Wednesday 20 May 2009

Midweek Night Out

I was actually motivated enough to go and hear some live music last night. And that just about never happens these days. I chanced to hear mention on Tom Russell's show on Rock Radio on Monday afternoon that Dan Reed was playing a solo acoustic set at Rocker's in Glasgow.

Now, about 15 years ago I was at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court, there was a proper old fashioned second hand record store next to it, I wandered in at lunchtime and got three, er cassette tapes(!), for a pound or something . I picked them on the strength of the album covers. Nae idea of what the music was like, and I'd never heard of any of the bands. One of the albums was "The Heat" by the Dan Reed Network, and it was a mix of heavyish quite funky rock that I enjoyed enormously.

One of the songs called Salt of Joy has been an absolute favourite of mine ever since. So much so that when the tape broke I even spent money on a replacement CD.
;0)

Turned out that Dan Reed decided to take a break from the music - ahem - biz not that long after, just when the band were at the stage of supporting big groups like the Rolling Stones, Bon Jovi etc. The break turned into retirement, and he did loads of ex-rockstar things like buying a nightclub, doing cocaine, getting clean, living with Monks in Tibet, and then moving to Jerusalem for inspiration.

However, he's now back, recording new material and playing wee places like last night where you could maybe have squeezed in 100 people at a pinch.

It was great. A marvellous musician, a nice line in self deprecating humour, and a chance to see one of my favourite songs played live with the original artist about 15 feet away. Marion came along and enjoyed herself, even though her sole exposure to Dan Reed was me playing the slow songs off the album in the car on the way in to Glasgow, on the assumption he'd do them!

He's got quite a cool website that features what will be the new single once the legal stuff is sorted out, apparently. Lawyers, eh?

Oh - and Youtube have versions of Salt of Joy from earlier in the tour...

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