Daniels and The Bull video released

There’s a new video from indie rocker Daniel Karsten Daniels featuring one glorious track from his forthcoming album with Fight the Big Bull.

April 28, 2010; 6:00 AM • by Dean Christesen

If you’ve signed up for David Karsten Daniels and Fight the Big Bull’s e-mail list, you’ve already heard this tune as a free download. But still, “The Funeral Bell” is so good, so memorable, so triumphant, that hearing it again with video matches the excitement of hearing it for the first time. The words, taken from Henry David Thoreau’s poem of the same title, are solemn and dark, but it’s Daniels (with FTBB’s help) who acts as the poet weaving the “light-burthened air into sweet rhyme,” turning this potential dirge into a cause for celebration.

Daniels filmed his own video — a single-frame, lip-syncing walk on a street in San Francisco — to the song. The label calls it a “D.I.Y. promo video,” but I think it deserves more credit than that. Close-talkers and beard examiners will feel especially at home watching.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEqndv4CW-g[/youtube]

Fat Cat is running a competition for covers of this song, and this one by Meredith from the band Gregory And The Hawk looks to be the only one out there so far.

The album, I Mean To Live Here Still, comes out June 21, but is already getting good reviews and mentions on the anything-but-jazz blogosphere. Sometime before its release, we’ll have the story on what this collaboration is all about and how it got started, but for now, Daniels’s Myspace blog has some great insight into the writing/recording process as well as rehearsal videos from Matt White’s attic.

Get on that mailing list to stay up to date on the album, or watch for updates here. There’s talk of a Richmond-area show in early July, but the official CD release show with Fight the Big Bull is in Chapel Hill, NC, on July 9. Road trip, anyone?