Award-winning acoustic power pop with vocal harmonies like the Thorns...an album about kittens and the trees that love them.

9 MP3 Songs
FOLK: Folk Pop, POP: Power Pop



Details:
Is it power pop if it doesn't have an electric guitar?

Does "Blackbird" make Paul McCartney a folk singer?

These are existential questions for the folk-pop artist. Tad Dreis may play a jangly guitar and sing stacks of harmonies with himself like Matthew Sweet, but he will also slow down and recount woodsy tales of mosquitos and lust, of kittens and the trees that love them. The fact that even his storysongs rarely break the 3 1/2 minute mark further blurs the line between 60's singles and the folk ballad form.

Recorded at his homebase in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Tad's new record "Solitaire For Two" is a collection of nine beautiful folk/pop contradictions. Full band tracks feature drums by Matthew McCaughan, drummer for the Superchunk side-project Portastatic (on MERGE Records), with all other instruments and sounds provided by Tad.

Recently, the song "Good For You," from Solitaire, won top honors at the SongLounge.com Songwriting Contest, beating out international competetition.

Since 2001's "Yours Asleep," Dreis has garnered praise from across the folk and pure pop spectrum. Splendid E-zine calls his music "infectious and tongue-twistingly pretty," while Indy-Music.com notes that his "mischievous approach to songwriting sets Dreis apart from so many acoustic guitar folkies."

His live radio appearances include performances on WXDU Duke's "Starry Eyes" pop music show and on WORT Madison's acoustic world music show. From general stores to rock clubs, Tad can be found wherever fans of melody and alliteration assemble.

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The story began in San Antonio, Texas, where as a Montessori-schooler, Dreis began to learn individual notes on the guitar. Shown a full chord, he shrunk back, frightened and overwhelmed until the age of thirteen, when a Beatles fakebook reaccquainted him with his nylon-string. An electric guitar soon followed, along with stints in bad punk and good jazz bands. His first two tapes were Bob Dylan's "Bringing It All Back Home" and Phil Collins's "...But Seriously."

While studying jazz at Berklee College over the summer, Dreis acquired a steel-string acoustic, and found that he liked strumming his songs on it better than on his electric guitar. Further inroads were made in the following years, as Tad discovered a love for the fingerpicking of John Fahey and pursued classical guitar at UNC Chapel Hill.

During his senior year of college, inspired by the proliferation of home recordists in the Chapel Hill area, Dreis began to record his first polished collection of songs, upgrading from a 4 to an 8-track home studio. These tracks surfaced a year later in 2001 as "Yours Asleep," a self-release on his own "Hedgepig Presents..." label.

"Solitaire For Two," as its title suggests, is Tad's second effort at self-production and began as a game to amuse himself over the summer of 2002. The nine-track collection varies from full pop productions like "I Said I" and "Good For You" to solo acoustic numbers like "Roadkill in the Parking Lot (Of the Fitness Center)." Of that last song, Tad notes, "every word is true."

Sometimes the surreal is confessional, and sometimes a jangle becomes a twang. As Tom Robbins puts it, "If it's messy, eat it over the sink."

*** QUOTES ***
"...infectious and tongue-twistingly pretty...there are already enough gems on Yours Asleep to throw any of our loyal readers off the Hip-ometer scale if they don't skip work, drive to Chapel Hill, knock on Dreis' door and beg to hear his songs right then and there."
--- Splendid E-zine

"Helpful Diagrams' off Yours Asleep has such a playful melody and sweet harmonies that they almost make you forget that you're listening to a song of lust inspired by restroom sign diagrams. This mischievous approach to songwriting is what sets Dreis apart from so many of the acoustic guitar folkies I've been hearing lately."
--- Indie-Music.com

"It's nice to hear a young musician who understands record making and the craft of songwriting- hummable melodies and interesting wordplay."
--- Virginia Pilot Coast Magazine

"'The Traveling Red-Velvet Curtain' is easily the best song about vampire adultery ever."
--- Record Exchange Music Monitor

"...what Leonard Cohen would sound like if he lightened up a little bit."
--- The Spectator

"...wanders between the confessional and surreal..."
--- Dead Weight Interzine (New Zealand)