Dan Sartain
Join Dan Sartain

Swami 2006

By Zach Stephenson

Dan Sartain has the sallow diner-guy looks of James Chance, but the Swami and John Reis-connections predispose him to get down and dirty with his rock ‘n’ roll. He’s notably matured from the fun if common-folk garage-rockabilly on his previous Dan Sartain vs. The Serpientes, which might have prematurely limited his reach and artistry, to become a true eulogist of Southern heritage and all around kicker of asses. No overstatement, this Alabamian’s new album qualifies him to sit down with a guitar and throw back Jim Beam with Ike Turner, Ry Cooder or Jack White with little to no reservation. Hopefully opportunity finds him.

Join Dan Sartain ’s opener goes, “Tell him that I died,” and the album tussles and expands into a dustbowl of doomed spice fit for an American Ennio Morricone. Lines like, “You buy your land and pay your taxes / And no choice left but to join the masses,” set a haunting, lively balance between his personal maladjustment with home and the universal crush of making a living away from metropolitan life that still exists today.

If you’re like me, it’d be cool to come in from a long skate sesh for beers and chips at the local shitty Mexican place and hear “Besa Me Mucho,” or find yourself tossed and stranded afterwards, walking home with the track in your Nano.

His interest in genres of diminished interest aside, Sartain appoints salvation as the album’s underlying theme, even though judging from the album cover (a great self-portrait), whether he or this world have found it is left open-ended with the probable “no” found on most above-par albums.

“If God exists then he’s out of control / Should be taken from the throne / And I’m happy that he died.” 

Not to cheapen this with a sentence of infomercial, but if you’d like Mr. Sartain to do a portrait of you (again, see the album cover), contact him at portraitsbydan@hotmail.com. Seriously.