The Baltimore, Maryland future shock electronic composer is currently on tour with the plonderphonics wunderkind Girl Talk. Known for his intoxicatingly fun shows Dan sat down and chatted before his show at The Fillmore, San Francisco. It’s not surprising that the consummate performer recounts an epic story about his first tour that is both hilarious and distressing.
1. Describe your sound in three words?
Contemporary. Informal. Compositions.
2. What would be your ideal holiday?
To be allowed to live in the pyramids for as long as I could.
3. What’s the best cure for a hangover?
I guess it depends on the insane mind I have at the time like if I’m very healthy. I guess if I was very healthy I wouldn’t have the hangover. I really like going to Indian buffet and eat a lot so it will absorb it up. Normally I just sleep it off. I don’t get hangovers that often because I don’t drink very often.
4.What’s on your rider?
Directions to the health food store and a bottle of organic wine. I hate wine but my plan is to get the bottles and then save them in mass so then I would have a very good wine collection and then maybe in a few years I’ll like wine and I’ll have a bunch of it.
5. How do you get ready for a live show?
I just stretch once the band before me is done. Mainly I stretch the shoulders and back.
6. Favourite song to play live?
Probably this new one called “Paddling Ghosts.” It’s going to be on the new record.
7. When was the last time you told a lie?
Earlier in this interview. Actually, I don’t want to reveal that.
8. Who would win a goat or a stoat and why?
What’s a stoat? What would they win in? Is it a battle? I guess a goat. I enjoy their cheese. Although I’ve never had stoat cheese.
9. What was the last album you bought?
I trade a lot of albums with bands so I guess it would be the new Bird Names record (Wooden Lake/Sexual Diner). They’re a band out of Chicago. They’re really good and not known as well as they should be. They have a new record that just came out and it’s beautiful. It’s sort of acoustic. I hate the word acoustic. It’s communal based experimental folk. It’s not like anything I have heard before. They’re very theatrical sounding but not over the top.
9. If you could rid the world of one song what would it be?
I don’t know why I would do that. Why would I do that? You could always sample it and re-contextualize it and make it cool. I would not do it.
10. Who would play you in a film based on your life?
Me. Patrick Swayze. No, Ace Ventura would play me. It would be his first serious role.
11. Dead or alive. What five acts would you have play with you at a festival?
1) Terry Riley
2) Raymond Scott
3) Talking Heads
4) The Double Daggers
5) Devo
12. Desert island disc? Pick only one.
Either Rainbow in Curved Air by Terry Riley or Soak the Saddle by Arab On Radar.
13. What’s your most memorable on the road story?
It’s pretty long. It happened on my first little six day tour. I am playing with this band called Pyro Waves. Nobody has any idea who we are. We have nothing released and we’ve never played a show out of Maryland before. We’re mainly playing at houses or any place we can find. That night we’re playing at this pseudo-legendary noise house in this really small town in Overst, Virginia.
We get there and they totally forgot about the show so we’re totally bummed out. They called some people and even if six people showed up it was a huge success. We played the show and then afterwards everyone is getting wasted except me and the other guys on our tour. It was a really crazy and filthy house. It was decorated really awesome but obviously insane. There were three apartments but only one of the kitchens and bathrooms worked so everyone was using that.
There were extensions cords going all over the place because the power shut off in the other apartments. There is this big roof above a comic book shop that everyone is hanging out on too. Down the road is the veterans hospital and all the vets are coming over to drink beer and mess with people. There was this really big dude named Leon that was just free-styling during my part of the show about how he’s going to kill me. It was freaking me out. He comes over with this wooden brush which he’s hitting against his hand really hard. I’m winding cables and he asks me how I’m going to wind those cables if my hands are broken. I said I don’t know man. He’s obviously screwing with me and I’m obviously a coward and scared out of my mind. He moved in there just got out of jail.
I go to this guy named Scott who lives with Leon and I said, “Your roommate Leon is freaking me out.” Scott is the biggest nerd in the world by the way. He sells PDF’s on how to build video projectors. He says to me, “Oh, Leon’s fine. He put me in a headlock once when I won him at poker and made me give him all the money.” I told him, “That is not the comforting story I wanted to hear Scott.”
Leon comes out and starts rapping, “your skull will be red ‘cause I’m bustin’ your head” towards me. He’s just staring at me the whole time and he’s only a foot away. Luckily he leaves and we all go to bed. The door gets kicked in late at night and Leon’s got this huge steak knife and stands over us (we’re sleeping on the floor) and screams, “where is my f&$cking machete?” over and over. We’re on the ground petrified and Leon is stomping next to our heads. He sees his hat and picks it up and drops the knife right by my friend Allen’s head. Allen lets out this crazy scream. Now he’s screaming at Allen’s face. Then from behind this painting this guy we’ve haven’t seen all day walks out of this hidden room and says to Leon, “you left your machete in my room yesterday,” and hands it to Leon and goes back into the hidden room behind the painting. Now Leon’s got a steak knife in one hand and a machete in the other one and he’s just standing over us and breathing heavy.
Then Scott comes in and says in his nasally voice, “Leon, what are you doing? You can’t kick the door down.” We’re all mortified and decide to leave. Scott says no don’t do that. Leon then leaves the room and comes back with one of those long foam pool noodles and he’s dancing with it. He shows it to us and there’s a lead pipe in the middle of it. He then explains that he brings it to parties to whack people in the head with it. So we’re all “thanks for letting us know that Leon.” He tells us to wait and he brings his favorite CD and says that we can all copy it. He then throws it on the floor and breaks the case. The CD pops out and he scoops it up and throws it out the window onto the roof. He goes out there and all we hear is him screaming obscenities. He comes back with a pile of broken CD cases and ripped-up booklets and throws them on the ground and says,” copy it but I need it back in the morning.” Scott tells Leon that we all need to sleep and Leon apologizes and says that earlier when he was free-styling about me it was just stream of consciousness. “They were just stray bullets man, but sometimes those bullets hit their target.” He then stared at me the whole time he was walking out of the room. We all slept with our belts wrapped up in our hands to try and protect ourselves from Leon.
It was the only show that we recorded during that tour and on the tape you can hear Leon free-styling about how he wants to kill me. I’m still trying to find that tape. Leon was there when we played at that house four months later but we talked and it was cool.
15. If your life flashed before your eyes what would be the highlights?
I have no idea what I would see. I can’t answer that question.
16. Do you read your own reviews?
I do when friends give them to me but usually I don’t. It’s not a good thing.
17. Are you a morning bird or a night fox?
I’m a night person though I’ve been waking up earlier recently.
18. If you could travel back in time where would you set the dial?
Jurassic Park
19. What three things could you not live without?
I would say friends, family and food.
20. Tell us a fact about yourself we probably don’t already know.
I went to a comic book sale and I stole 50 dollars in 25 cent comics for my little brother. I’ve since apologized to him. He said he knew all along.
Links
Dan Deacon [official site] [myspace]
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