When I met Dave in 1994 he could already play guitar and took it upon himself to teach me how. In 1998 we were sixteen year old kids playing open mics at Lambton County bars for free cokes and jams. We were always turned away for being underage, usually having to cajole someone to let us stay for least an hour. On stage we jammed our favourite twelve-bar blues. Dave was never finished; all the guys kept asking him to play a lead with them jamming Mustang Sally. Dave recoils when I mention the tune now. But when I left those nights Dave was on stage with his Fender and the veteran city players, heavyset heavy drinkers, jamming classic rock tunes by Van Morrison and Black Sabbath until the last whoop from an ill-lit corner called a cab and the bartender turned out the lights. Dave never had a problem getting into the clubs again.
Dave was the first studious guitarist I ever knew, a kid who played because he heard something and not because he wanted to sleep with girls. Good guitar players, he said, never get laid even though they spend their youths in a bedroom. Dave would write out modes on napkins in diners and explain them to me. We went to the library to find music we couldnt hear anywhere else: cool jazz and Miles Davis Kind of Blue; Delta blues by Robert Johnson; even some classical recordings (Beethoven, if memory serves) until Dave decided he had enough euphonium playing in high school.
When I was young I refused to play in a band he wasnt in; we had some great years playing with high school friends, limitless jam sessions and acoustic recordings, and, eventually, our tenure together in St. Helens Alumni. You couldnt always get him to commit to rehearsals or a recording schedule and he pissed the hell out of his bandmates from time to time, but we let him do it because the music would be odd but right. I havent played in an outfit with Dave in five years but I still wont commit to a project unless the leader has talent akin to his own, or the work ethic to make up the difference.
Daves an explorer, a reader, a thinker, not a musician. This aspect of himself doesnt receive the credit it deserves. Daves work, similarly, represent the culmination of his explorationsthe sonic, literary, and engineering ambitions that make Dave an artist to respect, not merely a hotshot young buck. (Have we ever seen one of those?)
Puzak wrote, produced and performed all the material on his debut disc, Yesterday Was Just A Dream, which he released in 2004. The album met with critical successreviewers from publications such as Mister Independent Soul Man who called the album sweet and honest, skillful, music that requires complete absorption. He sold the album himself, and in December of last year he told the Sarnia Observer he didnt have much difficulty selling that first album himself. That is, I think, for good reason.
Puzaks new effort Another Family For War, represents a critical development in his songwriting, production, and performance. My first album was really a piece of quirky pop, trying to figure out how to write songs and engineer the recordings, he told me. Another Family For War is a little more serious, a little more knowledgable, I think, which is what I was going for. If the head-turning of his early days came from his guitar playing, its his songwriting here that shows the most growth, heading towards territories not alien to such Canadian performers as Bruce Cockburn and Daniel Lanois, musicians musicians.
Dave asked me last year to write him a biography for his website. I couldnt keep my thoughts objective, couldnt write an adjective-laced appraisal, so I wrote him liner notes.
Last weekend I came home to Sarnia and visited Dave at a gig at Ups & Downs with Funk Eh. I had a disc of his new tunes in the car. I was happy to see him and stayed for a set. The amps sounded dead; the sound barreled from the PA, hit the audience and fell on the floor. Dave complained that he couldnt solo any more. I nursed a beer and watched the head turns of patrons when Dave soloed during a cover of Stevie Wonders Superstition. Tim Tanner, Funk Ehs drummer, sneers when he hears something he likes. He was sneering pretty good. Dead?
Im a writer, a reader; I was reminded of Kerouac, another Canadian-born a good number of people found unusual. I like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another till I drop - I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion. I look forward to being in the presence of confusion for a good number of years.
Matt ShawMay 2006
