The Bollard Bulletin: September 16, 2024
Local Music Monday: Celebrating a half-century of Dan Knudsen
LOCAL MUSIC MONDAY
I’ve told this story before and I’m bound to tell it again next year when The Bollard celebrates the 25th anniversary of Dan Knudsen’s musical career in Portland, but it’s worth recalling here how I first met the guy. It was the year 2000 A.D. and you could still smoke inside Maine bars and concert halls. Dan didn’t, but a scraggly group of young hipsters were rippin’ butts and otherwise being cynically cool during an open mic inside the Fine Arts on Congress Street, a former porn theater turned into a DIY performance venue by the late, great punk-rock impresario Michael Whittaker. (Geno’s Rock Club occupies the space today.)
None of the angsty indie-folk I heard that night made an impression, but Dan sure did. Standing stiffly and grinning unselfconsciously with his acoustic guitar, buttoned-up shirt and Midwestern innocence, Dan delivered two or three cuts from his first album, Sunsong, released that summer, while the assembled cynics groaned, rolled their eyes and snickered.
Corny isn’t quite the right word to describe what Dan was doing that night — or the music he’s made ever since — as it implies an intention to make something overly sentimental. Dan, a being of pure goodness and hope, is either disinterested in, or incapable of, that sort of artifice. He simply does want to express his songs of love, peace, nature, childhood, alien slimes, demon emperors and sand creatures in the most earnest and direct way possible. Singing in tune, keeping time, recording in a “professional” setting or otherwise giving a damn what anyone expects— none of that sullies Dan’s art. He was, and still is, more punk rock than anyone in town save Bruce Merson of Nuclear Bootz, a drummer who actually plays punk music.
I’m hardly the only jaded music fan who’s been won over by Dan’s outsider folk. His habitual appearances at Portland open mics have earned him a strong cult following among other Maine recording artists, as evidenced by the lineup on the two tribute albums that have been released over the years, which feature acts as varied as Fogcutters R&B singer Megan Jo Wilson, ferocious punk-rockers Mouth Washington and the avant-garde sound collagist id m theft able.
Dig what Bass Box, an old indie-rock band led by wedding singer Mat Zaro, did with Dan’s “Go North Little Child” on the first tribute release, from late 2007, then check out one of the two bonus original tracks Dan added to that record, “Can’t Stop the Cops,” an admiring ode to law enforcement that BLM protesters can also appreciate, albeit ironically. “Their sirens are turned off / Their shotguns are sawed off / They’re gonna bust some shots off / And dust some crooks off / Can’t stop the cops!”
Indeed, they cannot be stopped, but neither will Dan Knudsen be deterred. I joined him and some other pals to help celebrate his 50th birthday this past weekend and heard a couple early mixes of some tracks from next year’s release, on which Dan — a fan of John Denver and Dio in equal measure — says there’ll be less of an emphasis on the sci-fi and horror themes explored on records like 2019’s Psychos and 2008’s now classic Outer Space, and more songs about compassion and acceptance of our fellow humans. Until then, welcome to the wonderful world of Dan Knudsen!
MUSIC
Hi-Fidelity
Open mic feat. Jessandamy
8:20 p.m., no cover (21+)
Portland Lobster Co.
Blue Steel Express (blues, noon), Gina Alibrio & Friends (funk, rock; 6:30 p.m.)
no cover (all ages)
Three Dollar Deweys
Running Kind Duo
6 p.m., no cover (all ages)
HAPPENINGS
Authors Jo Paquette (Stories I Told My Dead Lover), Maggie Thrash (Rainbow Black) and M.T. Anderson (Nicked) discuss their new novels at Print: A Bookstore (273 Congress St., Portland) at 7 p.m. Free. 536-4778. printbookstore.com.