1. THE NEW RUNT
I've long been of the opinion that E, the leader of the band Eels, is -and will eventually be recognized far and wide as- my generation's Paul McCartney. It's the invention in the tunes, the outright originality, and the way with a melody. Someone like Kelley Stoltz might be the more obvious heir to the throne, but Paul McCartney was an original, and my generation's Paul McCartney must too be an outright original.
That said, we will also need a Bob Dylan, and for that position I'd like to nominate Ted Leo, with his deft wordplay and distinct vocal style.
Eminem is the modern equivalent to Elvis Presley, simply by virtue of his taking black music and making it palpable for white audiences while maintaining it's inherent danger.
Danny Michel is a special kind of artist. He's unique and comfortable in his skin, he's adventurous and a distiller of ideas; he's unafraid to co-opt styles and mix them up into a new kind of vision, left of centre and out on a limb. It's likely that he'll manage a long, long, fruitful career, rich in musical invention but short on the kind of mass acceptance that he deserves, while less talented, beige hacks steal his thunder and his riches.
Danny Michel, it occurs to me, is my generation's Todd Rundgren.
2. TROUBLES RECONCILING
When I was in high school I had a teacher who always had chalk in awkward places. Chalk on his bum, chalk on his crotch. He was a good teacher -I imagine he still is- and his name was Mr. Michel. Mr. Michel knew I loved music and so did he, and we talked sometimes about bands we liked, and he told me about his brother's band, The Rhinos.
I bought The Rhinos' first album, Fly-Fishing in the Fountain of Youth, and was a little thrown by it. There were moments of brilliance -"Jackadandy Babbitt" is an undoubtedly great song, I don't care what anyone, even Danny Michel says, and I still really, really like "Psychedelic Bill & The Zanies of Sorrow"- but much of it was a bit unfocussed.
Years later I kind of got into a band called Starling, in which Mr. Michel's brother played guitar. They were pretty good but not great. They were catchy enough, but didn't have a lot to separate them from the pack.
When I first moved to Toronto a bunch of years ago I went to see Danny Michel play at a songwriter's circle at the old Ted's Wrecking Yard, and it was a truly revelatory experience. If you've never seen the man play live solo you won't understand, but it really is like nothing else. He uses loops and pedals to build tracks in front of the audience, exposing his tricks fully, and bringing everything together to create something fully formed right there in front of you. Andrew Bird does something similar with his violin, but it's not the same. I've seen them both live a couple of times, and Andrew Bird ain't got shit on Danny Michel.
I feel absolutely 100% comfortable saying that a solo Danny is firmly seated amongst the very best live performers I have ever seen in my life. With a band however, live and on disc, I've often found that that something special Danny possesses gets watered down. Songs that alone are delicate and charming sometimes get bogged down in pop rock posturing. It's a common problem with singer-songwriters, that when they back themselves with a band they become rock stars, and their triumphs become mired in unnecessary stuff. I guess it's a reaction to the solitary act of writing, that they long for the companionship of other musicians, but it's a difficult thing to integrate the one without losing the beauty of the other.
Nowhere has this been so devastating as on the Michel song "Perfect," which was, when I first got to know it, one of the most simple, beautiful examples of form reflecting content I'd ever heard: The arrangement was so simple and spare that when he sang "Nobody move, this is perfect," it froze you in your spot for fear you would be the one to destroy that delicate thing that all in the room were feeling. It was a stunning achievement...
With a full band, however, the song kicked up dirt. It became one of those rawk songs, in a hurry to get somewhere and at complete odds with itself. "So don't wait up, just rest your eyes, cause I can't rush this beautiful ride," sang Michel, while the song rushed along at it's own accelerated pace.
(That Danny recorded an almost solo version of the song for 2003's "Tales From the Invisible Man" that borrowed more from the full band arrangement than his solo rendering was baffling to me, and more than a bit of a disappointment.)
Danny's recorded output has always been a bit of a mixed bag. It's never bad, in fact it's always good, but it has only rarely captured that rarified Danny Michel quality. "Beautiful," "Toledo," "The Invisible Man," "Thunder in the Mountain," "Oh San Francisco," "Snowglobe," "Beautiful Nothing," "The Luckiest Man in the World," these songs were all hints at what the man was capable of doing. Ironically, Michel's first solo album, 2001's Fibsville, came closest to capturing the live Danny Michel experience on record.
Until 2004, that is.
3. SUCCESS! SUCCESS!
In 2004 Danny recorded Loving the Alien: Danny Michel Sing the Songs of David Bowie, which somehow freed him up to just do his thing in the studio. He found a way on that album to combine his desire for fuller arrangements with his natural touch with the spare, and his incredible skill with musical invention. In many ways, the artist who made this album sounds like a different one than made Fibsville and In the Belly of A Whale...
This guy was endlessly more comfortable with his gift, and more able to see the songs clearly; maybe that was because they weren't his, or maybe it was just a natural maturation of the man, who knows? But it was certainly an incredible development.
Also, we got to see arguably the first evidence of Danny's ability to combine genres seamlessly: The opener, "Young Americans," presents the pop tune as an almost bluegrass lullaby. It's a an incredible track, and one of the best covers ever committed to tape.
Since Loving the Alien, Danny's been, as they say in the sports world, in the zone.
In 2006 he released Valhalla, the first truly, completely brilliant Danny Michel. Forget flashes of brilliance, Valhalla burned bright from start to finish, with nary a misstep. Every song was different than the one before it, but the album was a perfect whole, with perfect flow. All of the little touches -the harmonies, the sound effects, the additional musicians- were perfect. They were necessary. For the first time Danny completely avoided dressing his songs up in other song's clothing and just let them all be who they were.
Now, in 2008, we are treated to Feather, Fur & Fin, Danny's first independent release in a couple years, and another all out smash.
4. FEATHER, FUR & FIN
The first track, the title song, sees Danny Michel channeling his inner Bruce Cobourn, painting the world's environmental woes as an almost war between man and nature, with the animals turning to Mother Nature for help. Man pushes into her territory and pushes, expanding his footprint until finally "She cried out A thousand days of hurricanes and floods! Her face ran with tears, the streets ran with blood."
Danny recently relocated from a house out in the woods to a place in Kitchener-Waterloo, I believe, because of the looming housing developments that were destroying the woods around his old place, and it's clear from the slight sneer in his voice, that if it ever came down to it, he'd be on the animal's side. It's an impassioned performance, and an impassioned song.
The arrangement is full and tasteful, it's angry and wistful, defiant and sad. The blasts of longtime Michel associate Rob Carli's baritone sax are imposing and a highlight of the song.
The delicate "Clear" is next, centered on incredible steel pedal turn by Bob Egan and featuring a really wonderful performance by drummer Gord Stevenson. The song is the point in a relationship when it all suddenly just feels right, and the doubts have dissolved. "Normally right now I'd be shaking, but I'm not even scared; Up until now I've been faking..." It's a moment that gets played in pop songs all the time, but it's normally presented as a moment of over-the-top bliss! Rapture! Michel captures it as it is: A feeling of calm. A deep breath. The moment is an absolute moment of normality: "And now you putter in the kitchen. The cat sleeps in puddles of sun. I count my stars and quit my bitching, cause I know we've just begun." When Carli's clarinet comes in to walk us out near the end, it's the embodiment of contentment. This is perhaps Michel's most perfect reflection of form and content since that old live solo version of "Perfect" years ago.
And then of course it all goes back to shit again.
Not musically, no, but thematically. "If God's On Your Side" sees Michel getting into politics once more, taking on those in the world who use religion as an excuse to go to war, which I suppose is everybody who's at war... It's hard at this point to write an anti-war tune without coming off as naive or even silly, but Michel very nearly does it. He effectively mixes broad statements and personal wishes to create something that's stirring, even, and is musically playful and sweet, with Rhodes organ, banjo and glockenspiel (My favorite detail is the repetition of "Come down, baby, come down baby" that comes in the final chorus.) The song walks the streets with it's hands in it's pockets, watching the world; it knows better, it's almost cocky. It's just waiting for you to come around.
The first couple of times I listened to the album I have to admit to being somewhat non-plussed by "Tell Sally." At just under four minutes, I thought maybe it relied a little to heavily on it's chorus, which in itself is maybe a bit too repetitive. The more I've listened though, the more it's seeped in and grabbed hold. I love the song now. In some ways it's a remarkably un-Danny Michel-sounding track, because it is so simple structurally, but he adds enough touches -the harmonies, the harmonica, the banjos- that it never gets boring. "I sat through the morning 'til the morning up and fled; I held up in my bunker, I held up in my head. (The fridge in here is empty and all the plants are dead.)" What Michel's done is given in to the melancholy of the words, and he's respected the sadness that comes with finding your loved one has been untrue. Like he did in "Clear" when he presented that moment of realization that ushers in love as a clarity, here he presents this realization of betrayal as what it is: Something that saps your strength, that ties you to your bed and eats up days and nights, that leaves you grasping for something you can control. What struck me initially as a throwaway, or laziness, is in fact another example of one of Michel's true gifts: Reflecting the content of the words in the arrangement of the music.
Things get back to interesting with "14 Masks of Danger," a slice of lite-reggae storytelling: A song by a white boy from Ontario, based in a Jamaican tradition and concerning a Mexican wrestling Battle to the Death. Rob Carli's baritone sax plays a starring role once again, as do Gord Stevenson's excellent drums. The song is almost seven minutes long, has but two short verses and one two-line chorus... Which means it spends a fair bit of time on atmosphere; luckily it never gets dull, due to the wonderful players, and the clever mash of styles.
Basing a pop song on a classical piece is nothing new: Billy Joel started it, I think... Alicia Keys did it. I feel like maybe Guns 'N' Roses probably did, too. ("Paradise City"? That's Bach, right?) And I'm sure there are three or four hundred speed metal songs that are essentially classical passages sped up to within an inch of their lives. Danny Michel contributes to the phenomenon with the centerpiece of Feather, Fur & Fin, "Motorcade," which was inspired by the slow movement of Schubert's Second Piano Trio. And it's awesome. It's wholly unselfconscious, mixing the beautiful classical piece with an Ennio Morricone-indebted bit of pop music as if they were peanut butter and jelly, and without ever sounding like Adult Oriented Radio pap.
The piano lends a legitimate air of gravitas to the proceedings, and when Michel sings "I will be the car, and all the bodyguards, I will be the silence in your eyes; I will be your aid, I will serenade: I will be your motorcade," it's really a very beautiful declaration.
"I'm'a Love You Anyway" is quite unlike anything else on the album, presenting Michel as some unholy cross between David Byrne's world-conscious pop rock and the over-the-top dance music of Kylie Minogue. And they're covering maybe an old Sam & Dave track. With The Tower of Power horn section. "I don't care what people say: I'm'a love you anyway," sings Michel, and when he does it sounds more like a warning or a battlecry than a declaration of love.
"Sweet Things" is an exercise in nostalgia: It namechecks an outdated mode of buying music -and remembers when you could pay for records with change- a Clash song, a Toots & The Maytals song, and a children's game all in the first verse, and then poses the question "Why can't I see the sweet things until they're all gone?" It remembers when the sky was sky blue and you could see stars in it, and it remembers listening to music on the radio, fighting the static in search of notes and voices...
Musically it harkens back to a simpler time as well. It's pretty straightforward, driven at top speed by acoustic guitars and mandolin; it's buttoned tight in the verses and it explodes into he choruses.
"Rye Whiskey & Wine" is a slow drink, a wistful tale of being the last one left in an abandoned town: "The chapel, the legion, and the Freemason hall; they left all the keys here: It's like I own them all."
(I do wonder this though: Danny plays guitar and sings with no other accompaniment on the track, and he produced the album by himself... So, when he strums his guitar and says at the beginning "This thing won't tune," to whom is he talking?)
"Rye Whiskey & Wine" sounds like a perfect down closer, and every time I listen I feel like it's the last song... But I'm glad it's not.
"On My Way" is one of my favorite Danny Michel tracks, period. It's a song about facing the unknown, and wishing that you could have just one thing familiar to take with you, and what better than love? "No guiding star, or setting sun; no satellite or trail of crumbs; if I'm lost, alone, afraid, promise I can take a little bit of your love on my way." It's got a full, twelve-string sound, and ringing notes; it's bouncy and fun, it's sad and hopeful. It's tight and ragged. It reminds me somewhat of Steve Earle on a good day, even though I'm not a massive Steve Earle fan, and I don't get the impression he writes much about his good days.
It's quietly brilliant, a nice end to an album that regularly approaches and sometimes achieves a more overt, bombastic, arrogant, in your face genius.
5. THE FUTURE OF DANNY MICHEL
It's hard to predict what's going to happen to Danny Michel's career... He certainly has the chops to break through and achieve, well... Hugeness. His catalogue is miles stronger and more interesting than more successful Canadian acts, like The Barenaked Ladies, Metric, or Ron Sexsmith... But maybe he's too interesting. Maybe he's too distinct. He's not as cut and dry radio-ready as some, and he's not built to fit neatly into any specific or foreseeable trend...
Of course, all of those things could also have been said about Todd Rundgren, and he's done alright.
There are worse things to be called than my generation's Runt... Just think of the guy who's my generation's Zamfir, Master of the Pan Flute.*
* Hint: It's Dave Matthews.
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I mentioned early on that Feather, Fir & Fin is the first indie release in a couple of years for Danny Michel, and as such I beg you not to download this album from Limewire, or any BitTorrent sites... Buy it. Please. Go to Soundscapes (on College) if you're in Toronto -although I had to go THREE times before they finally found their copies in the basement- or go to HERE if you can't get to the store for any reason... It's worth it.
