Home Spun: Dan Blakeslee’s “My Nocturnal Youth”

I love demos, home recordings, lo-fi albums and the like. There is certainly a fine line between a great demo recorded to a 4 track tascam that you “feel” the room in and a crappy recording of a teen garage band. Trust me, I know the difference and have shot down reviews on account of that fact. But when everything clicks in this nest of unproduced, raw goodness and makes it’s way into the world that is a beautiful thing. Springsteen’s “Nebraska”, Joe Fletcher’s latest “You’ve Got The Wrong Man” and more recently the album sparked by a Pledge music campaign from the incredible talent that is, Dan Blakeslee.

There is an undeniable magical intimacy to these recordings. I can see Blakeslee running around his apartment, looking for wind chimes or bells to add into these tracks, dancing whimsical in a cyclone of song. An enchanted, mythical, spellbinding glimpse behind the curtain and into the mind of a man I consider to be a creative ball of ingenuity and inspiration.

Dan has always had hints of spookiness in some of his previous works, but “He Cannot Take Me” brings it to an entirely new level. It’s stark arrangement, the ambiance of the space it was recorded in leaking into the recording. Really beautiful and moving and poingant. But Blakeslee humor also finds its way into these recordings. He has a way of putting a smile on everyone’s face who comes in contact with him. When he exclaims “It’s about 3 in the morning and I have a cold and this it the POWER OUTAGE PAAAAANIC” before launching into the “circling back around” chord pattern and a story about the lights going out, I have a smile creeping across my face.

All these songs are absolute gems. A look into the workshop of creativity from a fantastic songwriter and human being. This could be a “how to” audio book for budding songwriters…do this, write songs down in the dark of night, when the muse finds you get your ideas down to tapes that you may come back upon years later as Blakeslee has done, then release them in a wonderful collection that spans an incredible talent’s career as a songwriter. “My Nocturnal Youth” is a true, brilliant inspiration.