Alvin Dahn
Encyclopedia
Alvin Schuyler Dahn is an outsider music
ian who gained fame within the growing outsider music community after his singular work was featured frequently on the Incorrect Music Hour. One of his most popular songs, the apocalyptic "You're Driving Me Mad," has been described as sounding like "a metal song sung by Ned Flanders
". He has also been referred to as "Dahn Halen" for the iron edge of this amazingly infectious tune.
Alvin has long resided in the Buffalo, New York area and has worked chiefly as a custodian at several small colleges. Following a particularly painful divorce some years ago he was pushed into insolvency which led him to living in a men's shelter in Buffalo and working at a local food pantry. Sadly, his musical output waned in the unlucky years that followed.
Dahn recorded just one full album produced by noted actor/author Geoffrey Giuliano at Mark Studios in Clarence, New York in the early 1990s. Entitled "Let Your Mind Out To Play" this, only half serious recording, features several over-the-top interviews with the infamous "singing custodian" as well as samples of his chaotic recording sessions, several completed musical works and even an outrageous mock concert promo. A description from Giuliano's website (which is the only known source for the obscure CD/download) declares Dahn to be not only "oddly" talented but also a really "nice" guy.
The truth is that Dahn is indeed a serious artist that has lived life very close to the bone and has created his music despite a world that seems to have conspired against him from the very beginning. Says producer and longtime patron Giuliano. "Alvin is good because he's so very, very bad. He can't sing certainly, but his music is very catchy and frightfully innocent and sincere. He believes in himself 100% and should thus be an inspiration to people whom have been given much more; which is just about everyone. He is the hero of his own life as a man who fought to create and achieved his goal And for that, and his music, he will be long remembered."
. He appeared on a noted British documentary about outsider music, revealing that he personally met the considerable cost of hiring the string section of the Buffalo Philharmonic used in his song Don't Throw Your Dreams Away himself.
The Incorrect Music Hour once played over forty minutes of a Dahn studio session. Much of the show consisted of Dahn's half of a convoluted dialogue with sound engineer Fred Betschen as he discusses (often critically) his performances and requests dozens of retakes. It is clear from these sessions that Dahn's music is produced with a perfectionist's zeal in professional studios; his music is the result of painstaking work and great studio expense.
Outsider music
Outsider music, a term coined by Irwin Chusid in the mid-1990s, are songs and compositions by musicians who are not part of the commercial music industry who write songs that ignore standard musical or lyrical conventions, either because they have no formal training or because they disagree with...
ian who gained fame within the growing outsider music community after his singular work was featured frequently on the Incorrect Music Hour. One of his most popular songs, the apocalyptic "You're Driving Me Mad," has been described as sounding like "a metal song sung by Ned Flanders
Ned Flanders
Nedward "Ned" Flanders, Jr. is a recurring fictional character in the animated television series The Simpsons. He is voiced by Harry Shearer, and first appeared in the series premiere episode "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire". He is the next door neighbor to the Simpson family and is generally...
". He has also been referred to as "Dahn Halen" for the iron edge of this amazingly infectious tune.
Alvin has long resided in the Buffalo, New York area and has worked chiefly as a custodian at several small colleges. Following a particularly painful divorce some years ago he was pushed into insolvency which led him to living in a men's shelter in Buffalo and working at a local food pantry. Sadly, his musical output waned in the unlucky years that followed.
Dahn recorded just one full album produced by noted actor/author Geoffrey Giuliano at Mark Studios in Clarence, New York in the early 1990s. Entitled "Let Your Mind Out To Play" this, only half serious recording, features several over-the-top interviews with the infamous "singing custodian" as well as samples of his chaotic recording sessions, several completed musical works and even an outrageous mock concert promo. A description from Giuliano's website (which is the only known source for the obscure CD/download) declares Dahn to be not only "oddly" talented but also a really "nice" guy.
The truth is that Dahn is indeed a serious artist that has lived life very close to the bone and has created his music despite a world that seems to have conspired against him from the very beginning. Says producer and longtime patron Giuliano. "Alvin is good because he's so very, very bad. He can't sing certainly, but his music is very catchy and frightfully innocent and sincere. He believes in himself 100% and should thus be an inspiration to people whom have been given much more; which is just about everyone. He is the hero of his own life as a man who fought to create and achieved his goal And for that, and his music, he will be long remembered."
Dahn's Musical Works
His topsy turvy, evocative music ranges in style from rock to metal, blues and to ballads accompanied by stringsString instrument
A string instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, they are called chordophones...
. He appeared on a noted British documentary about outsider music, revealing that he personally met the considerable cost of hiring the string section of the Buffalo Philharmonic used in his song Don't Throw Your Dreams Away himself.
The Incorrect Music Hour once played over forty minutes of a Dahn studio session. Much of the show consisted of Dahn's half of a convoluted dialogue with sound engineer Fred Betschen as he discusses (often critically) his performances and requests dozens of retakes. It is clear from these sessions that Dahn's music is produced with a perfectionist's zeal in professional studios; his music is the result of painstaking work and great studio expense.