Pitchfork

Photos by Zach Vowell

Dan Deacon likes to proselytize. His impromptu ramblings, his crowd control, and his music galvanized his audience toward a cause Tuesday night at Emo's Jr.-- the cause of big, bright, all-inclusive Fun.

To kick off the night, Deacon coaxed the crowd into counting down using characters from "Frasier" instead of numbers. Chants of "Frasier!", "Roz!", "The dad!", "The dog!", and so on transitioned recklessly into the first song, "Okie Dokie".

Not surprisingly, "Wham City"-- taken from Deacon's breakthrough LP Spiderman of the Rings-- wound up the night's musical highlight. After delivering the notorious WHAM CITY robes to the chosen, Deacon passed out the lyrics for the song's chorus (check them below) so the choir could sing along with the preacher. Rapture ensued.

Earlier in the evening, Dan instructed the crowd to form a long, deep circle in front of his table of gadgetry, so as to facilitate a game of "dance-tag"-- where each dancer would dance (rule number one) "sassy as fuck" until they randomly tagged someone else into the circle. Deacon reminded us that if you get tagged, you can't protest, "Nah, man, I'm cool, that's okay." No, he said, "Cowards be gone!"

He then proposed we solve the world's problems overseas by eliminating the seas themselves: "Pangea!" was the ringing endorsement. "One continent!" And then the music dropped, the trippy green skull lit up, and everybody partied.

And the Deacon party don't stop until July, shortly after Dan's sure-to-be-hellraising appearance at the Pitchfork Music Festival.













Dates with Deacon:

06-14 Santa Fe, NM - Warehouse 21's Luna Space #
06-15 Tucson, AZ - Plush #
06-16 Los Angeles, CA - Echoplex #
06-17 San Diego, CA - Che Cafe #
06-18 Los Angeles, CA - Pehrspace #
06-19 San Francisco, CA - Bottom of the Hill #
06-20 Oakland, CA - 21 Grand ^
06-21 Sacramento, CA - Fool's Foundation #
06-22 Portland, OR - Holocene #
06-23 Seattle, WA - Seattle Pride
06-23 Seattle, WA - "A Magical Hidden Cloud" (secret late show)
06-24 Missoula, MT - Higgins Hall #
06-25 Whitefish, MT - Grouse Mountain Lodge #
06-26 Boise, ID - Neurolux #
06-27 Salt Lake City, UT - Urban Lounge #
06-28 Denver, CO - Hi-Dive #
06-29 Lawrence, KS - The Jackpot Saloon #
06-30 Omaha, NE - Waiting Room #
07-02 Minneapolis, MN - Triple Rock Social Club #$
07-03 Milwaukee, WI - Cactus Club #
07-05 Dekalb, IL - The House Cafe #
07-06 Kalamazoo, MI - Diamond Star House #
07-07 Detroit, MI - Scrummage University #%
07-08 Brooklyn, NY - McCarren Pool ~
07-09 Toronto, Ontario - Sneaky Dee's #
07-10 Ottawa, Ontario - Zaphod Beeblebrox #
07-11 Montreal, Quebec - La Sala Rossa #
07-12 Cambridge, MA - Middle East Upstairs #&
07-14 Chicago, IL - Union Park (Pitchfork Music Festival) !
07-21 Baltimore, MD - Whartscape Festival

# with Video Hippos
^ with Jana Hunter, Michael Leviton
$ with Nomo
% with Benny Stoofy
~ with the Octopus Project, Erase Errata
& with Big Digits
! with Yoko Ono, Cat Power and Dirty Delta Blues, Clipse, Mastodon, Iron and Wine, Girl Talk, Grizzly Bear, Voxtrot, Battles, Califone, the Twilight Sad, Fujiya & Miyagi, Oxford Collapse, Beach House, William Parker Quartet, Professor Murder, Ken Vandermark's Powerhouse Sound