The Adobe Flash Player is required to watch videos on this page

David Matthew Daniels

Quick Links
About the Artist
Music
Achievements
Press Coverage
Return to David Matthew Daniels' profile

At-a-Glance
One-Sheet

Hometown	Portland, OR
Genres
Band Members	David Matthew Daniels
Achievements	» more
Upcoming Shows	None

Contact Information:
# Years Experience Performing Live:	12
Market Draw:	Home Market: 0-30
Performing Rights Society:	N/A

Expand All Expand All

Expand

About the Artist

In the traditions of great Americana artists like Leonard Cohen, Elliot Smith, Tom Waits, and Bob Dylan, to name a few, David Matthew Daniels crosses the boundries of genre and style to create a hauntingly familiar yet unique musical sound.

Daniels has...

Expand

Music

Expand

Achievements

Top 10 in Electronic Dance Music, February 2020

Top 10 in Electronic Dance Music, January 2020

Top 10 in Electronic Dance Music, December 2019

Expand

Press Coverage

Review of Antique Porn by Andy Smetanka
Dave Daniels Antique Porn Self-released I’ll send you a postcard from the eye of the storm. Thus “Evoe,” the first track on Antique Porn, gets things off to a promising start on what I figured just might be the low-bagger Missoula album of the year. It’s almost Nick Cave-like in its melancholic balladry; you half-know what he’s alluding to. Is he reciting Latin (“Evoe” is an ecstatic interjection usually associated with drunkenness), or is Evoe the name of a girl he knows? There’s a little pause at the end of the song that makes you think the acoustic strumming that follows is the intro to the next song. First it sounds like the Oblio Joes, then it sounds like “Every Rose Has Its Thorn.” Track two, “Weather/Rain,” is a little less arresting, because an abrupt tape edit cuts one half-formed song off at the knees and grafts on a pretty but misplaced guitar instrumental. “Children’s Song” immediately brings the album back to center with three soothing, familiar chords that Daniels uses to build a life-lesson kid’s song (“It’s like going down your own little river on your own little rowboat”) that’s actually for adults (“Life is an illusion, but an illusion that must be handled carefully just the same”). Antique Porn might be a bit uneven, but what’s good is good in a way that really starts to grow on you. Even the underripe stuff is better for Daniels’ rusty baritone. It could still be the low-bagger Missoula album of the year. (Andy Smetanka)

Review of Fuq Ninja album Liquid Panty Remover (former songwriter/musician) by Eric Lynn
FUQ Ninja, Liquid Panty Remover I must confess that FUQ Ninja is one of the few Jay’s bands I’ve never seen, and honestly, I really thought I was going to hate this CD. I saw the title and expected to be bombarded with chauvinistic man-rock. I expected mediocre hard rock chords and lyrics that would either bore or infuriate me. When I finally gave it a serious listen, though, I liked it. FUQ Ninja plays the type of raw blues rock that makes you want to sit for hours in a smoke-filled dive with a strong drink or a cheap beer. It’s mellow, and in some places it may fade into the background, but then you notice an ecstatic bass riff or a section where the drums and vocals build together perfectly to a moment of rapture, and then you’re sucked in. You listen to every whine of the guitar and every beautifully lethargic line. You let your head clear and maybe bob unconsciously to the drawn-out beat. Best of all, the recording on this CD suits the music perfectly. As far as I can tell, it’s all live, and thus really coarse and raw-sounding. That’s the way it should be. This band wouldn’t sound as good with a slick studio recording. The grit of the recording and the semi-inebriated hollers from the crowd between songs takes you away to that smoky bar, listening to the perfect soundtrack for sticky summer nights.

Review of Fuq Ninja/No Exit (former songwriter/musician) by Mike Keefe-Feldman
Fuq Ninja no more No Exit returns with a new name and an old sound by Mike Keefe-Feldman If you haven’t heard of the band No Exit, it’s probably because they haven’t been No Exit for long. Originally, these four local boys called themselves Fuq Ninja. Whether it was because they were tired of feeling awkward whenever their collective Aunt Gladys asked them what the name of their band was, or if they just got sick of the “naughty” label, the band deemed Fuq Ninja a misnomer; hence, their current No Exit status. No matter what you call them, though, No Exit continues to bring something new to the roundtable known as the Missoula music scene. Call it a roadhouse sound, if you want to call it something. But it’s important to be specific about exactly what kind of roadhouse sound we’re talking about here. It’s not the Lynyrd Skynyrd style. More like the Doors, but not “Touch Me” Doors. Think “Riders on the Storm” Doors. This rainy-day blues would provide excellent ambience for the moment in that road trip you took where you wandered into a dirty, sweaty bar and threw back some whiskey from a dirty shot glass while an older woman with dyed dirty-blonde hair danced in a dirty way as the bartender (whose teeth color almost matched that of the whiskey) gave you a dirty look. If this has never happened to you, then think of it in vicarious terms: it’s the kind of blues that might find a home in a Quentin Tarantino flick. Or, if there was someone rapping over it, No Exit’s sound could be the backdrop to the morose rhymes of the Geto Boys—especially if the subject matter were to veer toward the subject of dwarf rapper Bushwick Bill getting his eye shot out by a girlfriend. Of course, with No Exit, there’d be a touch of humor involved—maybe it would work best for the film version of Bushwick Bill’s life, which would naturally star Gary Coleman as the alcoholic, abusive dwarf from the ghetto who “had to lose an eye to see things clearly.” The point is, No Exit mixes a haunting blues sound with an occasional dab of humor to wind up with the musical equivalent of a black comedy. There is something about slide guitar that, when played well, is haunting, and No Exit slides well. Slide guitar is often associated with the lonesome prairie, a full moon, wolves, an impending duel—at least it should be, in Montana. Guitarists and vocalists David Daniels and Nathan St. Onge do a fine job of staying out of each other’s way to bring the slide to the forefront when called for, although the rhythm guitar also takes over at times with its jangly, loose sound. Unlike the 1,001 blues bands where Member A plays loud all the time, even during member B’s solo, No Exit has a great sense of dynamics. Simply put, it appears that they actually listen to each other. This is particularly important because No Exit’s sound is somewhat naked. David Byrne of the Talking Heads called this type of guitar sound “thin,” and I think it’s an appropriate term. Indeed, this is the only way No Exit’s sound could work, because so much of it is repetitive and melodic, like waves crashing in perfect synchronicity. Were they to beef up their sound with chunky-thick blues syrup like some sort of Las Vegas blues revue, all would be lost. Forrest Guy’s wandering bass lines would be drowned out by raucous barre chords. The slide would be lost in the quagmire, as well. Instead, No Exit sticks close to as lo-fi a sound as possible. No Exit’s weak spot might be their singing, if they let it get the best of them. Fortunately, they don’t. Following in a tradition that is more punk than blues, No Exit bellows with confidence even though none of the four Exiteers has a particularly wonderful singing voice. Reading this, you might think: “Oh God, they can’t sing that well but they still do so loudly?” Obviously, this could be a turn-off, but No Exit’s instrumentation is off-the-cuff, and so vocals that substitute charisma for technical merit only add to the band’s charm. And there’s something about this kind of sloppy blues that even encourages singing that’s not pitch perfect. Look at G Love. Or John Lee Hooker, for that matter. No Exit can and will also rock a little harder than their forlorn blues numbers indicate. The band picks up the pace with heavier, more rock-driven anthems, at which point the lyrics match-up nicely with the simple sound. “All I ever wanted is a place to shit,” the band croons, offering up the kind of straightforwardness in rock music that will appeal to anyone who’s ever been into plain-dealers like Henry David Thoreau, or, to return to our original analogy, Jim Morrison (“Backdoor Man” Jim Morrison, that is; the one who got too drunk to remember all the metaphysical poetry stuff). And as luck would have it, Missoula happens to be home to a dive bar that promulgates these roadhouse sounds in a fashion as warm and intoxicating as the shot of Cuervo that the music may lead you toward.

Poppin The Cherries Hard (Review of GoIII {former vocoalist/songwriter} vs Cherry Poppin' Daddies) by Statutory Ray
…I met Groups of Three vocalist and guitarist Reverend Dave Daniels at a hipsterized biker bar in downtown Portland. Dave explained to me that his psychedelic jam-rock band was a result of the band’s inability to detach from their drug habits and slacker philosophies. After mentioning that GoIII had played a show at Casa Diablo, a fancy new strip club in Portland, the Reverend won my support. Bands that embrace their non-white-drug habits as well as their devotion to slack are a dying breed, having been replaced by all-too-serious hipster cokehead groups seeking to be the next big thing. Not only does GoIII support the titty-bar circuit, but they still know where to get good acid. Rev. Dave kept my attention at the bar for an hour or so, discussing the band’s exploits. Dave’s descriptions of the band’s shows illuminated an eerie similarity to what I remember of the [Cherry Poppin’] Daddies before last month. Arguably under-produced, the quality of their myspace tunes sounds kind of shitty due to poor recording. However, the trained ear able to filter the 28kbps quality will discover an inspired, driven, and extremely talented psych-rock band that is reminiscent of the potential of their genre and the historically documented failure rate associated with it. GoIII might be the first psych-jam-rock band in history to record several songs under five minutes long, and the members seem to retain an attitude that other local bands (see above) once possessed.

Untitled photo for David Matthew Daniels

See More of David Matthew Daniels' Photos

iAnEAqqqq

Video Playback Error

David Matthew Daniels

About the Artist

Music

Photos

Videos

Photos

Videos

Achievements

Press Coverage