I've got to mention the weather. I know, the weather is boring, trite, mundane. It's what people tell you to stick to as a topic when you shouldn't be talking about anything at all, but really - weather can be quite significant. I've spoken before about the first day of sun after a long period of foul weather....how communal it can be, how hopeful. We've had so much rain this season - I saw a Oakland Tribune headline to the effect that "California's Draught Is Over" and this was the first basically full week I remember in which the sun has come out. My friends and I had a BBQ, went to Dolores Park to watch the people and sit in the sun (and boy, we got such an amazing parking space!), did yard work, and sat under a big beach umbrella in the fresh-cut grass lawn and I played my ukulele. One of those moments you always hope your life will contain.
Thursday especially was balmy and mild, and I found myself in downtown Berkeley around dusk. Students were walking around in shorts and tank tops, and everything seemed so lively and possible. I was over with some friends at the Freight & Salvage to see Dan Bern, a singer-songwriter that you've probably never heard of but who is known, in certain circles, as a modern day troubadour, a sort of continuation of the line: Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, and then Dan Bern.
Dan is described on one website as a Witty Folk Rocker, with a "snarky sense of humor that finds its way into so much of his music that even his sad songs can make the listener laugh inappropriately....Due to the twang of his voice and his musical stylings, he is often compared to Bob Dylan. He jokes about this in a few instances, saying in one song 'I guess Bob Dylan was sort of the Dan Bern of the 60’s.'”
That kind of sums him up. You may know some of his work as he's gotten just a little bit more famous due to the Judd Apatow films he's written some music for: Walk Hard: the Dewey Cox Story (with John C. Reilly), and Get Him to the Greek - he wrote a bunch of those hilarious Aldous Snow (played by the brilliant Russell Brand) songs, including the insta-classic Furry Walls. You might know it.
But I've been following and loving Dan Bern for years. A friend of mine made me a mixed CD that I listened to once on a roadtrip from SF to LA, down the incredibly mind-numbing 5 freeway, and I've got memories of Dan Bern inextricably linked to some golden rolling hills and endless blacktop. Dan's songs are funny, and sweet, and sad, and he's got a ton of them. Wikipedia says 600 or more, and I can well believe it as it seems like every time he plays, he's got new songs, or new verses to older songs - he's got a lot of contemporary references in his songs (like the one about Tiger Woods, written ages ago) and he seems to be able to update them almost endlessly. It's quite impressive.
Anyway, his performance was so interesting, as it always is. I'm fascinated to see how performers differ. Leonard Cohen, when I saw him just a year or two ago, was as precise as a Frank Gehry building, with each note and interval of silence so perfectly orchestrated that the music had an almost crystal quality to it. It shone, and Leonard was a master in complete control. Dan Bern (also Jewish, by the way: Dan Bernstein was the original title) was, in his own way, as much of a master, but very much folk, of the people. I've never seen a show of his where he didn't get the audience to sing along at some point, or start or stop a song informally. On Thurs, he taped up a piece of posterboard to the mic: "This one's a new one," he said, and he had to read the lyrics. It was about numbers, how they bring him down. Now right at the bridge, he just sort of petered out and said., "Well, that's about as far as I've gotten." It was lovely. It was as lovely as Leonard Cohen's pin-drop precision, but completely the opposite - this is stuff which fascinates me, actually.
Dan has an everyman quality that folk singers just sometimes don't have but should. Born in Iowa, I think, and now lives in a LA but apparently spends an inordinate time on the road, making his living singing his songs in tiny venues - bars and clubs and coffeehouses - all over America. He wears baseball caps and flannel shirts and suede chukka boots that look like they come from Lands End, and he's got really toned and kind of buff arms from, I presume, all the energetic guitar playing he does. He's got manly forearms. What else can I say?
He played with a band called Common Rotation (an excellent folk-ish trio of men with tight harmonies and great instrumentation too) and, at the end of the show, they unplugged their acoustic instruments and stepped right down on the floor with the rest of us. They played their banjo and guitar and harmonica and sang standing, in true folk fashion, next to us, at our sides. They sang something we could all sing, Dan taught us a chorus to a moving (but always clever and cool) song about solidarity and the union; we shall not be divided, my friends, we shall not be divided.
As I've said before, there's nothing people like more than being drawn in - drawn in to the art, the conversation; they like to participate, and since it's hard to participate in things, they like to have it accidentally happen when they didn't have to try and make it happen themselves. They like sing-a-longs. I've learned this is true. You can perform, and you can be really good, but it's not the same as singing along. THAT is what they really want. Because it can really feel like community, connection. Dan had us all singing along together, and we loved it.
Now, you know I love talking about fame, and meeting famous people - I have a whole few entries planned out about it, in fact, but just have not gotten there yet - and it's especially fascinating with someone on, say, Dan Bern's level. I'd never met him, but he was certainly accessible. It wasn't too much different, when he and the band came down to be with the people, than when I and my roommies play together in our living room on Friday night. I mean, it WAS, sure, but not all that much different. I am way closer to being like Dan Bern than Dan Bern is to being like, say, U2. Fame is all a matter of degrees, from the very smallest (famous in my roommate circle!) to the largest (famous worldwide!); that's one of the most fascinating aspects I love to ponder.
I love Dan Bern, and I like to meet the people I love, and I'd never met him before. so this time, I lingered a bit and he appeared. As so often happens, someone else walked up - I hate that awkward "I'm standing around waiting to talk to you" dynamic that can happen when meeting famous people at an event or simply when I need to interrupt a meeting at work - and so I kept a little distance until the other person walked away and Dan turned to me.
I introduced myself, we shook hands (kind of a still a nice gesture I've always liked - it's a very civilized thing to touch a person you just met as a way of starting the concious relationship), and I said what's expected: love your stuff, been seeing you for years, just wanted to say etc etc. In my case, I added, I cover you on my ukelele.
"Oh?" Dan said, interested, and doing something that I just adore but don't get too often, which is when men who I don't know very well but who are taller than me lean in to me to hear or say something. I'm short, so this courtesy on their part feels like a little bonus intimacy from where I am standing - because so many men don't lean in when they should (they just don't notice the little things), it's a sweet gift when it happens. "What do you play?" Meaning, which songs.
"Jerusalem" I said - that's his most well-known, always the show closer. "Jail. God Said No - that actually translates well." We talked uke for a while, spoke of Brook Adams, the guy who does the entire album of Abbey Road in concert - on the uke, and pretty good too. It was just...musician chit chat. I mentioned I wanted to do an all-ukelele Jesus Christ Superstar, but couldn't get enough interest. "Oh," he said, "You need other people?" He's the type who can tackle anything solo, and it made me think. I don't know, maybe I should try and it do it by myself.
In fact, lately my thoughts have been turning to, as you know, goals and getting things done. What are our dreams? How do we hold onto them? How do we make them come true? Should we even? What does it mean, really, to never give up on your dream? Should I try and perform (record) every song from Jesus Christ Superstar with just me on the ukelele? It's absurd, but...I don't know, maybe worth trying. Dan had gotten me thinking. I'm still thinking about it....
I could sense others beginning to swirl around us; they'd spotted him, friends and acquaintences, or just fans like me and it was time to leave. I felt we'd talked, and so I did what I so naturally do - at work, with new friends - which is a sort of...well, I think it's a very San Francisco (hippie?) gesture, because we are a casually touchy culture. It's that kind of gentle touch you might do on someone's shoulder, or upper arm, as you say goodbye, as you say what I said, which was "Take care." This is my favorite way to say goodbye, because it is very kind. And, at Dan's level of fame, fans are still something you like, I imagine. When only a few hundred people come to your show, buy your CD, you come out and talk to them because they are keeping it viable for you to be a working musician. So, Dan seemed fine with being kind, receiving kindness. The touch on his arm as a I turned away was just instinctive. It was really just a physical manifestation of what the whole true gesture is, which is a sort of energetic blessing, and reaching out of spirit, a way of reinforcing the connection which is, primarily, personal, spiritual.
But then Dan did something rare, for someone like him in a situation like that. Not monumental - trivial, really, and almost unnoticable, but I am in a state these days in which I notice everything. He returned my gesture; I felt his hand sort of graze my forearm as I turned away, as he said - remembering my name, in fact: "You too, Kar." You also take care.
As I said, a little thing, yes. But when someone who has just gone onstage and given his all, to come out and face everyone (he's maybe a little shy? not sure), to hear my name, then remember it and then say it - well, people I meet at parties or meetings don't do that, much less someone in his position. But Dan did. It showed, more than anything, what I already knew, which was he's a good person. I could always feel the goodness of his heart when he sang (sound sappy? Listen to him - he's actually sweet but sharp and witty, not sappy - he's famous for this funny fine line he can so consistently walk; it's why his fans love him), and now it was just driven right home to me, unmistakeable: goodness right down to the last Bernstein drop.
There's some quote I can't remember right now about love being exquisite in all its forms, and ain't that the truth? I went home and dreamed of Dan Bern all night - mostly, his songs, which can really stick with you - and felt a little more loved, and little more capable of loving, than I had before, and that's never a bad thing. If fact, if we had a few more Dan Berns in this world, I'd feel a lot better about our collective shot at survival. Thank God we've at least got the one!
Thursday especially was balmy and mild, and I found myself in downtown Berkeley around dusk. Students were walking around in shorts and tank tops, and everything seemed so lively and possible. I was over with some friends at the Freight & Salvage to see Dan Bern, a singer-songwriter that you've probably never heard of but who is known, in certain circles, as a modern day troubadour, a sort of continuation of the line: Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, and then Dan Bern.
Dan is described on one website as a Witty Folk Rocker, with a "snarky sense of humor that finds its way into so much of his music that even his sad songs can make the listener laugh inappropriately....Due to the twang of his voice and his musical stylings, he is often compared to Bob Dylan. He jokes about this in a few instances, saying in one song 'I guess Bob Dylan was sort of the Dan Bern of the 60’s.'”
That kind of sums him up. You may know some of his work as he's gotten just a little bit more famous due to the Judd Apatow films he's written some music for: Walk Hard: the Dewey Cox Story (with John C. Reilly), and Get Him to the Greek - he wrote a bunch of those hilarious Aldous Snow (played by the brilliant Russell Brand) songs, including the insta-classic Furry Walls. You might know it.
But I've been following and loving Dan Bern for years. A friend of mine made me a mixed CD that I listened to once on a roadtrip from SF to LA, down the incredibly mind-numbing 5 freeway, and I've got memories of Dan Bern inextricably linked to some golden rolling hills and endless blacktop. Dan's songs are funny, and sweet, and sad, and he's got a ton of them. Wikipedia says 600 or more, and I can well believe it as it seems like every time he plays, he's got new songs, or new verses to older songs - he's got a lot of contemporary references in his songs (like the one about Tiger Woods, written ages ago) and he seems to be able to update them almost endlessly. It's quite impressive.
Anyway, his performance was so interesting, as it always is. I'm fascinated to see how performers differ. Leonard Cohen, when I saw him just a year or two ago, was as precise as a Frank Gehry building, with each note and interval of silence so perfectly orchestrated that the music had an almost crystal quality to it. It shone, and Leonard was a master in complete control. Dan Bern (also Jewish, by the way: Dan Bernstein was the original title) was, in his own way, as much of a master, but very much folk, of the people. I've never seen a show of his where he didn't get the audience to sing along at some point, or start or stop a song informally. On Thurs, he taped up a piece of posterboard to the mic: "This one's a new one," he said, and he had to read the lyrics. It was about numbers, how they bring him down. Now right at the bridge, he just sort of petered out and said., "Well, that's about as far as I've gotten." It was lovely. It was as lovely as Leonard Cohen's pin-drop precision, but completely the opposite - this is stuff which fascinates me, actually.
Dan has an everyman quality that folk singers just sometimes don't have but should. Born in Iowa, I think, and now lives in a LA but apparently spends an inordinate time on the road, making his living singing his songs in tiny venues - bars and clubs and coffeehouses - all over America. He wears baseball caps and flannel shirts and suede chukka boots that look like they come from Lands End, and he's got really toned and kind of buff arms from, I presume, all the energetic guitar playing he does. He's got manly forearms. What else can I say?
He played with a band called Common Rotation (an excellent folk-ish trio of men with tight harmonies and great instrumentation too) and, at the end of the show, they unplugged their acoustic instruments and stepped right down on the floor with the rest of us. They played their banjo and guitar and harmonica and sang standing, in true folk fashion, next to us, at our sides. They sang something we could all sing, Dan taught us a chorus to a moving (but always clever and cool) song about solidarity and the union; we shall not be divided, my friends, we shall not be divided.
As I've said before, there's nothing people like more than being drawn in - drawn in to the art, the conversation; they like to participate, and since it's hard to participate in things, they like to have it accidentally happen when they didn't have to try and make it happen themselves. They like sing-a-longs. I've learned this is true. You can perform, and you can be really good, but it's not the same as singing along. THAT is what they really want. Because it can really feel like community, connection. Dan had us all singing along together, and we loved it.
Now, you know I love talking about fame, and meeting famous people - I have a whole few entries planned out about it, in fact, but just have not gotten there yet - and it's especially fascinating with someone on, say, Dan Bern's level. I'd never met him, but he was certainly accessible. It wasn't too much different, when he and the band came down to be with the people, than when I and my roommies play together in our living room on Friday night. I mean, it WAS, sure, but not all that much different. I am way closer to being like Dan Bern than Dan Bern is to being like, say, U2. Fame is all a matter of degrees, from the very smallest (famous in my roommate circle!) to the largest (famous worldwide!); that's one of the most fascinating aspects I love to ponder.
I love Dan Bern, and I like to meet the people I love, and I'd never met him before. so this time, I lingered a bit and he appeared. As so often happens, someone else walked up - I hate that awkward "I'm standing around waiting to talk to you" dynamic that can happen when meeting famous people at an event or simply when I need to interrupt a meeting at work - and so I kept a little distance until the other person walked away and Dan turned to me.
I introduced myself, we shook hands (kind of a still a nice gesture I've always liked - it's a very civilized thing to touch a person you just met as a way of starting the concious relationship), and I said what's expected: love your stuff, been seeing you for years, just wanted to say etc etc. In my case, I added, I cover you on my ukelele.
"Oh?" Dan said, interested, and doing something that I just adore but don't get too often, which is when men who I don't know very well but who are taller than me lean in to me to hear or say something. I'm short, so this courtesy on their part feels like a little bonus intimacy from where I am standing - because so many men don't lean in when they should (they just don't notice the little things), it's a sweet gift when it happens. "What do you play?" Meaning, which songs.
"Jerusalem" I said - that's his most well-known, always the show closer. "Jail. God Said No - that actually translates well." We talked uke for a while, spoke of Brook Adams, the guy who does the entire album of Abbey Road in concert - on the uke, and pretty good too. It was just...musician chit chat. I mentioned I wanted to do an all-ukelele Jesus Christ Superstar, but couldn't get enough interest. "Oh," he said, "You need other people?" He's the type who can tackle anything solo, and it made me think. I don't know, maybe I should try and it do it by myself.
In fact, lately my thoughts have been turning to, as you know, goals and getting things done. What are our dreams? How do we hold onto them? How do we make them come true? Should we even? What does it mean, really, to never give up on your dream? Should I try and perform (record) every song from Jesus Christ Superstar with just me on the ukelele? It's absurd, but...I don't know, maybe worth trying. Dan had gotten me thinking. I'm still thinking about it....
I could sense others beginning to swirl around us; they'd spotted him, friends and acquaintences, or just fans like me and it was time to leave. I felt we'd talked, and so I did what I so naturally do - at work, with new friends - which is a sort of...well, I think it's a very San Francisco (hippie?) gesture, because we are a casually touchy culture. It's that kind of gentle touch you might do on someone's shoulder, or upper arm, as you say goodbye, as you say what I said, which was "Take care." This is my favorite way to say goodbye, because it is very kind. And, at Dan's level of fame, fans are still something you like, I imagine. When only a few hundred people come to your show, buy your CD, you come out and talk to them because they are keeping it viable for you to be a working musician. So, Dan seemed fine with being kind, receiving kindness. The touch on his arm as a I turned away was just instinctive. It was really just a physical manifestation of what the whole true gesture is, which is a sort of energetic blessing, and reaching out of spirit, a way of reinforcing the connection which is, primarily, personal, spiritual.
But then Dan did something rare, for someone like him in a situation like that. Not monumental - trivial, really, and almost unnoticable, but I am in a state these days in which I notice everything. He returned my gesture; I felt his hand sort of graze my forearm as I turned away, as he said - remembering my name, in fact: "You too, Kar." You also take care.
As I said, a little thing, yes. But when someone who has just gone onstage and given his all, to come out and face everyone (he's maybe a little shy? not sure), to hear my name, then remember it and then say it - well, people I meet at parties or meetings don't do that, much less someone in his position. But Dan did. It showed, more than anything, what I already knew, which was he's a good person. I could always feel the goodness of his heart when he sang (sound sappy? Listen to him - he's actually sweet but sharp and witty, not sappy - he's famous for this funny fine line he can so consistently walk; it's why his fans love him), and now it was just driven right home to me, unmistakeable: goodness right down to the last Bernstein drop.
There's some quote I can't remember right now about love being exquisite in all its forms, and ain't that the truth? I went home and dreamed of Dan Bern all night - mostly, his songs, which can really stick with you - and felt a little more loved, and little more capable of loving, than I had before, and that's never a bad thing. If fact, if we had a few more Dan Berns in this world, I'd feel a lot better about our collective shot at survival. Thank God we've at least got the one!
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