DAN MELCHIOR UND DAS MENACE

I'd done lost track of Dan Melchior, pretty much tossin his baby out w/the bathwater left by Billy Childish & Holly Golightly. I know, I sound like a Goddamn sour puss but jesus, how much of that Kent/Medway sound do you have to buy before it becomes an old dog? And when I ask that I mean to them's who don't sport a wallet chain, cuff their denim jeans or wear pork-pie hats at a jaunty angle. Like me. Fuck it, the answer don't matter, hey, the main thing is this Dan Melchior und das Menace lp don't seem burdened by the trappins of click uniformity. You can take a fella outta Kent, but I reckon you can't take Kent out the fella. 'Christmas For The Crows' surely exhales great plumes of hempish wry from the Hangman chillum-like a spit & polish take on that old rapscallion, Sexton Ming-but also devours w/great success lost tins've indica laced biscuits purloined from stash mongers pining for tunesmithery & pluck that harkens back Syd Barrett, Viv Stanshall or that Oliver fella. So you might say I got a bit of egg on my face in regard to ol' Dan Melchior. But that's okay, he can pelt me with'em by the dozen so long as he keeps makin records of this caliber. -Roland Woodbe, Siltblog
No matter what group he's fronting, Dan Melchior always produces a very dapper brand of snot - - - the new Dan Melchior Und Das Menace single is out, and it's the shotgun blast to the belly we expected: a two man effort that combines keys with Melchior's murk to great effect. Hear what happens when someone calls Dan a hippy. It's groovy! - Byron Coley, The Wire
When people throw the term "songwriter" around nowadays I start to wretch inside. If I could send Jeff Tweedy fans adrift without hopes of return, I would have no regrets. So if this is the case who the fuck writes a good SONG in this day and age? The answer is clearly Dan Melchior Und Das Menace. If you want to find out what cult stars he's played with or with which famous rock stars he's shared stages, go look on the internet [Ed. You're already looking on the internet.]. If you want to hear rock and roll delivered like Doc Boggs, Mark E. Smith and Gene Vincent wrapped together then I suggest you go purchase Dan's new 7" on Daggerman Records immediately. The A-side "Elev to Mezz" is classic Melchior with all the bitterness, spite and humor that only he can muster - Steve Lowenthal, The Fader
Dan Melchior at this stage, is one of the most prolific singer/songwriters of all underground music. With over a decade of performing under his belt, 20 plus LPs, gobs of singles and easily the most recognizable voice of the subterrestrial landscape, he's a force that can't be ignored. Melchior's ability to craft songs that play with genres makes him almost impossible to pigeonhole, mixing acoustic, strumming guitar sometimes even over a disco beat. Often adding adventurous instrumentation like piano, organ, or even horns at times, it seems as though his approach to music is as playful as it is artful, and that really sets him apart from his peers. On his latest release (as Dan Melchior und das Menace), The Pink Scream EP, released on Shake Appeal Records this month, he plays with the medium, a single-sided 12” record with an etching on the b-side in Melchior's scratchy, almost cubist illustration style. The music on the a-side highlights his sportive style of songwriting, opening a with a song that borrows the riff from the Peter Gunn Theme, something he does on another single released this year on Disordered Records. In the song “Cockroaches in Your Handbag” he flatly laments about smiling monkeys and “tall terrifying bookshelves,” painting an aural picture with short, oddly descriptive stanzas over a strumming, jangling guitar, and a zestful beat that conjures a sound that is almost contradictory of itself. Later he covers The Ikettes "I'm Blue" and pulls it off effortlessly with his odd and instantly polarizing voice. Brett Cross, Victim of Time.
Dan Melchior und das Menace The ‘Pink Scream’ e.p. 12” (Shake Appeal) Dan Melchior und das Menace Back in the Village 45 (Disordered/Lo-Fi) One of the things I hate about record reviewers is that they are so fucking lazy. They rely on stock phrases, horrible music clichés, and pat comparisons. The worst reviewers dredge up crap like “sound like _____ on acid” or try to get “creative” with “…if ____ and _____ had a party with____”. And then there are the slothful band comparisons. Melchior has been the unfortunate victim of this through out his career. First it was Billy Childish (reasonable enough considering Childish was a big influence). Then for a time it was The Fall (a pure sign of hackery, the reviews who resort to The Fall jig). Recently, Melchior gets compared to the Country Teasers. While I don’t agree with any of those dubs, the Teasers comparison not only shows a reviewer’s shallowness but it really fucking puzzles me. Where are the commonalities? They both play to underground punk audiences. Melchior, like Ben Wallers, actually writes songs and lyrics to those songs rather than coming up with tunes and some words. And they both have accents that originate from the British Isles, though Melchior’s is English and Wallers’ sports a Scot tinge. High time, I say, to shitcan these comparisons and treat Melchior as an artist in his own right. After all, the guy has been playing on and releasing records for at least a decade. IF you want to get it right, lazy reviewer man, than repeat after me: Like Mark E. Smith, Billy Childish, and Ben Wallers, Dan Melchior stands in a hefty stream of Monkey Island musical ooze that trickles all the way back to the hocus pokery of Syd Barrett, Mick Farren, and even Ray Davies. Melchior doesn’t “sound like” but is part of a long musical tradition, a family of deviant underground tunesmithery, adept songwriters who interpret their own songs with great poo-pah. And if it is proof you need, pick up The ‘Pink Scream’ e.p., one of Melchior’s latest. This 5 song one sided 12” (b side has a nifty etching by Melchior) shows a nice range of Dan’s writing, all of it slightly laconic though clearly focused, kinda like a late Sunday morning, pepped on coffee but still laying on the couch. Four of the five songs here are originals and two of those four get into a loud sleepwalking groove with a bit of a folk-garage vibe not unlike Rabbit MacKay though with a little more soul and stinted sideways. “Modog” has a simple arrangement that creates a nice tension while flowing to a near fractured end. And then there is “The Pink Scream and the Middle Manager” which might be the only weird punk cum jump swing song in existence and should be a bad idea but Melchior makes it work. Another potentially bad idea is Dan covering the Ikettes’ I’m Blue. Anyone who takes on an Ike Turner song also takes on the risk of failing big time (see the Blues Explosion’s version of I Idolize You), so that Melchior not only succeeded in not embarrassing himself but did the song justice is quite a feat. Rather than try to get soulful or to play funky Englishman, Dan relies on the song’s groove and keeps the instrumentation simple. He doesn’t try to force his way into the song, but lets the song lay on him. “The ‘Pink Scream’” is quite a record…A couple more excellent songs appear on a 45 put out by the Italian labels Disordered and Lo-Fi. Back in the Village capitalizes on a cool Peter Gunn-ripped riff and some nice distant room soloing, while Dog Love treds from lethargic novelty to infectious psych ditty and it’s here that stinking English songwriter thing asserts itself. My only “complaint” is that this is record number four of the year with one more on the way. They are coming at such a pace that, as much as I dig Melchior’s stuff, the records are no longer events, but rather regularly scheduled programs. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll buy these things as they come out, but it won’t keep me from wondering why this year couldn’t have seen one full LP and a 7” or a double album, a task I think the guy could successful pull. -Scott Soriano - Z Gun
Dan Melchior und Das Menace "Back in the Village" 7" Melchior is good at placing his own descriptive blurbs on his records that give you an inkling of where he's coming from with particular songs. The title cut is described as "a cryptic crap rant", which is familiar territory for him. He does a lot of ranting. Much of it cryptic. OK, not so helpful. Immediately recognizable off-center grooviness here, scattered with sound effects and keyboard blurts and he does sort of a duet with himself at some junctures. Melchior-ian. Jangly. Possessing what some would call an "outsider" perspective. Part of the same genus of species that Ben Wallers and Mark E. Smith are classified under. I can barely remember his Billy Childish and Holly Golightly collaborations anymore. They seem odd pairings nowadays, what with all the legwork Dan has done to put some distance between him and the stigma of garage-rock since then...mission accomplished, I guess. The B-Side of "Dog Love" is labelled as "a big barrett jag hangover rag for letha" (Letha is his wife and I always think it quite chivalrous and admirable that he seems to mention her on every record...and she plays on a good portion of them as well...it just sort of speaks of him as a man of character and strong convictions...) and the Barrett mention goes a long way here. Modern garage-psychedelia. Floyd-ian? Not exactly, but a striking fascimile of Syd's lysergic creativity and displaying of the internal soundtrack in the head of an artist. He's been slowly upping the ante since the disbanding of the Broke Revue and honed his vision into one of the more identifiable and singular voices in today's underground. Not everyday listening type-stuff, but records that are nice to spend some time with when you're relaxing at home. Either you're into what the guy is doing or not and I'm in. Scum stats: 300 copies.
Dan Melchior und Das Menace "The Pink Scream" 12" EP Some of Melchior's more obtuse stuff here, I'm tempted to call it a concept record of sorts, but I'm having trouble connecting all the dots between the songs on this enough to base my presumption on. Let's just say it feels like there's some thread linking all five cuts here..."I'm A Lightbulb" is the preliminary favorite (as most opening cuts seem to be...), but there's a lot to like about the entire EP. Mellow and relaxed throughout, lots of simple heartbeat rhythms and acoustic strumming cut with moments of electricity. Free association trend in the lyrics (there's a line about Keira Knightley's legs that sticks in my head for some reason...) and some cryptic mysticism as well (on "Modoc" he talks mythical and I'm thinking has something to do with Native Americans). Interesting to hear Melchior, a European, taking apart some traditional American musics (bluegrass, spiritual, what-have-you) and reassembling them in his own style. There's a lot to ponder here. How about a cover of the Ike Turner penned "I'm Blue", which he deconstructs into a bit of upbeat and dreamy meandering? I enjoy the assembly of it as well: percussion that sounds like someone mechanically knocking on a door, a single keyboard note held for the duration, soulful guitar strumming, some tambourine. It's the type of pastiche-work that is similar in construction to what Mr. Blank Dog is doing, and although sounding little alike, very close to one another aesthetically. Tunes you can spend some time with and can enjoy delving into...lots of substance to soak in, real music-as-art. "The Pink Scream and the Middle Manager" ends the record and may be the most intriguing conceptually, as it's somewhat neurotic and shrugs off the relaxed atmosphere of the rest of the album a bit. Cut-n-pastework of high caliber, with what rubbed off on me as a sci-fi sort of angle, almost as if it's two different songs alternating verses, but part of the same narrative. Future-folk if you're permit me to use the term. Smart music from a smart guy, I thoroughly enjoy these sort of aural adventures. If you're looking for cheap thrills, this probably isn't for you. I don't want to give the impression this is artsy-fartsy bullshit either, because on a simply musical level it's good stuff. Great songwriting goes a long way. But there's a lot more under the surface to enjoy picking out as well, like a fine painting. Some can buzz through the museum in a few minutes and enjoy things just fine at a glance. And some people can take a few hours and take in each piece in detail. Neither way is wrong, but I guess what i'm saying is which person you are in the example may indicate how much you will enjoy this record, and Melchior's vast catalog in general (and his recent Das Menace stuff in particular..although I wish he'd slow down on the releases a bit, as these records take some time to sink in, and it's getting hard to keep up/fully appreciate these records...). That was a lot of words. Thanks for sticking it out. Scum stats: first 100 on pink vinyl, one-sided 12" with some nice-looking Melchior art screened on the blank side. Rich Kroneiss - Terminal Boredom.
Dan Melchior's never made a bad record, but his last few have been so incredible. My enjoyment and intrigue are ratcheting up to a whole new level even as he becomes seemingly more prolific. The Elev to Mezz and Pink Scream EPs are top-notch, comprising eight of the best examples of songcraft you may hear in 2007, and there's a new EP on Plastic Idol just around the corner. Plans are also coming together for Dan und Das Menace to tour, hitting the west coast in the first week of November. Surely, it's been said too often by lazy reviewers that Dan's music is "like the Country Teasers," and while I'd definitely recommend these records to any Teasers fans, such a one-sentence review is not a fair summation, and it does little to alleviate the confusion that exists about the man's music.Most recordgeeks became familiar with Dan when the Broke Revue was anointed briefly as an up-and-coming "it" band in NYC, shortly after the time that Dan came to the States from his native England, where he had worked with Billy Childish and related projects such as Holly Golightly. The Revue even opened for much-hyped midmajor stars as Interpol, and my guess is that it looked like too much too soon for cred-conscious scene-honchos to hitch up to the bandwagon. I was skeptical, too. Probably a year or more went by before I learned that the Broke Revue's album on the In the Red was actually really good! And there were a buncha other records that came out around then by Dan which for me got lost in the shuffle, never bought, never heard. I thought I had him pegged as a bluespunker. I respected him for the raggedy edge and a unique singing voice, but I was afraid he was a little too prolific, and I felt late to the party after missing so many records.Nowadays, Dan's music has become even more diversely influenced, and while it surely seems to share many influences with the Country Teasers, I also get the sense that Dan's got a subscription to the Messthetics series because The Pink Scream and Elev to Mezz sound as if they'd fit right into that (albeit, his music's blues edge is still more palpable than any of those British DIY bands of 1978-1980). There's keys and synths in there in places, even the occasional disco beat, but it's never the least bit cheesy, and like the Teasers' main man Ben Wallers (here's where the comparison does indeed ring very true), Dan's lyrics are enthralling enough to command close attention. Rick Ele - Art for Spastics/KDVS
The punk underground is very fortunate to have artists as singular and "out there" as Dan Melchior. Even for a meat & potatoes punk rocker like me, it's nice to take an occasional break from the same old three chords and experience something a little different. And "different" does not necessarily have to mean unlistenable. Melchior, so critically lauded for his work with the Broke Revue and well-known for his collaborations with the likes of Billy Childish and Holly Golightly, has now blessed us with a brilliant, semi-solo release on the ever-reliable Daggerman label. Melchior's strange, distinctively English voice is front-and-center, of course; and the material predictably transcends the usual genre boundaries. An oddball amalgamation of hillbilly blues, outlaw folk, cracked psych-pop, Kinks/Beatles Brit-craft, and futuristic post-punk, Melchior's music exhibits the disparate virtues of individualistic songwriting, old Americana, late '70s English art rock, and the man's own commanding persona. This is the kind of music you'd expect to hear from a sophisticated Londoner now residing in the American South: steeped in tradition, informed by high-brow literature, and utterly unlike anything you've heard previously. If the mouth harp and a digital synth drone never seemed congruous before, Melchior has found a way. Ultimately the key to music is that it has to be good, and here Melchior shines both as a songwriter and musician. "Elev to Mezz" rides high on a memorable, swingin' beat and closes with a riveting instrumental break. The disco/new wave cut "Hippy!" is the farthest removed the record gets from a "roots" influence, boasting a catchy, near-robotic chorus and swirling futureworld keyboards that you won't be able to get out of your head. New and old, earthy and cerebral, traditional and progressive, primitive and refined: it all gets mashed together here, and the anchoring force is one man's very formidable talent.I'm dying to hear more.Lord Rutledge - Now Wave
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DISCOGRAPHY -
holly golightly/dan melchior/bruce brand - your love is mine/laughing to keep from crying - flapping jet 1997
dan melchior -wrong inside/crow jane 45 - hangmans daughter 1998
billy childish and dan melchior - devil in the flesh LP - sftri 1998
dan melchior's broke revue - this love is real CD - sftri 1999
the broke revue - oldtime futureshock LP - milou 1999
holly golightly and dan melchior - desperate little town LP- sftri 2000
dan melchior - instant love/that's no way to get along 45- smartguy 2000
dan melchior's broke revue - bad for my soul/art machine 45 - in the red 2000
dan melchior's broke revue - heavy dirt LP - in the red 2001
dan melchior's broke revue - andover,duluth,london 12"EP - version city 2002
dan melchior's broke revue - bitterness, spite, rage and scorn - in the red 2002
dan melchior - this is not the medway sound LP - smartguy 2002
dan melchior's broke revue - remote control/garage obituary 45 - tmu 2003
dan mel -key -ore's broke revue - gudbye ta sluggo CD EP - plastic records 2004
dan melchior's broke revue - o clouds unfold double LP - (never released) - 2004
dan melchior - the covert stomp LP - hate records 2005
dan melchior - hello I'm dan melchior CD - shake it records 2005
dan melchior - fire breathing clones ..ular phones CD - plastic records 2006
dan melchior - span of attention/to the river 45 - ssld records 2006
dan melchior und das menace - your lousy floor ep 45 - bughouse records 2006
dan melchior und das menace - elev to mezz/gravy train and ice cream truck/hippy! - daggerman records 2007
dan melchior und das menace - PINK SCREAM ep - 5 songs -shake appeal records - 2007
dan melchior und das menace - back in the village/dog love - disordered records - 2007
dan melchior und das menace - madame nu/so real - plastic idol records - 2007
AVAILABLE NOW -dan melchior und das menace - christmas for the crows lp - daggerman records -
180 gram vinyl - mastered by john golden!
world's lousy with idea's vol 5 - w catatonic youth and christmas island - almost ready
dan melchior und das menace - she's so blank/certainly 14th st 45 - Almost ready records - - - - -COMING SOON !dim are the lights/I don't want to be nice 45 - on Convulsive records - - - 2009 - - 45 on Columbus Discount - - 45 on Dullknife records and LP on SS records!!!!!!!!
A LOT OF THE ABOVE RECORDS ARE AVAILABLE AT
DAN MELCHIOR'S STORE