StereoEmbersPodcast

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Dan Bern | On Tour

Summer 2024 Dates Announced incl. Supporting Slots w/ Roger Daltrey

05/29/2024: Outer Banks, NC @ Pat McGee’s Down the Hatch Festival

06/02/2024: Bryn Mawr, PA @ Bryn Mawr Twilight Series (w/ Jeffrey Gaines)

06/04/2024: Hightstown, NJ @ Randy Now’s Man Cave (7PM)

06/05/2024: Tuckerton, NJ @ Lizzie Rose Music Room

06/06/2024: Richmond, VA The Tin Pan (w/ Jeffrey Gaines, 8PM)

06/07/2024: Columbia, MD @ The Collective Encore (w/ Jeffrey Gaines)

06/08/2024: Hagerstown, MD @ Hub City Live (w/ Jeffrey Gaines)

06/09/2024: Piermont, NY @ The Turning Point (4PM)

06/20/2024: Berwyn, IL @ FitzGerald’s Nightclub (21+, Doors: 730PM, Show: 830PM)

06/21/2024: Iowa City, IA @ Trumpet Blossom Cafe

06/22/2024: South Bend, IN @ Stockroom East

06/25/2024: Detroit, MI @ Meadowbrook Amphitheater (supporting Roger Daltrey)

06/27/2024: Indianapolis, IN @ Murat Theater at Old National Centre (supporting Roger Daltrey)

11/09/2024: Boulder, CO @ Roots Music Project (8PM)

11/10/2024: Denver, CO @ Swallow Hill (7PM)

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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, Dan 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 was released on March 1. Both albums are available now via Grand Phony.

Dan Bern is available for interviews. Contact Josh Bloom at Fanatic for more information.

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Dan Bern

Starting Over

Out Now

(Grand Phony Records)

Streaming Link:

STREAM FULL LP

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Track Listing:

01. Starting Over (STREAM)

02. Kinda Looks Like You

03. Marjorie

04. Clay County

05. Take A Chance

06. Never Seen You Before

07. Bones

08. I’m In

09. Mary Lou

10. Cowboy

11. 22nd Street

12. Bible (STREAM)

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Dan Bern

New American Language (Remastered)Out Now(Grand Phony Records)

Streaming Link:

STREAM FULL LP

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Track Listing:

01. Sweetness

02. New American Language

03. Alaska Highway

04. God Said No (STREAM)

05. Turning Over

06. Black Tornado

07. Albuquerque Lullaby (STREAM)

08. Tape

09. Honeydoo!

10. Toledo

11. Rice

12. Thanksgiving Day Parade (STREAM)

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More About New American Language by Dan Bern

January 12, 2024 saw the release, 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 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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Dan Bern | “Starting Over”

[STREAM]: https://vyd.co/Startingover

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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 now.

“‘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.”

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Dan Bern | “Bible”

[STREAM]: https://vyd.co/DanBernBible
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Listen to “Bible” by Dan Bern via Glide Magazine here or at the link above.
Glide calls “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.”
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