Up The Creek with Dan Patlansky

From Dan to Dirty, this year is good news for Blues…

Scenario: a weekend in the country, a winding river and good music. add the cream of the dop and a dirge of dirty musicians making clean sounds, and you’re Up The Creek

It's 2009 and the river rats are on a role – it’s their twenty fifth rapid and things are more real than rough.

Jezebel chatted to a talented blues boy who’s tweaked his tent on more than one friendly fest. Pretty prodigy Dan Patlansky tells about the Creek, skinny Blues and natural disasters.

jezebel : you’re an Up The Creek regular – what’s it like?

Dan : I did Up The Creek just in 2005 just before they lost their sponsorship and now I’m back this year. Oppi Koppi is huge, and Splashy Fen is, too. This festival is far smaller, it’s nicer. Oppi is impersonal. While it’s great playing in front of so many people, there’s an intimacy at up the creek.

jezebel : at bigger fests, there’s quite a separation between media, musicians and the audience. You can hang out with fans Up The Creek

Dan: Hundred percent it’s nice to be able to do that.

jezebel : Will you stick around at the fest?

Dan : Normally we’d like to chill for the weekend, but we have a show in Durbs the Friday and then the Sunday again, so we’re flying in and out.

jezebel : How do you cope with all this commuting between countries?

Dan : When I first started touring it was different. At 21, 22 you treated every night like a party on the road, coz it’s a new thing. But the older you get, well, your body doesn’t handle that so well. So when I hit the road now, I don’t drink hard every night, and I cut back on the smokes, and try to get to bed as early as possible. If you hit it hard in the first week, that two weeks feels like two years.

jezebel : How’s this year looking for you in terms of touring?

Dan : We tour extensively, I pretty much spend the entire year in the car. I’ve got a European tour June / July (their summer), which is going to be really cool. Before that national tours and surrounding countries - Swaziland etc.. Then maybe back to the states for the last half of the year. I used to live in new Orleans in 2005 but then I was involved in hurricane Katrina, so haven’t been back and with work permits being so costly, it’s not easy.

jezebel : How did Katrina affect you, and your music?

Dan : It was a complete shock; in SA you don’t see any natural disasters. I woke up one morning and my entire city had been evacuated and I was the last to know. There was nothing happening on the streets; that for me was the most terrifying for me. A bit of an ‘I am legend’ experience. There were tumbleweeds in the road and cars lying on the side of the road, doors open, keys in the ignition. So I went through the hurricane. I went to Mobile Alabama, it’s like Boksberg. I camped out there with no electricity and baked beans to eat. A cell phone yes, but you got through for every hundred times you dialed. My family in SA had no idea if I was alive. Eventually I got out, and flew to

LA where I have family. I realized that life is a short, fragile thing.

jezebel : you tend to move between Solos and drops.

Dan: yeah, when I’m doing a solo, or writing a song, I like to write everything with an extreme dynamic to it. Like yin and yang - really soft at one point of the song, then really loud. It creates interest in a song and interest in the solos. I try to play like a conversation – animated, then whispers, - that gets attention.

jezebel: Did you start singing when you started playing?

Dan: I put my first blues band together when I was sixteen, and couldn’t find someone to sing, so I started singing.

jezebel : blues is getting bigger. Upstart rockers, The Pretty blue Guns are starting to fuse indie sounds with blues. Getting the trendies to listen to something with a bit more soul.

Dan: That’s good news for blues, and just music in general. SA is a sad place sometimes when Bump 13 is the best selling album. There are really good bands out there, whether blues or not, it’s about human beings making music, not machines.

jezebel : And if the Pretty Blue Guns bring that, it’ll help fans grow with them

Dan: I’m experiencing that with our crowds. Years ago it used to be just our established fan base, and because we’re playing student towns like Potch, there are a lot of young people at our gigs. It’s great.

* * *

Dan Patlanksy will make his guitar cry, sing and swoon at six o’ clock on Saturday 7^th February @ Up The Creek fest.

The Pretty Blue Guns. Armed, disarming, and dangerous.

what happens when two precocious musicians get together to jam about the good and evil in us all? Dirt, baby; a project becomes a living dream and hearts burn up to the smoky, home-grown blues rising out of leafy Stellenbosch...

“Lose your dream / you will lose your mind.”- Rolling Stones, Ruby Tuesday

Who are The Pretty Blue Guns? They’re trouble wrapped up in a whole lot of sense and sensuality. They’re what you get when you put drummer Lucas, son of the legendary Vernon Swart (of Valiant Valiant Swart fame - also a drummer) with an avid, avo-eating Rolling Stones fan (André Leo), throw sticks and strings and a mic in the mix, add Greg Thompson on bass and Brandon Visser on guitar. They’re grounded, genuine guys and their music has gravitas – it’s genius without the god complex.

Besides being the freshest blues rock band in a none horse town and having more charisma than tutu in a madiba T, their slow, surging songs are giving Indie enthusiasts a deeper musical perspective without skimping on the exigencies of emotional indulgence quinessential to the movement (yes, it's a movement, not a genre. but we can argue about that another time. after Avontoer, maybe!).

The four typically twist time around their baby fingers - going to gigs from age 7, finishing school at 16, taking 36 hour drives from Kwazulu folk fests to Coke fests for a once in a lifetime Muse. And through it all, love and learning are on repeat. Obviously we want to know more. Jezebel and a few Jacks looked into the depth of their beings. Or was that their lager?

The first thing that happens when you start a conversation with The Pretty Blue Guns is that the waiter hits you with doubles because your sign language sucks, and you lose track of time. The second thing is this : Lucas, Andre and Jezebel swapping notes somewhere in beneath the leaves on a sleepy (sozzled) Sunday afternoon...

*

Jezebel: Why Blues? Is it because you're black?
Lucas: Sometimes.
Andre : It's the greatest music I've ever heard. I like the honesty and simplicity of it. The Blues is our back-bone, almost like a canvas, and we play around with it to suit our style.

*

Jezebel: New bands like noise. Ani Difranco likes saying 'half of learning how to play is learning what not to play.' Are you finding that the spaces between notes have their own thing to say?

Andre : Oh yeah! Keith Richards always said that the day he found his own style (circa '68) was when he learnt to play less. You gotta give songs space to breath. Also, with spaces in songs, you have the possibility of improvising and keeping it fresh. I'd hate to play the same songs the same way every night!

*

Jezebel: You sing about angels, devils, whores and kids with power tools. These are your friends?

Andre: haha... I guess they're my friends from my imagination. I've always liked lyrics as a narrative of some kind. People like Tom Waits got me hooked on that idea. I love making up stories to try bring across what I'm trying to say with a song. Sometimes you don’t know where the hell these words come from, but that's often when they come out the best.

*

Jezebel: in track 2 of Dirt (debut EP) you sing about someone with flowers in her hair. Who is Mary?

Andre: She's pretty much every girl that feels there's something seriously twisted and fucked up about looking up to people like Paris or the Playboy bitches.

*

Jezebel: There's a lot about love in the lyrics, but the lesson is often a simple truth (or a subtle threat). So which is more powerful? Metaphor or romance?

Andre : Love will always be main focus of music. I mean, who doesn’t feel love? I think looking at love (and its sister, Lust) from different angles is when interesting things start happening.

*

Jezebel: And in music, which is more powerful - rhythm or melody?

Andre: Rhythm. It's a feel thing. Melody is what comes after. The more worked-out part of the song writing process. But rhythm isn't something that comes from your head. It's in your bones.

*

Jezebel: Who left school at 16? And how? On earth? (and why didn't I? sigh…)

Andre: I did. I went to a private school and worked a bit harder than some people so I could get out. I wouldn’t have made it another 2 years. It was like this elephant in the road and just wanted out of the way ASAP. Without dropping out of course... it wasn’t really that difficult to tell the truth.

*

Jezebel: Imagine Brandon's been abducted by aliens, and you're due on stage. Do you :

a) borrow a violinist and hope there are a lot of country fans in the crowd

b) do a gumboot dance and wish everyone happy diversity day before mooning them and running away

c) cry

d) do an impromptu acoustic set

Lucas: I would pick A, while Greg does B and Andre does C,
because that's how we roll.

Andre: Yeah, an acoustic set probably (d). Just an improvisation vibe maybe.

Jezebel: why?

Andre: a) I don't own a pair of gumboots

b) Our acoustic stuff is much better than our dancing.

*

Jezebel: If you woke up one morning in a perfect world, would you still make music?

Lucas : Yeah. It would probably be pretty boring music, though. We would have to screw things up a bit just to make the world a bit more interesting...

Andre: Of course [I’d still make music]. It wouldn’t be perfect in my eyes if I didn’t play.

*

Jezebel: Describe your perfect world.

Andre: A world where people just respected each other would be great. And if people didn’t agree with each other, they just stayed out of their hair. In the words of one of my good friends : 'less religion. More good karma.'

*

Jezebel: You have young and old fans. That begs for a(nother) road trip. Tell us about the one that starts 18 Dec and finishes in 2009...

Andre: This all started with the idea of just playing a show or 2 at the time of the Matric holidays. It's kinda boomed! The Avontoer is something we've been waiting for a long while. 2 weeks with some of the best bands and best people we know. It's gonna be interesting to see how the country takes us in...

*

Jezebel: Would you do a tour of totally derelict and out-of-the-way towns just for the hell of it? (To test your music on bokkies and boere in the bundus?)

Andre: No, don't think those cats would go for it. Remember that guy the other night saying we're going to Hell? Imagine those in a herd!! Ouch.

Lucas : I would totally be amped for something like that. Also maybe a township tour and a few shows on a ship. Yeah, I want to play gigs on a ship.

*

Jezebel : George (Taxi Violence), I think, once mumbled something about Blues being the basis of all modern music. Agree? Undecided? Indifferent? What's Blues for you?

Andre: Definitely. It's music (well, modern music) in it's purest from. I could go on about how it affects everything, but I think people should read a book on it, or watch a film. Scorsese did a great series of 7 films about the significance and origin of the Blues. Well worth checking out.

*

Jezebel: Who would you like to invite on stage to perform with you?

Andre: Locally, I'd love to see The Guns and Taxi do collaboration. Also, Gerald Clark. A friend of ours who is hands down the best blues singer in SA.

Lucas : Tom Waits or Jack White would be nice, thank you.

*

Jezebel : A band. Is more than a project. It's a family. It's a four-way relationship. So how do you keep the peace?

Andre : We're best friends. So it's pretty easy. We dont really have to try. If we didn’t get along, we wouldn’t be friends.

Lucas : We have been doing this thing for a few years now, so we know one another well enough to know when to shut up and when to pass the salt.

*

Jezebel: whiskey or wine?

Andre: Wine is fine, but whiskey is quicker... haha. Who said that again?

*

Jezebel: What are your favourite Stones' lyrics?

Andre: Today? "Diamond rings, Vaseline, you give me disease! I lost a lotta love over you..."

Blues for believers? Amen.

Pretty Blue Guns Website

Face them:

Myspace them

or catch them sleeping on the beach somewhere along the coast on Avontoer oh nine

Avontoer is over, now. A few bullets about the blues boys on the bus and/or butt naked here(no, ok, we didn't cover their asses)