Greg Mahan

A new year and a new CD (finally!), prompts me to concoct a new and improved (?) autobiography. The old one certainly leaned towards the kind I dislike. You know the one: “Check out the _____ ______ Band, the hottest thing around. Arguably the most important discovery since the Polio vaccine. They’ve reinvented the wheel!” Anyways, my former bio was dated to the point where I was starting to doubt the accuracy of what was in it. I mean, I KNOW I performed a Bob Dylan song on a lap dulcimer for my second grade classmates, but I’m starting to think that I played “Motorpsycho Nightmare” and not “I Shall Be Free 10”. And, of course, minute details about what I may or may not have done in 1993 has little importance here in ‘08. (Note to self: change to ‘09 in a few months...) Back in the day, I did have a wildly popular band called “Banjo” with my bass playing baby brother, Brian. (Well, not wildly popular, but I bet somebody remembers us!) We had earnest songs and pretty great hair. Realizing I wasn’t meant to front an electric rock band, I decided to go solo, releasing a well received disc back in 2000. Well received enough to garner three Cincinnati Entertainment Award nominations (and really, isn’t it nice just to be nominated..). Yes sir, I pretty much milked that CD for all it was worth, at least on the local front. Played every MidPoint Music festival, a Midwest Music Summit (sandwiched between LOUD metal bands), a Gratis Fest or two. Those were great fun. Toured a bit, did some weekend jaunts, opened for Erin McKeown, Paul Thorn, and Jeff Black. But here in ‘08, a list of nearly semi-famous people I opened for is not nearly as interesting as the fact that I have gigged with professional sword swallowers, blind guitarists with prosthetic arms, and have played shows in drained in-ground swimming pools... But that’s not what I wanted to tell you about. I want to tell you about my first CD release in nearly eight years. It’s called “Thirty-Five-Cent Daydream” and I am quite proud of it. As with my 2000 debut, Professor Brian Lovely came on board as producer / knob twiddler / “player of any musical style under the sun” guy. Which is good, because we have a little rock, and folk leanings, a mento disguised as a calypso disguised a pop song, Randy Newman / Van Dyke Park-esque strings (orchestrated by the good Professor). The record is mostly positive and slightly melancholy with a few historical references that predate “rock ‘n’ roll”. We have Negro League baseball players, homages to fresh fruit, amusement park fireworks, a mountain mystic taking a walk in Appalachia, motocross crashes, Pigmeat, a broken down jalopy, and a little small talk at Leon and Loretta’s Pony Keg. Americana to be sure, but hopefully going beyond Southwest Ohio and an “old, weird America” to a place of great musical variety and the future... I hope you enjoy it.********************************************************* ******************Mahan’s bread-and-butter is elegant, graceful and often poetic Americana music, with songs built around his sturdy acoustic playing nd imagery-laden lyrics. On Daydream, there are some of Mahan’s best ever songs in that style (the minimal title track and the slow-burner, “Fireflies”), but the rest of the album shows that he is not limited to any one specific “genre” when writing. Calypso rhythms imbue “Mento” with a sassy strut, sounding like a weird mesh of Graceland-era Paul Simon and neo-Eastern European revivalists like DeVotchKa, while “Wink ’n’ a Smile” closes the album on a playful, sunny Pop note. Producer Brian Lovely helps achieve a crisp sound that allows the songs to breath and the musicians that flesh out the arrangements (with everything from strings to drums) perform flawlessly. Thirty-Five-Cent Daydream sounds as good as any “Roots” album you’ll hear this year, local or otherwise. Here’s a prediction for ya — local NPR affiliate WNKU is going to play the shit out of this one. Other programmers would be smart to follow suit. -Mike Breen, Cincinnati CityBeat