The other side of Dane Terry
By Adam Scoppa |
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"We drank forties on top of the tallest sand dune in North America while a fog rolled in underneath us," recounted Dane Terry of his recent experience touring the country. Terry took his 88-key Korg Triton - "a big old honkin thing that lives in the backseat of my car because it's too big to fit in the trunk" - from Columbus to Portland and back around the South on a two-month tour for his debut album, Songs of the Telephant.
The sand dune incident is a fitting introduction to the irreverent mind of pianist Dane Terry, a comedian, entertainer, and one of the most interesting young musicians working in Columbus today. His approach to songwriting is unique, viewing music equally as recreation and a conduit for the human soul. As such, the songs on Telephant traverse territory both wryly humorous and nakedly emotional.
"I think a song just needs to be a little autonomous thing: a little monster," he says. "It can be a story, it can be a character . . . it can operate as lots of things."
Dane Terry has been practicing the piano for years, but has only recently started writing his own songs and performing live. After studying "musical academics" in college, he soon realized that those pressures weren't for him.
Musician Dane Terry
Photo: Christopher Atwood
"I quit once I realized I wanted to play music," he says. "As a pianist, I'm completely self taught."
Songs of the Telephant was recorded in late 2008 and released in March of this year. For a debut album, it displays a surprising amount of maturity and restraint from its composer. On the eerie introduction, Terry intones in a mocking historian-like voice that the following songs are the only known recordings made by the Telephant - a fictional experiment from 1959 in which an elephant was equipped with a television screen, affixed to its head. The concept is strange and loosely adhered to, but it works because Terry is a sort of mad scientist himself.
Expanding on the conventions of classical, music hall, ragtime, jazz, and a host of other genres that the piano has been known for, Terry has crafted an original sound that is as innovative as it is traditional. Like a short story writer, he delights in compact tale-weaving and vibrant imagery.
"Kind of like if Ray Bradbury and Loretta Lynn had a baby, and they let Igor Stravinsky teach it how to play piano," is how Terry sums it up.
"Lies About Love" is jaunty and manic, a runaway cabaret number that constantly threatens to derail.
Terry rants about birth and death in a half-crazed drawl before the song's climax brings to mind Chopin arm-wrestling Scott Joplin on the keyboard. It's anything but polite, fancy-dinner piano music.
You could picture Rick and Ilsa saying their final goodbyes to the Gershwin-tinted "Submarine & Motorboat," a foggy ballad about an ill-fated love affair between two sea vessels: "Submarine sinks and motorboat floats/ So submarine thinks that motorboat won't/ Talk to her at parties in the harbor." The tone is playful but ultimately very moving, and you can hear the heartache in Terry's voice when he sings "Goodbye my love, I don't blame you/ After all, the sea is made of tears."
Terry is a confident enough composer to give his songs body and breath, so they never feel thin or sound like they require other instruments. Alternately caressing and punishing the piano keys, he creates an organic atmosphere with just his voice and the sustain of the strings. When other instruments do occur, it's usually to sweeten tracks like "Ladies of Fashion," with its twinkling banjo (courtesy of folkie friend Jordan O' Jordan), or the toy piano on "Lies About Love." The steel guitar weeping in the background of "My Heart, That Tired Old Thing" makes it the perfect country waltz for an empty, dusty saloon.
Although he was forced to use the keyboard for the majority of his tour, Terry rhapsodizes about the virtues of an actual piano.
"That instrument's past has such a diverse story," he says. "It's got a very seedy, rich history of being in these really human spaces, and has a character in our social psyche."
Songs of the Telephant was performed on a 1960s Baldwin upright piano.
"I like the aspect of a jangly old upright," Terry says, and describes playing a grand piano as "dipping your hands into really, really wet paint. It's such a divine interaction, as opposed to a more grounded interaction with an upright, where you have to kind of coax it to do things."
A busy year for Dane Terry, 2009 has yielded an album and two tours. Expect to see a lot more from the artist in the coming months.
Dane Terry Performs @ Circus on November 13th
Circus
1227 N High St.
(614) 421-2998
www.myspace.com/daneterry
Originally Published: November 1, 2009
