Dan Daniels and Your No Good Buddies

If you can’t keep it real, you can at least keep it honest, and Dan Daniels & Your No Good Buddies second release Geezer Rock does just that.

The organ on “Phantom Woman” sounds comfortably similar to Del Shannon’s “Runaway,” making this a good cold beer on a back porch way to wind down the week.

With lyrics that unashamedly border on the hilarious, the good times are both plentiful and tongue in cheek, sometimes within the same verse. Simply the mention of boating on the Puget Sound ("Away From You, Back To You") makes you wonder if Weird Al was holding the pen. The title track is exactly that: a Geezer rock song about Geezer rock.

“Winter Blues” has all the charm of a cuckolded man with a terrible affliction for worthless women. Sadly, this is worsened by the fact that it’s cold outside.

Geezer Rock is certainly original; there is no doubt about that. Never taking himself too seriously, Dan Daniels is worthy of making it onto a party mix tape and played loudly after the booze is flowing and the beer goggles have been strapped on for the night. Please remember to listen responsibly.

- Derek Blackmon

Geezer Rock"
Dan Daniels + Your No Good Buddies
Keep on smilin'... summer is alive with the release of the sophmore effort of Dan Daniels + Your No Good Buddies CD "Geezer Rock." The music is loaded with catchy hooks and irresistible roots-rock with a dollop of smokin' blues and country twang. This set continues from where 2004's "Guts + Gravel" left off but has more bite. It's music that crosses boundaries wonderfully with each cut working to add to a cohesive Americana sound. The still kickin' rhythm of the honky-tonk opener, "Away From You, Back To You" sets the tone for a rollicking ride of roguery. The second cut "Phantom Woman" with a decidedly Tex-Mex feel owed to Spanish style guitar lines from guest guitarist Jose' Ruiz rocks as Guy Wallis' funky keyboard swirls around Daniels rhythm guitar nicely. The wild ride continues with the title cut, the joyous "Geezer Rock", which is a mid-tempo paean to Rock n' Roll that narrates the evolution of Rock. The refrain, "You're never too old to play Geezer Rock" echoes true throughout. This is fun music that could be heard either at a local tavern or in a park at a summer festival. The songs, "The Flapper and the Devil" and "The Flood of 55" are story songs that tell events that occur naturally in life with a fiddle and mandolin backed country-folk musical texture.

A blue tone color is added to the musical sound with bluesy numbers "Winter Blues" and "Sweet Lovin' Woman" compliments of Guy Wallis' inspired harmonica playing. The pleasant mix of harmony sing-a-long rock songs and danceable country and blues tunes make this disc a surprise winner among recently released local discs. Dan Margolis' melodic electric lead guitar riffs supply warmth next to Dan Daniels commanding lead vocals. Check out the band on the web at www.yngb.com and live in Stanley Park, Westfield on Sunday, Aug. 19th at 6:00 p.m.

Eric Sutter
- Eric Sutter

You never know what will happen when you go out for ice cream, and so it was that I recently got a scoop of Dan Daniels and Your No Good Buddies with my hot fudge sundae.

We were at Flayvors of Cook's Farm, an ice cream stand in the emerald fields of Hadley, where you can just about follow your ice cream from udder to cone by standing on the front porch. (Legend has it that "Flayvor" was the name of a favorite cow at the farm).

At first we thought it was a stereo playing in the back room. Then we peeked in and saw three geezers in Hawaiian shirts playing instruments.

Did I mention that they were rocking the place out.

The front man was a balding guy in shorts firing off chords on an odd guitar. This, it turned out, was Dan Daniels,61, former political science professor, current house painter and forever rock 'n' roller.

Daniels was flanked by Shawn Mansfield,58, on the bass and Kurt Hansen,50, on the mandolin. Mandfield practices law in Easthampton in his other life. Hansen is a former neighbor of Daniels' from Blandford.

I feel safe calling them geezers because they were playing a song called "Geezer Rock" from their CD of that name. A paean to rock 'n' roll, it has lyrics like:

"I started singing and I've never stopped
But I never thought I'd be a geezer playing rock"

This pretty much says it all.

Daniels got rock 'n' roll religion when he was 10 and growing up in Cleveland. The Everly Brothers. Buddy Holly. Elvis. It didn't hurt that music was a great way to meet girls.

In 1971, Daniels came to the Pioneer Valley seeking a doctorate at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. He soon lost interest in academics. Instead, he adopted the family trade and started a painting and wallpapering business.

"I wanted to be my own boss," he explains. "I don't function well in situations where people tell me what to do."

Little did those folks in the colonials and ranch houses know that the guy in painter's whites going over wallpaper with them was humming to his own private back beat.

Daniels was 48 before he had his first real band, a country group called Back East. About five years ago, he started writing his own songs. They came fast and suddenly and in numbers.

He was in the process of getting together with Mansfield and Northampton guitarist Dan Margolis, 55, when they decided to start recording original music. That band got its name when Margolis' wife told him what she thought of his friends.

On a hot Sunday afternoon, with Hansen sitting in for Margolis, curious ice cream lovers wander in and out of the back room at Flayvors, staring in amazement at Dan Daniels and Your No Good Buddies. The tip jar has barely enough money to buy the band its own ice cream, but they soldier on, surrounded by banners proclaiming Cook Farm's success with Holsteins at the Eastern States Exposition.

Sit through a few tunes and you can hear a little Jimmy Buffett, a little Creedence Clearwater Revival, maybe some Willie Nelson.

Daniels, as if to validate his geezer status, explains between songs that a record album once consisted of a sleeve of 78s. The band, in keeping up with the times, has cut two CDs, "Guts and Gravel" and "Geezer Rock," and has its own Web site, www.yngb.com

As they load the equipment in a van out back, Daniels explains that love, not money, brings them back to the ice cream stand on Sundays like this. He points over his shoulder to the foot of the Holyoke Range, where you can almost see his house.

Although one knee is taped from a recent fall, Daniels is obviously lit by the current that runs through countless arenas and bars and stadiums and garages, powering amps wherever rock 'n' roll calls out to be played. He talks about a song he wrote called "Empty Rooms."

"I made it up on the spot when my wife and her mother were the only people there and they got up to leave," he says.

Daniels laughs about it, but that doesn't mean he can't dream. Some cuts from "Guts and Gravel" got play on country stations as far away as Australia, and he'd like to move beyond the local scene if he can.

"I wouldn't mind enough recognition so I could tour a little bit and have a niche audience," he says.

Until then, you can catch Dan Daniels and Your No Good Buddies at down-home venues like the South Hadley Village Commons on July 5 and Northampton Bowl on Aug. 25. And be advised to look closely the next time you see some old geezer with a twinkle in his eye. He might just be waiting to rock.

Fred Contrada is a staff writer with The Republican. He can be reached at fcontrada@repub.com

- Fred Contrata in the Springfield Republican

The sun is almost at high noon, the sky as blue as a movie star’s eyes. We’re sitting in the shade of a tree, sipping juice in the yard of the last house on Route 47 in South Hadley.
Dan Daniels is talking about the 18 inches of rain that 50 years ago this month fell in Westfield in 24 hours.
"It’s still a record in Massachusetts for measured rainfall,” he says with great enthusiasm.
Dan says most things with great enthusiasm.
A native of Cleveland who has lived in Western Massachusetts since 1971, he has had a long fascination with Hurricane Diane and the 1955 Flood.
“Probably because of all the stories I’ve heard through the years,” he says. “How people coped when it seemed like it was never going to stop raining.”
Last month, he wrote a song about it called “The Flood of ’55.”
What’s happened to the roads?
What’s happened to the land?
Where’d all this water come from?
You say “Hurricane Diane”
Why’d they name it for some girl?
How could she ever be so bad?
To cause so much destruction,
Take away everything we had.
Dan is the chief songwriter, lead singer and rhythm guitar player for the alt-country group, Your No Good Buddies.
“We’re a bunch of old farts with good musical taste and a sense of humor,” he says of the band he helped form three years ago with friends Dan Margolis and Shawn Mansfield. “It was going to be a cover band – we still do covers, but not the obvious ones. I had this 6-month burst of song writing in 2002. When the muse shows up, you let her stay.”
The result was last year’s compact disc, “Guts and Gravel,” now being played on radio stations as far away as Australia.
“Our best review?” Dan says, repeating my question. “We’ve been called an alt-country Bare Naked Ladies.”
When he was 13, Dan wanted to be Elvis Presley.
“I had the hair for it back then,” he laughs. “Not anymore.”
Dan is 60. He runs his hand across his smooth scalp.
Del Shannon’s “Runaway” was the first song he learned to play on the guitar. He never really stopped playing.
Dan came east to work on his doctorate in political science at the University of Massachusetts.
“I did every thing but finish my dissertation,” he says.
Instead of a career as a college professor, Dan followed his grandfather and father’s path – starting his own paint and wallpaper company in Blandford, his longtime home.
I have a lot of Westfield customers, and Westfield was walloped in the Flood of ’55,” he says. “And during work breaks, we talked. Eventually, if the person was old enough, I’d ask, ‘What did you do during the Flood of ’55?’ I heard perspectives of people who were kids at the time, young mothers. The way people described it, it was like something out of the Old Testament. The mud, the rushing water, the seeking of higher ground. All the water everywhere, but none of it to drink.”
It started raining Wednesday August 18 and didn’t stop until Friday. The ground was already drenched from Hurricane Connie that passed through five days earlier.
Dan says the closest he has come to natural disaster was hiding in the back kitchen 10 years ago with his wife, Julie Fitzgerald, and their young son, Danny, when a tornado churned through Great Barrington.
In March this year, he faced a more personal battle: lymphoma.
“I went through a round of chemotherapy,” he says, “and they got it. I’m fortunate. I’m in remission now. But that brush with cancer got me writing again.”
One of the songs was “The Flood of ‘55”
Dan and his friend Kurt Hansen fooled around with the tune’s structure one afternoon last month. That night, Dan came home and gave the song lyrics. Another friend, Guy Walis, provided some backing instruments and produced the finished track.
“I’m giving ‘The Flood of ’55’ away free to anyone who buys ‘Guts & Gravel,’” Dan says.
The song will be featured Saturday when Your No Good Buddies play The Harp in Amherst.
Consider it a little history, with a beat.




- Tom Shea in the Springfield Republican

Tuesday, July 12th 2005
DAN DANIELS AND YOUR NO GOOD BUDDIES - GUTS AND GRAVEL
Album Review by EDF

Imagine if you can, a world where the Beatles never filmed or recorded A HARD DAY'S NIGHT. They might have continued producing rock 'n' roll records, bypassed travelling over to America and India, never dropped acid, which would have left The Rolling Stones as the most influential band of the 1960's. The Beatles then continued to make music and are still performing but no one knows why they just don't call it a day. What could this bunch of has-beens have to offer? Well, if music had taken this cruel course, the Beatles would have just grown old and with a little bit of country thrown in for good measure, would sound something like Dan Daniels, Dan Margolis and Shawn Mansfield.

Sounding like they have been playing together for decades, this threesome only formed in 2002 and has brought with it a fun element missing from most music performances these days. It is not as if these guys have to prove anything, regardless of their age they inject a carefree, fun and spirited effort that should embarrass younger musicians. Try listening to (I'VE BEEN EATIN') ONIONS without a smile coming across your face or at least be surprised to find steel drums on SWEET MARY JANE. I mean I seriously cannot remember the last time I've heard steel drums on a record. This is a tough one to sell but I really enjoyed this and these guys have no inhibition to what they are doing.

- by EDF of Phase 9 entertainment

Catch that vagabond feeling this new year with a local Americana/Roots Rock band Your No Good Buddies. They have a 12-song CD out called "Guts and Gravel" that glissades through Alt-country, Cajun, Rock, Reggae and Bluegrass. The players include Blandford resident Dan Daniels on rhythm guitar and lead vocals; Dan Margolis on electric lead guitar and mandolin; Shawn Mansfield on bass, Guy Wallis on mandolin, guitars, harmonica, keyboard, accordion and washboard; Kurt Hansen on mandolin, Bill Klock and Seth Hoffsomme on drums. The CD opens with a rousing country-rock song "The Teardrops Start." The title cut "Guts and Gravel" is a Alt-Country tale worthy of a smile. Nothing here is straight forward country but is Blue State alternative. "What would Jesus Drive?" is irreverently humorous harmony. "Your No Good Buddies" is a country shuffle number that beckons one to spend time with them. Their approach to music is upbeat and fun allowing for moments of great harmony. It has some sort of "rooted" quality... a sense of a past and place behind it but ironically it is energetically new-timey sounding. Celebratory pop-twang nestles alongside friskier old-school rockers. The paeanic, "Willie's Dream" has vision as wide as the Texas skies. The freedom of "Do It While We Can" continues in the Americana storytelling arena that paints itself into those brightly lit corners from which there seems no escape. "Empty Rooms" is one of those haunting country waltz tunes... a weeper that makes one cling to the memory of some long lost romance. The CD closes with "Rock -n-Roll" which honors the artists that made the style part of living. This music is part of a continuum that connects us to the past but outlasts the blues. Check out their website at www.yngb.com

- Eric Sutter

The Duke Listens To Your No Good Buddies

Posted by Duke De Mondo on August 12, 2004 08:06 PM (See all posts by Duke De Mondo)
Filed under: Music, Music: Country and Americana

It's hard to find a reason not to like Guts And Gravel, the debut release from New England trio Dan Daniels And Your No Good Buddies. Whilst offering nothing what could be described as particularly innovative or "challenging", it is nothing if not a fantastically, infectiously good-natured slab of humour, compassion and, best of all, a bunch a damn fine tunes.
The press malarkey draws comparisons to, amongst others, The Barenaked Ladies, but to these ears, ie, the prodigiously knowledgeable ears of The Duke, they sound more akin to the likes of The Mavericks, even if Your No Good Buddies are, thankfully, infinitely preferable to those sons a bitches what yack on about "I wanna dance the night away, is what" and so on.
It's a country music what is pretty far removed from, say, the melancholic stylings of Whiskeytown or early Wilco, but it's no less worthy of praise. Three middle-aged fellas making music for no other reason than the enjoyment stemming from such, and the fact that, having played together since summer 2002, they realised that shit, man, this stuff is kinda good, is the crux of the matter.
The record, available through the band's Web Site, is a melding of commercial country, rockabilly stylings, flamenco flourishes, all with the mood of the most enjoyable party this side of the one on the telly what has five folks acting like the ones from The Dawson Creek or whatever.
Despite the vibe of frenzied revelry, however, there are weighty issues to discuss. The third track, for instance, rests on the theological poser; "What would Jesus drive, if he were alive?" Dan Daniels and Co. don't have any particular answer, but assert that it's probably not "no big SUV".
Outlaw clichés are also given a going over and emerge surprisingly fresh, like in the title track, what tells of a wife grabbing the nearest pistol and blasting her husband out of jail, whilst Pierre, Bobby And Marie tells of a bloodied feud between two folks on account of they both wanna sex with the same lady.
Do It While We Can takes a particularly idiosyncratic stance with regards the ol' hellfire-and-damnation country gospel, noting that since there won't be no "Drinkin'" nor "Dancin" nor "Smokin" nor even "Fornication" when the Lord comes a-calling, best to do as much as possible right now.
I ain't never heard those Louvin Brothers telling me shit like that, preferring the old "You'll go blind, The Duke!" or "You'll be damned, is what, if you for a second think about smiling while you do that!".
Mary Jane rolls in on a kind of Caribbean vibe, and goes on to become a rather lovely treatise on the old "unrequitement" and what not.
Guts And Gravel is among the most vibrant sounding records The Duke has enjoyed in ages. How come these "baby-boomers" sound so energised and in love with their music, when folks half their age sound like the kinda miserable, self-obsessed sons a bitches that always wanted to thrust terrible poetry into your face at high school?
How come a song by the name of (I Been Eatin') Onions has a fella grinning from ear to ear, has a fella believing that yes, onions are the most worthy of topics for any song written anywhere by anyone to be dealing with?
Final track Rock N' Roll opens with a Jerry Lee Lewis bout of the ol' piano thrashing, and goes on to get concerned with the nostalgia and what not, and memories of that there musical genre what is also the title. It's whole hell of the fun, is what The Duke would announce, and brings to a close a record what don't have even the slightest hint of a cruddy number among it.
I'm gonna be keeping both eyes on these fellas, but not in a way what implies I find them sexually attractive, although I'm sure they're very enticing to the ladies, but in a way what means I'm looking forward to the next record.
Good work, Dan Daniels And Your No Good Buddies.
Guts And Gravel can be bought, or inspected via the Audio Streams, at www.yngb.com
Thank folks

- by Aaron