Newsday March 20th, 2008: He calls himself Lonesome Dan, and on his new self-titled album he swears the name fits: "Little children don't like me / Small dogs always bite / Everyone I meet, everyone I meet / Retreats."
But Patchogue's Dan Welsch sets these bitter lyrics against a wry, bouncy bass line and some spiffy blues guitar, letting the listener know it's all (or at least mostly) an act. And though he may be antisocial, he's found good company in his backing band, The Curmudgeons.
All of which makes "Lonesome Dan and The Curmudgeons" a morosely funny and terrifically refreshing disc. You could file it under blues, but it's not the usual genre workout; you could file it under singer-songwriter, but it's devoid of romantic hogwash. Welsch, with his amusingly bland voice and bummed-out delivery, belongs next to Loudon Wainwright III, Warren Zevon, Randy Newman and other dark-eyed satirists. He's somewhere between a bluesman and a stand-up comic (who, be warned, works a tad blue).
Welsch sings from the viewpoint of the eternal malcontent. When not sneering at people more successful than he ("Marry the Boss's Daughter"), he's griping about relationships ("Good in Bed") or enumerating the cold comforts of middle-age ("Me & My Old Lady"). In his hilarious ode to the crummy state of the world at large - set to an ironically sunny Caribbean beat - he even sneaks in a bit of poetry: "Winds of change keep blowing / Up and down my street / I'm just trying to hang on / To the ground beneath my feet." The title of that one speaks volumes: "Clouds of Joy."
Long Island Advance May 22nd, 2008: The dictionary defines "curmudgeon"
as a cantankerous, disagreeable, old
man who is full of stubborn ideas. And
if that is true, it is no wonder that Dan
Welsch is a lonesome guy and that the
only other people who will play music
with him are as curmudgeonly as he is.
Or it could all be an act. But whatever it
is, Lonesome Dan & the Curmudgeons,
a local Patchogue band that has cut its
first album, is playing music for malcontents
and is having a lot of fun doing it.
With a voice described as “amusingly
bland” and a message rife with middleaged
irascibility, Welsch deadpans the
delivery of 11 songs on the disc named
after him and his band. Ten are originals
written by Welsch and all send up the
irritating nonsense those of a certain
age put up with in life.
In “Marry the Boss’s Daughter,”
Welsch gets tongue-in-cheek about getting
ahead the good old-fashioned way:
“Marry the boss’s daughter/Tell her that
you love her a lot/Marry the boss’s
daughter/Give her everything you
got/Not much.” In “Me & My Old Lady,”
there is only a hint of irony at the routine
most mid-life marriages tend to settle
into. For the most part, “(they) got it
going on.” The lyrics bite, but they’re
funny, especially to listeners who have
long since removed the rose-colored
glasses. “Our overall theme is music for
Boomers who have survived the middleclass
meat grinder with their sense of
humor intact,” said Welsch.
And all of The Curmudgeons, save for
one, fit that description. The odd man
out is Welsch’s son Ryan, who at 21
hardly fits the definition of curmudgeon
or the demographic of Boomer. Still,
the young bass and piano player has
managed to find his niche in the group
by playing on and helping to engineer
the disc. Apparently the younger
Welsch has also discovered the freedom
to be creative in the group. “I took
some music classes in high school, but
they were too restrictive. They didn’t let
you improvise at all,” he said and added
that the music he likes to play is
freeform jazz.
The rest of the group is the very definition
of Boomer. Welsch, 51, plays guitar
and is the main vocal; Mark Lane,
also 51, plays slide guitar, lead guitar,
and is backing vocal; Larry Goldfarb, 53,
plays bass, guitar, harmonica and is
backing vocal; and finally Phil Silberman,
61, is the band's Julliard-trained
professional drummer. The band’s
music category, as described by Welsch,
is Americana, a loose category that
includes and/or melds blues, rock, and
country.
The Curmudgeons have been playing
together for about a year and one-half;
three of the Boomers have day jobs; one
is retired; several play with other bands
as well as The Curmudgeons; and all
say the goal is to get airplay for their
new disc and do as many live gigs as
they can. Both Lane and Goldfarb play
with other bands (Lane with Soulstice at
a little bar in Oakdale called O’Reilly’s;
Goldfarb with a band called The Mowers
in Manhattan). Silberman, the
retired member of The Curmudgeons,
has a web site (www.prodrumservices.
com) that chronicles a long history
of playing drums with big names like
Neil Sedaka and Cab Calloway. He also
instructs.
And Lonesome Dan stays busy with
his second love, Suffolk Recording Studios
(www.suffolkrecordingstudios.
com) tucked inconspicuously behind a
Patchogue Main Street business in a
nondescript building that belies the
state-of-the-art equipment housed
inside. Welsch, known by many as a real
audio pro on Long Island, notes that it is
physically the largest recording studio
in the region. The studio boasts 12 and
one-half foot ceilings, a main live room,
a vocal booth, drum room and control
room, the latter of which is dominated
by a top-of-the-line mixer.
It is in this studio, naturally, where The
Curmudgeons' disc was produced.
Welsch explains that he opened his studio,
a lifelong dream, two years ago and
has rented out sessions to at least 100
other musicians. The computer-based
digital recording system would be a
boon to any musician as it allows an
engineer to zero in on every single note
produced by each singer and instrument
and edit it. But as great a tool as this mixer is for the musician and the engineer,
it won't make a bad song good,”
said Welsch.
He and his Curmudgeons have some
very specific opinions about what
makes music good (good lyrics and
pristine playing) and what good music
is not (as in cool outfits, cool videos,
and sex appeal). They all laugh at the
sex appeal concept. “All that matters
in this game is that it's a good song. It's
not about being a rock star, old or
young. After all, we’re curmudgeons,
said Goldfarb.
Welsch says the group is busy lining
up its gigs and is currently scheduled
to play in downtown Patchogue at
Bobbique on Oct. 18. “We expect to fill
in with other gigs as well and plan to
do festivals and clubs that specialize in
original music,” he said. Often enough,
however, they will play cover music
that includes classic blues and rock,
artists like Bob Dylan, The Band, and
The Stones. “But that doesn’t mean we
copy them. We make these songs our
own,” said Lane.
For four middle-aged guys who can
finally afford good instruments, playing
music has never been so fun. “It’s
so much better being grown up and
doing this,” said Goldfarb. Spoken like
a true curmudgeon.
Lonesome Dan & the Curmudgeons’
music can be purchased at iTunes and
www.cdbaby.com. LI Advance
Long Island Pulse Review: Suffolk Recording Studios owner Dan Welsch moonlights as Lonesome Dan & The Curmudgeons and has just released his eponymous first album. It is filled with his detached musings about relationships (“Good in Bed”), his supposed effect on people (“The Ballad of Lonesome Dan”), and surreal stories (“Clouds of Joy”) which he delivers in a Johnny Cash-esque bassy deadpan. The most standout Curmudgeons are slide guitarists Mark Lane and Billy Carpino, who lend a traditional vibe to some of the songs, but also give them a bit of juice. All of the tunes are originals, except for the Taj Mahal nugget “She Caught the Katy and Left Me a Mule to Ride.” The overall feel of this album is relaxed, possibly because Dan and his Curmudgeons didn’t have to pay for studio time. Over a span of 2 years it was crafted, piece by piece. Therefore, the songs don’t so much have a singular vector, as, say a punk album, but are nuanced and layered. Lonesome Dan and the Curmudgeons are but one talented group contributing to the thriving LI roots music scene. Check them out if such tunesmithery is your bag. Original Link
The Good Times: "This eleven song album features mostly original songs and a superior production job. It's contemporary roots music with lots of slide guitar and straight ahead arrangements".
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