Bio
Standing on the
stage as the featured performer at Club Passim this past May filled Dan with a
tremendous sense that things had come full circle - and yet the journey was just
beginning. Dan has always been filled with music - his mother tells stories of
when he was a baby and would bounce around the living room listening to his
Fisher Price record player. When he recorded his debut album in 2005, he titled
it Burning For Music - symbolic of the flame that has simmering inside
him for his whole life.
It was midway through his freshman year of college when
Dan, who hails from the
Boston area,
first picked up an acoustic guitar. After years of playing the tenor saxophone,
he wanted to channel his ever-present passion for music into lyrical
songwriting. He was mesmerized by the songwriting and the live energy of the
Dave Matthews Band, and had also begun to listen to a lot of Ben Harper, Blues
Traveler, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, REM, and Phish. He penned his first
song on the guitar, "The Owl", in January of 1999.
Dan continued to nurture his musical inclinations. He
became a live music junkie and tried to get to as many shows as he could. Over
time his musical horizons expanded to include many of the musicians who inspired
his modern-day influences, like the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, Joni
Mitchell, Paul Simon, and Led Zeppelin, as well as more contemporary folk
influences like Ellis Paul, Greg Brown, Greg Greenway, Martin Sexton, Kate Rusby,
and Dar Williams.
A little over a year ago, Dan had had a dream in which he
heard the phrase, "burning for music." It came at a time when he was struggling
to decide how seriously to pursue his lifelong passion - see-sawing back and
forth as to whether he should follow his dream of making music. Around the same
time, he attended several live shows, including a Damien Rice, Ellis Paul, and
Dave Matthews and Friends, that inspired him and reminded him of what ran
deepest in his bones and truest in his heart - music.
Dan released his debut album, Burning For Music,
this winter. He describes the recording process as an amazing one to go through
- one that helped him to develop a clearer sense of his own voice as a musician.
He has since begun the journey of unveiling his music to the world - playing
gigs on the East Coast at venues such as the legendary Club Passim in
Cambridge, MA,
Radio Bean in Burlington, VT, and local community coffeehouses. In his live
performances, one can sense that same playful, joyful enthusiasm that was
present in him as young child with his record player - infused with a quality
of tremendous appreciation
of all beauty and complexity of the human experience, in all its resounding joy
and heartbreaking sadness.