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Baltimore's Dan Deacon, who plays tonight to a sold-out Black Cat, does things differently. His latest album, the critically acclaimed Spiderman of the Rings, starts with cascading and overlapping samples of Woody Woodpecker's laugh. Usually called an "absurdist composer" rather than solo electronic musician, he packs a crazy sense of humor, samples and loops into a building frenzy on tracks like "Crystal Cat," the 11 minute "Wham City," and "Snake Mistakes."
In concert, Deacon sets up a table on the venue's floor and is surrounded by audience members close enough to touch. The table is covered in mostly older electronic gizmos, keyboards, samplers, drum machines, vocoders, and so on, plus a glowing green skull and a banana iPod for good measure. The high energy music, humor, and close crowd makes for a big dance party and a great show, which some DCists experienced at this year's V Fest. However, the proximity can make for some mishaps, like when the banana iPod and his green skull disappeared at different shows. Thankfully both were later recovered, but again, not something you hear with most musicians.
We interviewed Deacon over email about his music, Baltimore, and playing a show with "Chocolate Rain"'s Tay Zonday. He's playing tonight at the sold out Black Cat with sample crazy Girl Talk, whose V Fest set we also loved, and DIY electro artist White Williams. The interview is after the jump.
The Baltimore City Paper described your songs as "Kraftwerk-esque electronic music at punk-rock tempos infused with the spirit of 1940s cartoon music and the frenzied novelty of '50s and '60s rock 'n' roll bubblegum--avant-garde." How would you describe your music?
Dan Deacon: I hate describing music. I play loud, noisy party dance music for people who hate dance music and parties. Like a dog exploding in fireworks. A world of sharks and mice meet two Phil Collins everyday, forever.
Baltimore seems to breed artists that are little different, like yourself, Spank Rock, Animal Collective, John Waters, and so on. What is it about the city?
It's a magical place. It's like a functioning ghost town. Where I live is surrounded by huge empty buildings on all sides, but it's 4 blocks from the [Washington] monument. It's insane how quickly it goes from real nice to totally insane. I think that attracts artists and people who like living life a little differently from the rest of America (hence all the insane crime, drugs and murder as well as the wicked music scene). Sadly its charm is being sold away to developers and other evil sharks who want to rub all the shine off our diamonds.
How did you get the segment on NBC News in Savannah?
A friend of mine worked at the studio and somehow convinced them that I was like Moby or something. I was coming through to play a show in his friend's basement, so what better way to promote a noise show than at 5am on the morning news? The performance nearly cost him his job.
Are you surprised by the buzz you've been getting? Blogs, Pitchfork, the New York Times, and so on.
It's been really weird but sort of exciting. I try not to think about it and to avoid it as much as possible since it can sometimes drive me insane. The press is a weird beast with many heads and mouths.
There's been a lot written about the art collective you're in, Wham City. Have you all found a new location for Wham City? How about moving to your neighbor to the south, Washington? We'd love to have you.
We've been looking at a few new spaces. We don't want to try to recreate anything. The new space will be exactly that, something new, built of Wham City but not the same place. That magic was lost to the ether and new spells must be cast to create a new place for us to get evicted from.
You came to Charm City from school at SUNY-Purchase. Why Baltimore? Are you from the area?
About 7 of us moved here after purchase. Dina and Josh Kelberman (members of Wham City) grew up in Severna Park. Before we moved down here I would come down and visit them a lot so I had been here a bunch. But we sort of moved here blindly. I didn't want to move to Brooklyn because that's what everyone in the world does. But I wanted to live in a urban setting and so did a lot of my friends so we chose Baltimore. It was the best thing that's happened to me as an artist.
Any venues in D.C. that you particularly enjoy playing? Any that you loathe?
I loved the Warehouse Next Door. They were the only venue that would book me for years and I always had great shows there. It was a rad place that seemed to really care. I was totally heartbroken when I heard it had closed. I played there on my first tour ever.
How did you manage to schedule a show with Tay Zonday (of "Chocolate Rain")?
My friend AJ showed me the Youtube video and it totally blew me away. I immediately called Sam Hunt, my booking agent and close friend, and told him how badly I needed to play with him. Sam is a young wizard and somehow set this show up in Minneapolis, where Tay lives. The show is in the venue where they filmed Purple Rain, it's going to be totally fucking insane.
I noticed that at many of your shows the crowd is right around you. Why? What do you do if a venue has a raised stage (like the Black Cat, for example)?
I always place in the crowd, no matter what. I haven't played on a stage in about 2 years. This current performance does not call for a stage. Perhaps a future performance set will, but for now the floor is my home.
For a few words with Dan Deacon's tourmate Greg Gillis (aka Girl Talk), check out blogger The New Gay. First photo by Kyle Gustafson, second photo used under a Creative Commons license by Flickr user Jen Dunlap.
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