He may look like he’d be the most awkward kid in the room, but Baltimore’s electro-animaniac Dan Deacon is a charmer. As per his custom, Deacon set his rig of pedals, keys, lightbulbs, and discman in front of the stage, flipping the show-going script for those who chose it; some stood on stage looking over his sweat-soaked shoulder, while he commanded the concentric semi-circles of loons from the dance floor. (And on this night “loons” included The Office‘s B.J. Novak a.k.a. Ryan Howard, not to be outdone by Jim Halpert’s recent show-going exploits.)
Mercury Lounge never felt more like a loft party: During songs people jumped, high-fived, and flailed; sang along from lyrics sheets; and let loose during a floor-clearing dance-tag cirle. And between songs folks held their neighbors’ hands in a hilarious Deacon-led prayer/apology, about a friend’s Netflix account (which devolved into a gross and brilliant recitation of the sick things those neighbors’ hands might do when alone); kids held their arms up and got goofy; and incessantly snapped for a full minute while verbally repeating, yep, “Snap!”
And if that all sounds retarded … congratulations, it was! But that’s how Dan suckers you in, via vocoder and manic antics, opening up crossed-arms to his sugar-rushed party jamz. All that said, nothing’s gonna do it justice like this vid of “Wham City,” from the excellent Spiderman Of The Rings, which Brooklyn Heathen captured Saturday night.
For the uninitiated, some MP3s…
Take the jump for our pics of Dan and the crowd, and Brooklyn Heathen vid of the hysterical dance-tag session.
Dance Tag
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This rocks my casbah
Dan has the spectacle but he doesn’t have the chops. No clothes on this emperor.
Brooklyn Vegan > Brooklyn Heathen
That chick in red = Annie Lennox – 25 years
i can’t decide if that top picture makes white people look cool or if it’s another nail in the coffin of white supremacy.
cool < coffin (coffin).
this is like the worst music ever. EVER.
lo, for comparison, why don’t you tell us about some good music that you are psyched about right now. please be specific.
Stereogum loves you, Jakob.
according to stereogum, you’re pretty hot right now Jakob
i can’t unanonymize myself. the show looks pretty incredible.
what. the fuck?
i posted last night, but i guess it never showed up…sorry if this is a duplicate.
sometimes i can hear a few songs and be like “this band will be forgotten about in 6 months”
and then i hear dan deacon and think “fuck, this dude is going to be forgotten in 6 weeks”
BONUS COMMENT #1
i honestly think that all the big bloggers in the world got together and decided to play a trick on the blog-reading masses…
BONUS COMMENT #2
the amount of white-boy douchebagginess that goes down in that clip could power a 2 hour “kings of comedy” set.
jakob, maybe you could use some of the money barry diller gave you to buy a different shirt, aside from that grey one you wear all the time that is perpetually soaked in sweat. or see a doctor about your obvious perspiration issue.
just a thought.
why do i have to support my view by naming a fucking list of bands i’m into right now? so you can establish my “indie cred” and see if my opinion matters to you?
what i’m trying to say is that this music could be made by a 2 year old with a laptop; it’s nothing earth-shattering, and frankly, i don’t know what everyone is raving about. maybe i just don’t get it? oh well, i am definitely fine with that.
on the plus side, it’s refreshing to see hipsters dance (or at least try to).
nick-6 weeks might be an overestimate.
i think that the inability to really enjoy a 2-year-old’s laptop music is a terrible loss, although nobody should ever have to justify their taste. i apologize in advance, but my friend sent me this once, i don’t know where he got it from:
There is nothing more graceul than the steps of growing children. There is nothing more predictable than the steps of grown-ups.
This music got some feelings to it.
Me likey!
“And if that all sounds retarded … congratulations, it was!”
do you mean “retarded” like as in people born with developmental disabilities? or maybe like “retarded” as in an antiquated medical term used to stigmatize and warehouse people with disabilities. I’m unsure.
leah: I actually have three or four gray shirts; they are identical. Sweating is something humans do when they move around a lot.
lo: this has nothing to do with “indie cred”. You are an anonymous comment-poster who I know nothing about other than your hatred for one single thing. I just want a reference point; something (ANYTHING) else about you, to give some context to your hatred of Dan’s music.
Will you elevate yourself to more than a tiny, angry stain on some blog somewhere?
Actually Dan has described his sound as the kind of music really cool SIX-year-olds would make if the had his equipment. 4 years off.
thats some of the worst dancing ive ever seen.
it almost makes me not like the music.
That’s about one step up the food chain from “happy hardcore.” Apparently, you just add ironic t-shirts and Sally Jessy Raphael’s glasses, and it’s art.
It’s like my headphones are shitting in my ears…
I’m trying to figure out how Dan Deacon suddenly asploded onto the scene. Last week I didn’t know jack shit about him, and now I’m seeing everything from NBC appearances to ungodly praise heaped on him.
I’ll check out Spiderman of the Rings when I feel like it (later this week probably), but yeah, even with all the praise I’m not expecting much.
It’s not my cup of tea, but I guess if this is what it takes to get hipsters to dance and let go a little, I can’t really find fault with it.
I’m glad DD is finally getting the respect he deserves. It’s funny how many ignorant people are now oppinionated about him though. If any of these haters had seen him any time in the last 5 years they’d be screaming his praises. The guy’s amazing, bottom line. Go to his show and you’ll feel really really good.
I really like Dan’s music; the record is full of feel-good, happy, fun summertime songs. I think those looking for a valid and sound artistic statement are looking a little bit too deeply into the matter.
d: I saw him 2 years ago in chicago, He sucked then too!
I fell in love with that girl in the 3rd picture with the patterned shirt.
i fell in love too.
i third that emotion. that girl. *sigh* i think that’s why stereogum gave us two looks at her.
maybe if you guys got out more instead of reading blogs all day, you wouldn’t be so pine-y.
i value blogs for figuring out which shows to SKIP as much as i value them for picking out cool new music
sadly i have to agree: DD is quite the performer, quite the conceptualist (visual/words) but the music fails to turn me on. I saw him in an empty room once, and maybe i wasn’t white enough to appreciate his banter, but it was still better than the music.
musically and performance-wise i’d much rather check out other Carpark or Retard Disco artists. not slamming anyone; just responding after reading thru the comments and having gotten into huge slamming arguments with friends over the awesomeness vs. suckiness of Dan Deacon
I don’t get that jakob lodwick kid. It’s like he’s a walking hipster douchebag. He always talks about integrity and not selling out but he sells his stake in CV to Barry Diller’s IAC? WTF!!!! He’s like half a genius and funny sometimes but I guess it’s true they make money not art
ahhhh all this time i was wondering who the fuck jacob (yeah, i spelled it with a c, eat it!) is …now i know…thanks jojo (and google). explains A LOT.
If you guys can’t appreciate some fun-as-shit, highly nostalgic, throwback-to-youth, highly danceable and equally absurd party tracks, then you must be some seriously snobby vegan blog-trolling hipsters indeed.
Yeah, at least he’s getting people to move. No one’s really taking themselves too seriously in the video, and that seems like a good thing.
Some people appeared to be embellishing their badness, but I guess that it’d be pretty funny if you were there.
WHATEVER. i think it’d be fun. don’t care about the hype. don’t care if he sucks. it just looks fun… fun enough for me to buy the album.