If Salvador Dali were reborn as a folkie, he'd be Dan Reeder. Playing oddball homemade instruments (his guitar looks like it was pulled out of a Picasso painting) and singing songs that are at once quaint, absurd, vulgar and insightful, Reeder is so his own man that all those hipster freak-folk wankers (you know who you are) look positively prosaic in comparison. Unlike the many singer-songwriters whose aspirations to profundity are ultimately a joke, Reeder aspires to be a joker, yet hidden meanings seem to lurk just below the surface of his nonsense rhymes, playfully eluding your grasp. Lines such as "When I say 'Vietnam' it sounds just like 'Coca Cola,' / I believe most anything as long as it's not real," from the song "Clean Elvis" feel pregnant with mystery, despite the almost Weird Al goofiness and deadpan delivery. Reeder shares warts-and-all, down-home style with his Oh Boy labelmates John Prine and Kris Kristofferson, but while they're spinning yarns about down-and-out characters, he's singing about waiting 37 years for a cappuccino or, on songs such as "I Drink Beer" and "Pussy Titty", waxing philosophical. And he's a terrific visual artist - anyone who makes a painting with "ART PUSSIES FEAR THIS PICTURE" scrawled across it clearly has a worldview we can get behind. - Jack Silverman
Click here to grab the Nashville Scene's SceneCast containing "I Drink Beer" by Dan Reeder.
If you haven't picked up your copy of Dan's latest release, grab it on iTunes by clicking here.
