My alma mater has a tradition not unlike many state schools. And also not unlike many, they call it Quadmania. It's a weekend festival held every spring, focused around your standard carnival games like throwing ping-pong balls into fishbowls and riding giant metal contraptions that disorient you. There's also music. I've never been too happy or impressed with the acts they book, which is why my first Quadmania is two years after I graduated. While the headliner this year was T-Pain, I biked over to the school Saturday afternoon to see a paunch, balding man in stained red slacks and an old Tasmanian Devil t-shirt tweak knobs on pawn-shop digital equipment. His name is Dan Deacon.
(yes, another crappy cell phone pic)
Deacon is a DJ, but only because, in this day in age, DJ is still something of a catch-all term. One could just as easily, succinctly and accurately call him an outsider artist, and a combination of those two brandings would actually give a pretty fair impression of the man. Deacon is a native of Baltimore, and part of its fabled Wham City collective of artistic and creative folks living and working communally. He holds a graduate degree in composition and positive album reviews by major publications. He's becoming a hot item, really.
Deacon set up his table of equipment on the blacktop in front of the stage. He insisted that a guitar monitor, pointed towards the crowd, would be his only amplification. He invited the crowd of thirty-ish people to gather around him as he played. But first, we had some exercising to do.
What could be considered musical comedy or performance art is really just Dan being himself. He directed us to stretch and twist, get on one knee, point at the sky, make eye contact with a stranger, and talk without moving our jaws. This cut into his already very short set time, but it allowed all present to quickly develop a sense of community and purpose, something I had never realized how much I missed from other concert experiences. After burning through "Okie Dokie" while we danced jerkily, the activities continued. For the remaining half dozen songs played, Deacon would organize what essentially were children's games and pranks, including but not limited to running in a circle, tagging people, creating a moving human tunnel, and singing to a randomly chosen bystander. His imagination and indomitable quest for the purest sense of fun is infectious, and as a participant in his concert one happy follows his every direction. If you are told to dance as if you are The Joker and have sworn to give up your life of crime and be a good citizen, and that you have learned to play the saxophone, but that while you play your sax gets smaller and smaller and you get bigger and bigger, by golly you dance like that.
Deacon also played "The Crystal Cat", "Let's All Go for a Ride", and "Silence Like the Wind Overtakes Me", among others. This really was not so much a concert as a sampling of what a concert would be. But it only take one sampling to make a new fan.
After the show I approached Dan and offered him a hug ("Let's do it!", he answered). I thanked him for helping to make Baltimore an important city for music. He seemed flattered, but I hope that he understands how true that is.
p.s. As further proof of his awesomeness, Dan Deacon recently put up most of his back catalogue online in high-quality mp3s for free download. Take a sample for yourself and see.