Saturday, March 15   12:10 a.m.
Blind Pig Rooftop   (317 E 6th St )

"Dan Melchior at this stage, is one of the most prolific singer/songwriters of all underground music. With over a decade of performing under his belt, 20 plus LPs, gobs of singles and easily the most recognizable voice of the subterrestrial landscape, he's a force that can't be ignored. Melchior's ability to craft songs that play with genres makes him almost impossible to pigeonhole, mixing acoustic, strumming guitar sometimes even over a disco beat. Often adding adventurous instrumentation like piano, organ, or even horns at times, it seems as though his approach to music is as playful as it is artful, and that really sets him apart from his peers. On his latest release (as Dan Melchior und das Menace), The Pink Scream EP, released on Shake Appeal Records this month, he plays with the medium, a single-sided 12” record with an etching on the b-side in Melchior's scratchy, almost cubist illustration style. The music on the a-side highlights his sportive style of songwriting, opening a with a song that borrows the riff from the Peter Gunn Theme, something he does on another single released this year on Disordered Records. In the song “Cockroaches in Your Handbag” he flatly laments about smiling monkeys and “tall terrifying bookshelves,” painting an aural picture with short, oddly descriptive stanzas over a strumming, jangling guitar, and a zestful beat that conjures a sound that is almost contradictory of itself. Later he covers The Ikettes "I'm Blue" and pulls it off effortlessly with his odd and instantly polarizing voice." -Brett Cross, Victim of Time.

"The punk underground is very fortunate to have artists as singular and "out there" as Dan Melchior. Even for a meat & potatoes punk rocker like me, it's nice to take an occasional break from the same old three chords and experience something a little different. And "different" does not necessarily have to mean unlistenable. Melchior, so critically lauded for his work with the Broke Revue and well-known for his collaborations with the likes of Billy Childish and Holly Golightly, has now blessed us with a brilliant, semi-solo release on the ever-reliable Daggerman label. Melchior's strange, distinctively English voice is front-and-center, of course; and the material predictably transcends the usual genre boundaries. An oddball amalgamation of hillbilly blues, outlaw folk, cracked psych-pop, Kinks/Beatles Brit-craft, and futuristic post-punk, Melchior's music exhibits the disparate virtues of individualistic songwriting, old Americana, late '70s English art rock, and the man's own commanding persona. This is the kind of music you'd expect to hear from a sophisticated Londoner now residing in the American South: steeped in tradition, informed by high-brow literature, and utterly unlike anything you've heard previously. If the mouth harp and a digital synth drone never seemed congruous before, Melchior has found a way. Ultimately the key to music is that it has to be good, and here Melchior shines both as a songwriter and musician. "Elev to Mezz" rides high on a memorable, swingin' beat and closes with a riveting instrumental break. The disco/new wave cut "Hippy!" is the farthest removed the record gets from a "roots" influence, boasting a catchy, near-robotic chorus and swirling futureworld keyboards that you won't be able to get out of your head. New and old, earthy and cerebral, traditional and progressive, primitive and refined: it all gets mashed together here, and the anchoring force is one man's very formidable talent. I'm dying to hear more."
- Lord Rutledge, Now Wave