Dan Deacon: indie-dance culthero

Thu 13th Dec, 2007 in Local News

Baltimore party performer and indie-dance cult hero Dan Deacon is bringing his hyper-fun, DIY electro mayhem to the Laneway Festival and a string of action-packed side shows across Australia.

Dan is the founder of Wham City, a utopian art and music collective based in Baltimore, and frontrunner of the Future Shock genre emerging from Baltimore’s growing underground music scene.

Dan’s high-energy performances whip audiences into a delirious frenzy as he constructs his manic pop songs with a mess of old-school electronic equipment such as Casio keyboard, computer, vocoder and other devices to process his voice. Armed with a fluoro green skull, stupid glasses and a bunch of schizophrenic and apocalyptic-sounding party jams, Dan destroys hipster inhibitions and incites a ridiculous amount of dancing.

Since 2004, Dan has been touring almost non-stop throughout the United States and Europe with the likes of Girl Talk, Spank Rock, Lightning Bolt, Cat Power, Kool Keith, Diplo, Blue Oyster Cult, Wolf Eyes and many others.

Dan’s music is often compared to Devo, due to his masterful combination of a lo-fi electronic sound with an absurdist pop sensibility and a punk rock lust for noise. Also influenced by Talking Heads, Scratch Orchestra, People Like Us and Raymond Scott, Dan’s mission is to take contemporary experimental composition and electronic music out of the circle of the esoteric intellectual gangs and hipster communities, and into the more informal “fun time.”

“I think people relate to it more because it lacks pretentions,” Dan says of his music. “Whereas so much electronic music can be very sexual and very pretentious, putting a lot on the line. But I try to put a lot on the line in another regard; so it’s more like fuck you, I’m the nerdy guy in the stained shirt, you can dance if you want but you don’t have to.”

Friday February 22 – Oxford Arts Factory, Sydney
Tickets $19+bf and available from Moshtix.

Saturday February 23 – Evelyn Hotel, Melbourne
Tickets $19+bf and available from Polyester, TITLE, The Evelyn bottle shop and Mistletone Records.

Sunday February 24 – St Jerome’s Laneway Festival, Melbourne
Wednesday February 27 – Perth Festival: Beck’s Music Box

Thursday February 28 – Rocket Bar, Adelaide
Tickets $15+bf and available from CIB.

Friday February 29 – Troubadour, Brisbane
Tickets $19+bf and available from Oztix.

Saturday March 1- Laneway Festival, Brisbane

Sunday March 2 – Laneway Festival, Sydney