Rock;n'roll wild child Birmingham, Alabama's Dan Sartain, returns to Dublin to tear up the music centre for a special free admission event. joining him are the incredible Two Tears.
E
xpect a night of furious rock'n'n'roll.
DAN SARTAIN
Dan Sartain, born of fire and baptized in the tears of Johnny Cash is the voice and soul of this generation’s rock’n’roll youth. Only 25, he writes and belts out his songs with the insight of a man who’s known a lifetime of hard (and occasionally good) times. He’s walked among the cobras and he’s screamed instead of hollered. In short, the man is qualified.
Born in Birmingham, Alabama (a city that immediately conjures up images of racial unrest, police dogs, and fire hoses) Dan wears his southern heritage like an upside down badge, playing with our preconceptions of the deep south.
Coming on stage to the sounds of Ol’ Dirty Bastard with a big grin on his face, he’ll pick up his acoustic guitar, tell a story about “growin up barefoot” and “sittin’ on the porch listenin’ to Pork Scratchin’ Slim”, before he goes into his own rockabilly come soul come proto-punk jam “Tryin’ to Say”. Think Jonathan Richman kicking it with the Flat Duo Jets.
It’s been said back home that Dan’s “more talented then a thousand talented dudes”, and that may actually be true. It only takes one listen to ‘Dan Sartain vs the Serpientes’ to hear that. It’s diverse and soulful, flying off in a million different directions but all of it comes back to a central sound that makes the whole as great as its individual parts.
Listeners are rewarded with multiple listens, because this is a layered and multifaceted album. Sartain has a unique talent for absorbing all kinds of musical styles, and then making them completely his own. Knowing this, it’s not too surprising to learn that he’s a multi instrumentalist that plays most of this record himself, four of the tracks were recorded by Dan in his own garage. But let’s not get caught up in any “garage rock” definitions or comparisons, because Sartain’s tunes and talent easily surpasses that.
‘Dan Sartain vs the Serpientes’ has been kicking around the underground for some time, copies of the record being passed around like a secret among rock kids. It’s so rare for an artist to provoke such excitement and fear that other people will catch on to what we already know. It’s high time this record went overground and everybody else joined the gang.
