Michael Mcdaeth

Every so often in my life a musician makes their presence known to me, and my perception of the world is irrevocably altered. This happened with Franz Liszt, LeadBelly, John Coltrane, Smog, and Arab on Radar, to name a few. Now, I have to add Michael McDaeth to that list.

Hailing from Seattle Washington might hinder some with its mystique, but quite frankly, he sounds like nothing I've ever heard.
You will find Michael's music in two guises, first and foremost solo with an acoustic guitar and harmonica as Michael McDaeth, and then as the front man of a three piece known as Weeds Peterson.

This man is inspired. In response to one of my questions regarding the amount(if any) of musical training he has, he told me that "it would probably be more accurate for me to answer that it was always there. As soon as I could move my fingers on the fret board, I was off and writing songs. It was just there waiting for me - an easy natural thing."

Aside form his prolific output as a songwriter, is the fact of his four websites, each chock full of variegated types of visual media. I would press anyone interested to check out his videos, as the types of mixed media presentations are as individual as the songs, and truly complement the music. The video for "Take a Ride With Charles Bukowski" is real disturbing, and underscores the latent ferocity of the song.

In certain respects, I hear an older type of thinking going on in the music he makes, especially in his solo material. To me, this comprises his most personal output. He excels at very repetitive rhythmic motions, strumming patterns that accent in unexpected ways and has great instincts for welding his accompaniments to the melodic line. There is also attention to detail in the inner voices of his guitar parts, relating to the way the voicings move and his choice of chord progressions.

What strikes you immediately is the sheer force of his music. He reminds me of a dysfunctional LeadBelly, in the sense that they both use the same setup and produce phenomenal amounts of volume and energy. The difference is one of temperament. Michael's music strikes me as a journey of deconstruction, a probing of emotional possibility; an antisocial plea for some kind of connection.

The first track on his Myspace player, "Everybody's Fault," illustrates this point nicely. From the way he attacks his guitar at the beginning of the song, you get the idea that he is venting from an argument that just ended. This is the other side of the expressive aspect of his guitar playing, which consists in an extra-musical style of attacks and an inexpressible something that makes the acoustic guitar become so percussive and violent in his hands.

From what I could surmise on the basis of a couple of weeks of immersion in this man's musical world, his myspace player is well planned out. The collection of tracks there give a terrific overview of his extensive output, highlighting tracks from most of his albums.

In certain respects, my favorite song, among many, is Shimeleski Funtime. The construction of the ostinato-like main riff, with its ascending bassline that just keeps collecting energy, always induces the desire to jump through a window in me. The way he resolves the upward motion of that riff by moving to a higher fret and descending with the same rhythm, repeating this a few times and then puncuating the whole first part with a simultaneous guitar/harmonica hit where the rhythm just dies for a second, is brilliant in its simplicity.

The whole song, all two minutes of it, sums up everything that I am learning to love about Michael's vision: an organic approach to form that is dictated by the needs of the song, where the shape of the emotional life molds the song into something that breathes with its own life, something alive, communicating its own internal existence with elegant simplicity.

Check him out at these places:


www.myspace.com/michaelmcdaeth

www.mcdaeth.com

www.theblankalbum.com

www.shineinreverse.com

www.weedspeterson.com

www.myspace.com/weedspeterson