Posts Tagged ‘David Bryan’

New Video of Dave

Wednesday, July 21st, 2010

I’ve really got to remember to check the news on Bing more often. It turns up stuff that hasn’t been showing up in Google News. Anyway, I used Bing on a whim today and found out about the Broadway.com 2010 Audience Awards and the fact that Dave got one of them for his work on Memphis.

There’s a video on Broadway.com of Dave and Joe DiPietro accepting their award. It’s a really cute video that even includes the two guys singing (or trying to, at any rate).

You know, (and I’ve said this before), I didn’t always pay a ton of attention to Dave. He was just kind of there, and his keyboards did bring a certain extra dimension to the music of Bon Jovi. But with all of the awards and attention that he’s picked up from his work on Memphis, I’ve really started to notice just how talented he really is.

Tags: ,
Posted in Bon Jovi | No Comments »

David Bryan in Playbill

Friday, July 2nd, 2010

I just realized that I’d written this up last weekend, hit the draft button to check how it looked and then forgot to push the Publish button to run it live, leaving it stuck as a draft. Oops.

Anyway, I went into New York City with my family last Saturday. We had gotten tickets to see the new Addams Family musical. It’s really funny, by the way, especially if you watched the TV show as a kid. (On that note, never remind your parents that you watched it on Nick at Nite. They get grumpy.) Nathan Lane does a really great job of playing Gomez.

It was actually my mother who was the first person to notice that Dave was featured in an article on Broadway newcomers in the Playbill. There is an online version of the article that you can check out on their site. The print version actually had a picture of Dave kissing the sidewalk in front of the Shubert Theater instead of the stock photo that’s in the online article, but the text is all the same.

It seems like Dave has a promising side career starting up here. Since the big win at the Tony Awards, Memphis is everywhere.

Tags:
Posted in Bon Jovi | No Comments »

Exploring Dave’s Work

Friday, June 25th, 2010

After Memphis racked up such big wins at the Tony Awards, I went back through my music collection with an eye to songs that Dave had written or co-written. And I compiled a list of my favorites. (These all came from Bon Jovi albums or Stranger In This Town, as I don’t actually have any of his solo stuff.)

Rest In Peace
This song makes an excellent first track for Stranger In This Town, and really sets the tone for the whole album. I really can’t think of another word to describe this piece other than ‘haunting’. I know it’s been used before, but I can’t think of a better one. It’s amazingly subtle, and incredibly beautiful, and it’s the composition of the instrumental parts that really makes it.

In These Arms
This is one of Bon Jovi’s better ‘power ballads’. It’s more balanced than some of their other ones and it definitely has better lyrics. To be honest, I really like this one better than ‘Always’, which I find to be a tad melodramatic.

The Hardest Part Is The Night
Okay, this one you could call cheesy. It sounds like a product of its time. But it’s got a good melody, and I like it. And it wouldn’t have its personality without Dave’s synthesizer work.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Bon Jovi | Comments Off

Thoughts on the Tony Awards

Monday, June 14th, 2010

I’m not a big fan of awards shows. I know some people just love them, but I mostly just find them tedious. Awards shows are about the only thing that makes me wish my TV had picture-in-picture. With that one feature I could have kicked back and watched a movie or played a game on the Xbox and just kept an eye on the ceremony until Dave was up.

That being said, it’s good to see Dave get so much recognition for his work. Honestly, I had fully expected that he might pick up an award or two, but I did not expect Memphis to get ‘Best Musical’! (I was sure that Fela! or American Idiot was going to nab that spot–they were both major critics’ darlings. Especially American Idiot, which was based a pretty good album that was also a critical darling.) But sometimes it’s nice to be surprised.

This also vindicates Dave’s songwriting and composing skills. Richie and Jon may have been the members of the band that were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame–but I’d argue that Dave is at least their equal, especially when it comes to the musical composition. (Personally, I’d actually say that he’s better than Jon when it comes right down to it.)

Tags: , ,
Posted in Bon Jovi | 1 Comment »

Another interview with Dave

Wednesday, March 17th, 2010

The Jewish Daily Forward has an interview with David Bryan at their site.

It’s pretty short, and there’s not much new material there, if you’re a fan. However, I really do think that it’s nice to see Dave stepping out of the shadow of the band a little bit. He’s really a talented guy in his own right. That’s why I get excited when I see that somebody wants to interview him about his work instead of him just being along for the ride with Bon Jovi. (Not least because he’s a fairly interesting guy and when the whole band is along, he pretty much never gets to speak.)

Dave has always been a gifted songwriter. All you have to do is listen to the work he did on Stranger in this Town with Richie to see that. At least with his work on ‘Memphis” and the other shows that he’s worked on, he gets some recognition for it.

Tags: ,
Posted in Bon Jovi | No Comments »

In Which All Roads Lead to New York City

Monday, December 14th, 2009

You may have noticed that I skipped a post on Friday. I apologize for that. I didn’t have time to get a prefabricated post scheduled for Friday, and I went to New York with my family for the day. I tried to get some Christmas shopping done, but didn’t really see anything that suited the bill for the presents still remaining on my list.

I did try to argue in favor of getting tickets for Rock of Ages when we passed through Times Square, but by that point everybody else was tired out and didn’t want to go to a show. (We’d already walked pretty far by that point.) We ended up eating Thai food for dinner and counting the taxis with signs for musicals with a Bon Jovi connection. Seriously, it’s like every other taxi in Manhattan has a sign for either Memphis or Rock of Ages on it.

It wasn’t until we were walking past the big tree in Rockefeller Center that I realized that I’d managed to miss Bon Jovi’s Saturday Night Live appearance by one day. If I’d been paying attention when we scheduled the trip, I could have pushed it to Saturday instead and tried for standby tickets for SNL. (I understand that you have to get there pretty early to get those, if they’re available, though. I’ve never tried.)

Besides, after actually watching it on Saturday, I’m actually glad that I didn’t manage to get tickets. The opening monologue was so boring that I managed to fall asleep on the couch about 30 seconds into it Granted, I was tired, but still. Falling asleep that early on a Saturday night is positively embarrassing. The good part about that was that I missed most of the actual sketches, and my finely honed Spidey Sense woke me up the minute Bon Jovi started playing.

While the opening monologue (and evidently the rest of it, according to my friends who did manage to stay awake) was evidently pretty bad, Jon and the boys did a good job. First, it’s good to hear a song from The Circle other than ‘We Weren’t Born to Follow’ getting some exercise. Also, ‘Superman Tonight’ is one of the better tracks on the CD. I think it’ll do the sales of the disc some good if they get some exposure for some of the other songs.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Bon Jovi | No Comments »

Nice article on David

Monday, December 7th, 2009

There’s a great article on David Bryan from The Star. It’s mostly focused on Dave’s recent successes in musical theater.

I don’t usually cover Dave’s work much around here. By and large, musicals and their soundtracks aren’t really my style anymore. That’s something that I grew out of around the time that I started college and really started broadening out my musical horizons. In a lot of ways I’ve looked at musicals and their soundtracks as kid stuff. Not because it is, but more because they were what I was given as a child, before I really had the opportunity to form my own taste.

When I went through the obligatory period of ‘teenage rebellion’, I kind of tossed a lot of that music out the window. Once again, not because it was bad, but in an effort to find out what my taste really was. (As it turned out, my taste really doesn’t run toward Broadway musicals, or I wouldn’t be running a hard rock blog.)

All that being said, I still respect the craftsmanship that it takes to create musicals like Dave does. The creative process that it requires is awe-inspiring. Dave does a better job of explaining it in the article. Much like Richie, Dave’s solo efforts outside the band didn’t get the recognition that they deserved for a long time. It’s nice to see him getting some of that recognition now.

Now if Jon would just give Richie enough of a break to let him get back to work on another solo album…

Tags:
Posted in Bon Jovi | No Comments »