Dan Reed

Spiritual pursuits in the music industry are, by definition, a contradiction in terms. Anathema. For most musicians, to find spirituality means finding a good hook-up in Omaha that leaves no resulting complications: physical, psychological or moral. Some musicians do actually find a certain personal peace. But not very many.

In the past twenty-five years, Dan Reed has pretty much seen it all in the music business. Since the launch of his band the Dan Reed Network at the long departed Last Hurrah in December of 1984, Reed’s fortunes were on a consistent upward trajectory for many years.

After the release of their EP, Breathless, in 1986, the band hooked up with music biz impresario Bill Graham and producer Derek Schulman, eventually signing to Polygram, the parent company of the accursed Mercury Records label (see Nero’s Rome), in ‘87.

Late that same year the band released an eponymously entitled album, which spawned a couple of hits, including the memorable “Ritual.”  Soon thereafter the band toured the US and Europe, opening for Bon Jovi and then for the Rolling Stones on their Steel Wheels tour.

By the early ‘90s, as the band’s fortunes were beginning to wane. In 1993, Dan traveled to India, where he interviewed the Dalai Lama for a Spin magazine article. This led to divergent career changes. He became a writer and activist, involved in many worthy causes. He became a screenwriter and an actor. Around 2000 he opened and managed the Ohm night club, one of the Northwest’s most cutting edge spaces- home to Dahlia.

In 2005, Reed withdrew from the night club scene, renewing his search for higher purpose. He lived in a monastery in Dharamsala, India four four months, then traveled to Jerusalem, where he studied classical Judaism at a yeshiva for about a year. Later, he also lived in a Greek Orthodox monastery in Jerusalem’s West Bank.

Of those times, he has said.

“Investigating these different faiths, while at the same time keeping my feet in the secular world, affected my outlook on life and my music very much in that I feel in a world of environmental decay, corporate globalism, war and human and animal rights abuse… it was time for me to dedicate my energy and time to adding to the other side of the equation.”

So it was under those circumstances that Dan Reed returned to his musical roots, composing songs on an old beat up guitar he had purchased during his stay in India. After making a home in Jerusalem, he built a small studio and started developing many of the initial tracks for Coming Up For Air. In the creation of the album, a number middle Eastern musicians, including Israelis and Palestinians, contributed to many of the basic tracks- music thus accomplishing what years of political negotiations have been consistently unable to achieve.

The Dan Reed we find on Coming Up For Air is all grown up. This is a mature album, dealing with adult themes and feelings and a resolutely sober, some times somber world view- though a determined optimism always seems to find it’s way to the surface. Conversational. Philosophical. Earnest. Dan Reed is a true seeker. The mid-tempo songs (there are no real rockers) here wrestle with issues related to personal and inter-personal relationships: heartfelt and introspective, all written in the first person.

The title track displays a gritty, weary sensibility, the gritty weariness being comparable in tone and texture to John Mellancamp- “ We keep carving swords from our father’s plough/To cut off the head of the last sacred cow.” However, the production choices are dissimilar.

Dan’s musical decisions tend toward a more global approach. Here, Mark Eliyahu contributes a ghostly kemence (a 3-string middle eastern bowed-lute sort of deal), and Kfir Shtivi foggy key washes; while Clay Ostwald adds Bruce Hornsby-like chiming piano licks.

With a very nice nylon-string guitar solo, Rob Daiker sails over salient strings on the sweeping waltz “Losing My Fear.” “You’re the only teacher I ever need/I’m a perfect horn with a broken reed.” The song fulcrums beneath a gorgeous bridge, effortlessly lifting it to a higher place.

One of the few songs that would seem to approach “up-tempo“ velocity, “Closer” is motivated by Reed’s rhythmically propulsive acoustic guitar. Brief interludes of what sound like backwards electric guitar give pause for one to rethink the kemence sound in “Coming Up For Air.” But one must not dwell upon mysteries such as these for too long, lest his brain explode.

“On Your Side” is an impassioned ballad with a benevolent sentiment, colored by nice guitar and keyboard punctuations. All the instrumentation is so subtle, it is often hard to define all the various colors. Headphones are prescribed.

A bit of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” echoes in the opening theme of “Brave New World,” a song that lends credence to the impression of a nearly impenetrable depth of sound field. Swirling symphonies of possible strings vanish in wispy contrails. Slippery mosses slide upon the rocks of Daiker’s ethereal guitar cascades. A powerful song with a memorable chorus.

More probable backwards guitar effects faintly fog the decoration of “Middle of Nowhere,” another of the rare uptempo numbers- this one with a pretty, octave-jumping chorus, reminiscent of Tal Bachman’s “She’s So High.” A hit song. “Reach For the Sun” again displays Dan’s knack for writing an exceptional chorus. Tightly woven vocal harmonies provide a thick warm blanket around the pretty melody.

“Promised Land” intimates perhaps Peter Gabriel’s younger brother, an arid desert flavor provided by Eliyahu again on the klemence; along with violinist Srour Saleeba and Reem Talhamni: whose soaring, sighing, crying vocals evoke ancient wind and sand across a wide and distant expanse. “Welcome to the promised land/where dog eats dog and man eats man/God may be crazy, if this is his plan.” Saleeba’s weeping violin brings “Pray For Rain” to tears, especially during the especially moving fade of this very touching song.

Grabbing pieces of Charlie Chaplin speeches from his only speaking role in  “The Great Dictator,” Reed adds Chinese zither, fretless bass, as well as the familiar elements in this production, to create a sort of odd rap piece, that resonates with a message one could impart regarding today’s world and what humans do to it and each other in it.

Yes, Dan Reed is all grown up now. If he has not put his demons behind him- he has, at the very least, come to terms with them. This album is not going to be everyone’s cup of peace. Dan is nothing, if not resolute in his beliefs. And this album displays those beliefs in flying colors. But these are hard-earned songs, scribed from a hard-won wisdom. He is willing to share those ideas, if you are willing to receive them.