Dan just released a single In the Light. It’s available on Spotify, I Tunes, Apple Music, CD Baby, & all other major streaming platforms.
Watch a video of In the Light on the Music Videos page or directly on YouTube.
New Album: Waiting For My Train
Dan’s rootsy new album of original blues, rock, and rockabilly is now on Spotify, I Tunes, Apple Music, CD Baby, & all other major streaming platforms. He has also been making videos of the songs. View them on the Music Videos page or watch them on YouTube.
Waiting for My Train (title track)
Silver Moon Video
Edgyometry released!
Hi All. This is Dan. I just released my EP Edgyometry – five songs, four produced by Scott Mathews, and one I produced featuring my son Ian on piano.
Click here to access a page from where you can preview the songs and link to where you can buy or stream them. The page also has FOLLOW and SHARE buttons. If you like Edgyometry, I’d so appreciate it if you could press the FOLLOW button to follow my music on Spotify, and the SHARE button to share Edgyometry with your soclal media friends.
Click here for more about Edgyometry.
New single released – Virtuality
Dan has just released Virtuality, a new single from his upcoming EP, Edgyometry. This is a song about compromises to humanity posed by trendy technology. Also produced by Scott Mathews, Virtuality features Dan on lead and rhythm guitarist, trumpet, and vocals. Scott plays drums, bass, organ, and a mean slide guitar lick in the bridge. Listen carefully to the end of the song. You’ll hear an ambulance in the background. That isn’t some weird sound effect. A very loud ambulance was really passing by the studio during the drum take.
Listen here to the whole song, which will be here for a week. Also, stream it on Spotify or download it at CD Baby.
Are losing your connection to reality today?
Are the Joneses that you kept up with now moving far away?
That endless cyber highway has really messed your mind.
Choking you with choices that the cavemen left behind.
Well it’s so hard to be in the know all the time.
Your image takes you over and messes up your mind.
Oh it’s so hard to say — return to Earth again.
Are you losing your direction in Virtuality?
Has your vain and fickle nature finally brought you to your knees?
Pledging service to the server sounded great until you tried
To keep your fragile self from getting swept up by the tide.
Mr. Hypemeister man, chasing gadgets in the rain.
Tell me, what’s the chance you will catch them all again?
Mr. cool cyber man with your pipeline to the wind,
Blowing out your candle to do it all again
Make all your appliances dumb again today
You don’t need a processor to tell you what to say
Maybe then you’ll find a way to humanity
Knocking down the altar of smart technology.
Well it’s so hard to be in the know all the time
Your image takes you over and messes up your mind
Oh it’s so hard to say — return to Earth again
Blowing out your candle until the bitter end
Instrumentals Album released
Dan just released an album of six of his instrumentals, featuring his son Ian on piano and Doug Marks on drums.
Here are two of the tracks:
Stream of Conscience:
Nervous Freedom:
Click here for more about the album.
Single “Refuge of Eternal Silence”
Introducing Refuge of Eternal Silence, the first single from Dan’s upcoming EP. (Click to watch the video). Written by Dan. Produced by Scott Mathews. Engineered by Tom Luekens. Recorded at Tiki Town Studio in Mill Valley CA. Dan plays all the guitars and trumpets, and sings all the vocals. Scott plays drums, bass, mellotron, organ, and piano. That’s Ringo Starr’s snare and Mick Fleetwood’s bass drum you’re hearing – part of Scott’s collection. Bass lovers may detect the sweet sound of Scott’s 1962 Hohner bass guitar (the same model and year that Paul McCartney played in the Beatles). See the tags for this post that present the musical influences on this song.
Watch the video directly on Youtube
Spotify Playlist – TRICKLE DOWN MUSIC
Listen to Dan’s new Spotify playlist, TRICKLE DOWN MUSIC, which includes Refuge of Eternal Silence and also a whole bunch of inspirations for it. This is how Dan explains the selections.
“Lyrically, the song is kind of dark, so I put on the playlist a bunch of dark songs like The End by the Doors, Bella Lugosi’s Dead by Bauhaus, Sue (Season of the Crime) by David Bowie, and Karma Police by Radiohead.
Musically, Refuge of Eternal Silence is a mix of epic prog rock and psychedelic. So, I put some pretty crazy sounding psychedelic songs on the playlist such as Collideascope by XTC (under their other name Dukes of the Stratosphere) Born Cross-Eyed by the Grateful Dead and Cabin Essence by the Beach Boys. On the epic Prog Rock epic side, the playlist has some of my favorite songs by Pink Floyd, Genesis, Procol Harum, King Crimson, Opeth, and Steven Wilson.
Refuge has a mellotron part on it, a tape-based psychedelic keyboard used a lot in 60’s and 70’s. So you’ll hear a lot of mellotron on the playlist. The mellotron sound that my producer Scott used on Refuge was given to him by Mike Pinder, from the Moody Blues. That’s Pinder going nuts on his mellotron in my Moody Blues playlist selection, Higher and Higher.
In honor of the lush Beatles-ish melodic groove in the song, I put one of my favorite songs by Squeeze on the playlist, called There’s No Tomorrow. In honor of the long vamp I put in Refuge at the end, the playlist starts with one of the greatest dark and epic vamps of all time, the Beatles’ I Want You (She’s So Heavy).”
PLEASE — IF YOU LIKE TRICKLED DOWN MUSIC, CLICK THE “FOLLOW” BUTTON. THE MORE FOLLOWERS, THE MORE SPOTIFY MAKES DAN’S MUSIC ACCESSIBLE FROM SEARCHES, AND THE MORE ACCESSIBLE IT IS, THE MORE PEOPLE GET TO ENJOY IT!
Refuge of Eternal Silence Lyrics
Words and Music by Dan Zalles. Copyright 2017.
Verse 1
Light beams filling emptiness, grayness stirring night.
Twisted joy of solitude, blurring wrong from right
Crazy embers of my love, crying in my sleep
Come into my mirror now, and plunge into my deep
Chorus 1
Walls of glass, dripping ceilings.
Golden blankets hide the needing.
Murmured echoes dance in triumph.
Refuge of eternal silence.
Bridge
Take me away, for just one day.
Verse 2
Boredom turns to madness, madness turns to strife.
Pausing all the emptiness and sorrow in my life.
Multiplexing tyrannies swallow up my soul.
Breathing life into my fears too fickle to control.
Chorus
Caving arms of endless hallways.
Dusty statues block the doorway.
Shattered dreams betray the highlands.
Refuge of eternal silence.
Walls of glass, dripping ceilings.
Golden blankets hide the needing.
Murmured echoes dance in triumph.
Refuge of eternal silence.
Dan’s upcoming EP “Edgyometry”
Stay tuned on this site for the release of Dan’s new EP, Edgyometry, produced by Scott Mathews. You could say that each song is a little about insanity. Refuge of Eternal Silence, the first single, is about the dark, troubled side of insanity. The music is grandiose and melodic, but also edgy, brooding, and melancholy. Dancing With the Clowns is kind of how you’d imagine a good trip. The music is bouncy. happy, upbeat. Virtuality is about the insanity that has to some to so many with our obsession with social media and technology. Silver Moon, a ballad with a wide open spaces feel, is about ghosts and haunted houses. Too bad Halloween just passed!
Dan, the ever-struggling, ever-indecisive artist, can’t decide which of these to release next. What do you think? Write a comment…