Off Topic: Dan Patlansky!

Topics involving specific people are the ones I have always kept at arm's length when writing. It reminds me of junior school compositions my teacher would make us write in class. There I would be sweating and scribbling away furiously, trying to bring together a body to my composition until the shrill buzzer would ring out.

Coming back to Dan Patlansky, if you haven't heard of him then it is probably high time that you did. In this day and age when the free newspapers force feed you the news of Simon Cowell's latest 'musical find', endless speculation on Kayne West's mental health to Pharrel's latest single or Rita and Liam's musical collaboration you need some respite in genuine, hard to industrially produce, honest to god music. Enter Dan Patlansky's curious blend of cool blues and hard edged rock, like a glass of premium scotch on the rocks.

Dan is no newbie on the music scene, if I remember correctly he might have started as early as the turn of the millenium. I was looking for music beyond what the likes of music moghuls like Simon Cowell, the music shows on TV that produced the 'next great singers of the generation' would provide. MTV had already lost it's iconic image of providing quality music, I could not (and still cannot) identify with the MTV of today with it's juvenile reality themed programs with the MTV of the Nineties which used to a be a guilty trip of amazing music. Then I heard Dan play an instrumental piece he called 'Twenty Stones' on a South African TV channel to a black south african teen who was as transfixed as I was on a guitar ensemble I had never heard before.

Twenty Stones was the prettiest and most joyful piece of instrumental guitar work I had ever heard. It is notoriously tough to play in exactly the same way as Dan himself realised when requested to play this gem of a piece in concerts again and again. Then came the first slower version of 'Only an Ocean' and this song completely blew me away, this was breakthrough material.

Dan had already an impressive body of work that included ambitious ten minute blues tracks such as 'Lost your good thing now' , 'Big things going down' and these are some of the most incredibly reflective and sombre blues sets one can expect to hear in the genre. 

This got me thinking: why aren't people sitting up and listening to this talented and 'girls would love that handsome rugged man' looks? Now don't get me wrong, I am not gay nor do I have anything against gays at all (George Michael will always be my favourite singer and song writer ever) but this guy is a talented musician whose music does not sound tired and who definitely does not look tired (that's an understatement, he is pin up material for women even with his shorn locks!) despite the slow crawl to the the recognition he deserves.

Frankly, being close to forty now I realise and see the world as it is and it is this I recognise that one is not recognised just for the talents but for the contacts one has and the right people to lean on in the industry you work in.

There is an amazing biased polarity in this world that has the three worlds described in our oldest written books: 

a) Heaven that consists of a privileged few who live and award each other for their contributions and make sure the other two worlds sit up and listen. These privileged few make sure that the people in the other two worlds accept and adopt their citations.

b) The Mid Earth consists of a cesspool of struggling bourgeoisie that is desperate to emulate and even imitate those privileged in the heavenly circle. Constantly looking for idols that are feted by the privileged, all to avoid the 'fear of missing out'.

c) Hell consists of quite simply, yes you guessed it, the ones who have no love for music (ha, ha and you thought this was just a post on music!) or creativity and merely support trends for the purpose of commerce and profit to themselves. You know Music Producers, Music moghuls ... those kind of people.

Dan does not belong to either of the three worlds but in all of them, yet he is more in between worlds  than Heaven or Hell because his compositions are from his heart and soul.He is not chased by crazed fans because he focuses on the quality of his work rather than trying whip up hysteria. He believes he is creating amazing music and his sincerity, creativity and hard work shows in his albums and he does all that without much fan fare and publicity. For him, his legacy and his love is his music and only he himself can be satisfied or dissatisfied with the quality of what he has musically created. 

This man does not look around for accolades, although am sure it feels great when we applaud him for his awesome live performances like the one he gave at Blue Moose Radio. I really hope and wish that Dan achieves the creative and material success needed to fuel the former and see him go higher and higher in his music. And if he earns a few cool millions on the way in his amazing musical journey, would we mind? Nudge,Nudge. Wink, Wink!

#blues#dan patlansky