Music
The best kept secret in music
Press
This album is put together so that the songs seamlessly flow together and create a mood you can lose yourself in. The bittersweet melodies and deft lyrical phrasing create songs that go down smoothly, but get caught in your mind. It is both thoughtful and touching, definitely an enjoyable album to listen to whole. - Kate Dimonda
This collection of songs --thoughtful, playful, celebratory, dreamy--is like a string of jewels, each one a tuneful little world of it's own, moving from contemplation to pure feeling. A compact treasure trove we can carry in our pocket. - Jerusha Korim
Catchy guitars, energetic grooves and inventive lyrics get this going. Engaging, natural style and interplay between the band. The more sensitive and articulate side of pop rock. - Taxi
Discography
Rocking Chair
Renting Happiness
Splendid
Photos
Feeling a bit camera shy
Bio
Songs tell stories. Songs paint pictures. For as long as he can remember, Dan Strauss has been filled with, and guided by, songs. On his third CD, Rocking Chair, Dan finds his way through life’s puzzles with his wistful songwriting, evoking the rich musical styles he grew up on from The Beatles to Elvis Costello, Simon and Garfunkle, David Bowie, Stevie Wonder and the Pretenders. The songs are melodic and lyrical, vivid and pure – strengthened by a rich palette of music history and the rhythms of rock and roll, country, folk and jazz.
Dan has had music in his life started writing music when he picked up the guitar at age 17 upon realizing that a piano was too heavy to carry around. Original songs started emerging as soon as three chords were learned. Over the years, through much collaboration, a writing style began to evolve. His songs, steeped in melody and lush hooks, pen tales about life and relationships with a Dylan-esque insight, Springsteen sincerity and classical music sensitivity. Whatever the message, each song is charmingly delivered through the engaging, untainted voice and mature musical renderings of this Brooklyn-based rock artist.
The songs on Rocking Chair began in the spring of 2001 and took form in a small cabin Dan rented in the woods of New Hampshire that summer. The next three years saw the birth of the most complete songs Dan has written to date. He juxtaposes the hardships of love’s struggles with the upbeat “Heavy Heart” and “Six Years in June”, finds a Motown-flavored rock ditty as a sardonic commentary on the United States’ invasion of Iraq with “St. Patrick’s Day”, and meanders though the hopefulness and fear of love with the jazz-pop ballad, “Silent”, and country-tinged title track The diversity of the CD continues with the electronic rhythm-driven “Take Me Home” and “Our Souls” before giving way to the tender, “Sleep” a haunting ballad in which he sings “I’m alright, I’m only moving forward”
Rocking Chair was a year in the making. Dan Worked with producer Cyrille Taillandier (fresh off the completion of Lenny Kravitz’s “Baptism”) and recorded the CD at New York City’s famed Edison Studio. Dan plays frequently with The Yes Men (Fabrice Calmettes, bass, Bill Konig, guitar and Ed Wiehe, Drums) at such New York City venues as The Living Room, The Continental, The Alphabet Lounge, Kenny’s Castaways, the C-Note, Café 111 and CB’s 313 Gallery. He has also performed at the Fire and Water Café in North Hampton, Massachusetts and the Monadnock Music Festival in Keene, New Hampshire. Upon the release of Rocking Chair, Dan plans on taking to the road with the Yes Men to promote the CD, while continuing to work on new material.
Links
