Dan Bryk news feed
Bryk’s interview with Shelagh Rogers will actually be on the air the morning of Labour Day Monday, Sept. 3rd, not Friday 31st as previously noted here.
Bryk has a nice little article in this week’s Toronto Eye Weekly.
Review of Discount Store (and a stream) in last week’s Indy
A Discount Store review, this one from the Daily Tar Heel’s Diversions Blog. (Dan will be playing the Diversions Party at Local 506 with Schooner and Red Collar September 29th.)
Some more cool radio interviews this week:
Dan and Corey will be live on Toronto’s Commercial Alternative Powerhouse 102.1 The Edge (us old timers still call it CFNY) this Friday around 6:15 PM to talk about their alleged careers and their “big Toronto show” at C’est What? (also this Friday, starting around 10 PM, with Noyan Hilmi of Five Blank Pages representing for the 905).
This is been a serious life-long dream of Bryk’s, as they will chat with Toronto indie music icon Dave Bookman, and have promised not to swear as much as they do on their records. CFNY has a live stream for you out-of-towners.
Dan will also be the interview guest of Shelagh Rogers(!) on CBC Radio One’s Sounds Like Canada this Friday morning at 10 AM EST. Tune in across Canada on CBC Radio One, or listen on the internets.
Through the elfin magic of ISDN (we prefer to think it’s “the pixies”), Dan sat down at WUNC’s studios in Chapel Hill and had a nice chat with Shelagh, who’s in Vancouver. How cool is that?
Discount Store is finally available from the Bryk’s UM Shop, NotLame.com, a variety of online retailers and Triangle retail stores including Schoolkids Records (Raleigh and Chapel Hill), Offbeat Music (Durham) and CD Alley (Chapel Hill).
Bryk has two Triangle radio interviews booked this month: the first at The Triangle’s News and Information Station WPTF 680 (“the home of Rush Limbaugh in the Triangle”, no, really) this Saturday July 21 at 10pm, as a guest on the Bob Langford show. We’re chatting about the local music scene, etc… not politics! (Sorry, out-of-towners, no webcast, but we’ll try to tape it for posterity.)
He will also appear (and perform live) on Ross Grady‘s WXDU show, Sunday July 29th between 5 and 7. That show will be webcast.
Discount Store entered the WXDU chart at #24 this week, and was a new add last week at WXYC Chapel Hill. It’s currently in (and we quote) “heavy rotation” at WKNC.
Finally, here’s some early Discount Store bloggery:
STICK (we really have NO IDEA what that means.)
Well, THAT happened quick!
Intrepid reporter Ryan Teague Beckwith broke the story of our good-natured hoax on the FRONT FREAKING PAGE of yesterday’s Raleigh News & Observer. (Talk about a slow news day!) There’s even a Bryk pic!
Mr. Beckwith, who also writes the N&O’s “Under The Dome” state politics blog claims to have figured out Bryk/tha Commish’s dual identity by following his email IP like breadcrumbs… but we know that one of you gave us up 😉
Tha Commissioners have clocked over 2000 myspace hits since yesterday morning. Cherry Berry is not only free to play and download, but appears as a hidden bonus track on Bryk’s new EP Discount Store.
Read the whole story on the N&O website.
From The News & Observer’s Under the Dome Political Blog:
Submitted by ryanteaguebeckwith on July 6, 2007 – 9:15am.
Tags: Cherie Berry | Under the Dome
The head of the music label for a song about Labor Commissioner Cherie Berry says he doesn’t know who recorded it.
Dan Bryk, who runs the Urban Myth Recording Collective, told Dome that he received a copy of the song Cherry Berry in an elaborately mysterious manner.
“We got that CD in an envelope wrapped in lead with plastic and a little foil,” he said. “They actually baked some cookies and had them in foil on top of the package. It was quite nice.”
Bryk gave a copy of the song to WKNC, the student radio station of N.C. State. He said it’s been on heavy rotation on the station and is even getting requests.
He called “Tha Commissioners” — the name for the unknown band — “a rock ‘n’ roll machine” and said that he’s glad to hear that Berry likes the song.
“I wish I had a way to tell them,” he said.
Link: Who are Tha Commissioners? (N&O Site) Continue reading
“Here—during this most paramount of American holidays—we profile two local musicians whose recent addition to the Triangle has added new questions, sounds and ideas, and another, whose progressive bent on an old form proves that molds are meant to be re-imagined…” Continue reading
We have received word that the Dan Bryk (and co-writer Erin K. McGinn) song Great Adventure (from Dan Bryk Christmas Record) has been first-draft nominated to the 2006 ECHO Songwriting Prize, presented by SOCAN. The ECHO Prize is “designed to identify what’s next and what’s best in current independent music.” Last year’s winner was Propaghandi (how cool is that?) and the runner-ups were Laura Barrett, Wolf Parade, Final Fantasy and the Stills. We’re talking dark horse precedent here. But Bryk still needs to make it to the public round, when Canada gets to vote on one of the five finalists. Try not to think of it as Canadian Indie Idol.
In other Bryk news, Discount Store has been “upgraded” at the last minute, with one new song, and a secret CD-only bonus track. The street date is now July 24th.
You can listen to it for free with the nifty Reverbnation Tunepak player.
Now we’re gonna dust off a stubby, hop on the couch with a bowl of hickory sticks and watch Souvenir of Canada. Happy Canada Day!
Dan Bryk will release a new 5-track EP Discount Store in partnership with Raleigh media collective Firefly Music.
This will be the first time UM and Firefly have formally collaborated, although Bryk sang two lines on The Tourist‘s Firefly debut CD “Not Now, Nor Ever” (a flavour the ever-guileless Tourist returned by guesting on Discount Store’s second track “Normal”).
After “hooking up”, Bryk and the Firefly music principals were impressed by their thoroughly complimentary skillz and tendencies to Mac fetishism.
The EP’s five tracks include two versions of “Discount Store”, one of which will appear on Bryk’s forthcoming long-player Pop Psychology and three new tracks that will not appear elsewhere, including a cover of the Furniture’s 1985 lost classic “I Miss You”.
Discount Store (the EP) was recorded in about eight different studios and living rooms between Toronto and the Triangle, Discount Store (the song) was mixed by Greg Wells at his Rocket Carousel Studio in LA, while everything else was mixed at Bryk’s Raleigh studio Flabby Road.
The EP features long-time collaborators (guitarist Swinghammer, vocalist Kathryn Rose, Supers/Sarah Harmer bassist Maury Lafoy) some new folks (Australian singer-songwriter Greta Gertler, English guitarist Tim Carless, Jason Collett/Feist drummer Josh Hicks) and a veritable support group of UM artists including Chris Warren, Chris Staig, Down By Avalon’s Alan Martin, and Bull City’s Jim Brantley.)
Discount Store cover and tracklisting: Continue reading
There’s a sweet new Dan Bryk review and article over at Chicago rawkzine Glorious Noise today, marking the return of the “Bryk by Bryk” pun in at least one article per bi-annum.
The article reviews Bryk’s recent NYC set, and discusses his immigration and “career” travails, the outlook for Urban Myth, and since we haven’t formally announced it here yet… Bryk’s brand new green card. (i.e.; there’s gonna be some b-r-y-k in the u-s-a…)
To sweeten the deal, there’s The Next Best Thing, an exclusive love-letter from the forthcoming Pop Psychology. Does Bryk finally bring the rock? You decide.
Dan Bryk is the lead story in this week’s Independent Weekly Music section!
No, really! And best of all, writer Grayson Currin folds in a charming, even funny interview with Dan and his Christmas Record partner-in-grime/dubstep Erin McGinn.
Here’s a leedle snippet of the article:
“Dan Bryk just released Christmas Record. It’s his first Christmas album. He insists it will be his last.
On the back cover, Bryk is dressed up as Santa Claus, his hyperbolic white beard falling all the way to the armrests of an oversized wooden chair. Bryk had his picture taken tonight, too: First, in front of a large, metal Christmas tree, smiling wide-eyed, like a kid whose holiday wait has finally ended. He had the same expression posing in front of a pink plastic pig that wore a red Santa hat. Christmas is this guy’s thing, right?
Not exactly. It’s perfectly believable when, not 15 minutes later, Bryk glances down at the sidewalk, shrugs and dismisses the whole thing: “I don’t know about Christmas, really. I guess it’s just not my season.”
Bryk isn’t kidding. The 30-something songwriter, known for his piano playing and keen observational wit, doesn’t hate Christmas, but he certainly doesn’t like it, either. Perhaps the front cover of Christmas Record tells the story of his antipathy best: A bright, red ornament is shattered across an otherwise pristine white floor. The shards are too big for the ornament to have been thrown. It looks like it was hanging high with seasonal spirit. Then it came crashing down. The hook that held it to the branch is still there. Maybe someone bumped into it? Maybe someone shook the tree? Or maybe it just got tired of trying.
That’s the sentiment of a Dan Bryk Christmas, detailed in what has to be one of the most self-effacing Christmas albums ever. It’s predicated neither on seasonal and spiritual joy nor money-making maneuvers. It’s just an honest (if exaggerated) appraisal of the holiday’s inspired difficulties—infinite loneliness, bad luck, bankrupting ambitions and overactive materialism. You know, the kind of stuff that people call “cheer…”
And damn, he’s just getting started! Read the whole thing at their site. As if that wasn’t enough, Brian Howe (who also wrote a nifty review of Love Me For Christmas for Pitchfork) gave Christmas Record a sweet album review AND to top it all off, they printed the entire lyrics to Great Adventure flanked by candy canes. It really is a sight to see!
Talk about a Christmas present!
Happy Holidays, Everybody!!!
From all of us (all over the place!!) at Urban Myth!
