Memories of Dan Meichel
Calgary’s arts community lost a dear friend and colleague this May. If you would like to contribute to the Meichel family/Meichel memorial fund, please send cheques (made out to F. Meichel and not EAR - very important as we are passing them along!) to:
F. Meichel
c/o EAR
P.O. Box 331
2137 33 Ave SW
Calgary, AB T2T 1Z7
This page is intended to preserve our stories and memories of Dan. Please feel free to add your own reminiscences…
My reminisce about Dan is that, aside from myself, he was the only artist to have participated in every single Shiny Beast jazz~theatre experience: Minnie Mouse & The Tap Dancing Buddha, Zertrummerung, Martian and, most notably, The Whip It Out Real Frank Zappa Burlesque. Of all the many talented artists I have collaborated with over the course of my 30-year career, Dan was the easiest to work with, and the most fun to play with.
I will miss him sorely.
Michael Green
My name is Cal Lyall - I’m writing from Tokyo, where Dan spent his last days playing shows, enjoying live music and spending time with his many new friends.
I would like everyone to know that Dan was amongst good people right up to the very end, and although he was only here a short time, he was making the rounds playing gigs, starting new bands, and engaging on a special level everyone he met. His gentle nature made him immediately approachable, and his love and curiosity of music, art and literature made him a wonderful conversationalist and a fine friend. He will be truly missed, yet his music and inspiration lives on.
Growing up in Calgary, I shared much in common with Dan. After studying under Don Glasrud, Dave Diver, and the late Bob Day, I eventually made my way to Tokyo and found a special place here. I really think Dan did as well. It was a honour to be here and be a part of his dream, and you can be sure he was loving life and living it to the fullest until the very end.
Sincerely,
Cal Lyall (Tokyo)
I first met Dan at a tokyosexwhale show in Edmonton in 1998.
They just blew me away, and we made a good connection. So
in 2000 we brought them to the Sound Symposium. What a great
time!
Two events form that week will be in my memories forever.
One lunch time, on a beautiful sunny day, Dan or Mark or both suggested we all go outside to jam. So we grabbed horns and a drum and headed off to the War Memorial on Duckworth St. We just sat around on the steps overlooking the harbour and had a wonderful sweet meeting of sounds.
The other memory is of the Cape Spear Project, a huge performance out in the WWII bunkers at Cape Spear, orchestrated by Don Wherry. The show started with a quiet group, Trichy Sankaran, Omar Faruk Tekbilek, John Wyre, Randy Crafton, something like that, all older guys doing some really cool world stuff. By the end of their section they were sitting on chairs at the front of the stage. Later in the show, Dan and I and some of the people from the Remote Viewers I think (Mark, do you
remember?), four or five of us, a horn section, came in behind them and just blew way far out. Their poor ears! But everyone
was cool with it. Mark was there too, but we drowned him out… 
And we had a fine time. That was one of the most magical Cape Spear Projects we ever produced.
Dan and I kept in touch over the years, though we never got another chance to play together. I’m sad about that, because we were hoping to bring tokyosexwhale back next year. That may still happen, but it won’t be the same without Dan. Ah well. His heart was so big, his song so strong. We will keep his spirit alive.
On behalf of the Sound Symposium, our condolences to you all.
Much Love,
Craig Squires
Artistic Direction Committee
The Sound Symposium
I will miss Danny a lot. He was one of the people who encouraged me to come back to Alberta form Montreal in the 70’s. I played many gigs with him in Edmonton and was delighted to find him the same neighborhood I lived in here in Calgary many years later. He always had a smile on his face, even more so lately after becoming a very proud Grandfather. We will all miss him.
John Hyde
Oh my.
I am just getting the news and don’t even know how to feel yet.
My name is Dewi Wood and I played with Dan in a variety of situations many times over the years.
Sorry but as I cannot find any other info, could I ask you to let me know if you know if there is any service or such scheduled?
He just wrote me in the last while from Japan … Oh my.
Thanks for your time it is valued and appreciated,
Dewi
I always love hearing Dan play. No matter what the gig was he would be totally involved, you could tell he was enjoying every moment. He could make music from anything - my favourite was a show where he played a squeaky chair and a rubber hose. I’m really going to miss him.
Jennifer Norfolk
Greetings from Tokyo,
My boyfriend and I were trying to listen to the Tribute to Dan Meichel because Dan touched us along with many others while he was here in Tokyo. I have been missing a large chunk of your show tonight because the live stream is re-buffering. Is it available for download? I think a lot of my friends here would enjoy hearing Dan’s friend’s stories, and their support for one another. In the little amount of time that I spent with Dan he left a great and wonderful impression. My heart is with all of Dan’s beautiful friends and family.
All my love.
-Jamie Reed
I’d like to send our cheers to Danny’s life as well. I’m the band leader of TR3 ( a long time party band) around southern Alberta and Danny was a member of it from 1989 to 1996. We enjoyed his presence on and off stage immensely. His knowledge of many topics as well as jazz (which he was into mostly in those days) as well as his truly good listening ears made for thought provoking wonderful conversations on long trips to gigs far away. A very gentle, bright, fun and easy guy to be with.
True to his muse, he finally got tired of good paychecks doing a gig he didn’t have his heart in and quit. All the power to him now and forever.
From Billy McBeth, Robin Tufts, Roly Sandoval and I , we’ll miss him dearly and our deep condolences to Frieda and Nathan.
Sincerely
Ted Woodhouse
TR3
Had a long talk with the Telecaster about Danny. Got going about some of the shit we’d seen and done. Bands like “Sunnyside”, “Fly by Night”, and one of our favourites ” Ruby and the Belt Drives ” Waaay too much fun!
Bright moments - always chasin’ the light.
The Electric Hungarian is dead! Long live the Electric Hungarian!
Love
Gary Bird
DEATH
There is no needle without piercing point
There is no razor without trenchant blade
Death comes in many forms
With our feet we walk the goat’s earth
With our hands we touch God’s sky
Some future day in the heat of noon
I shall be carried shoulder high
through the village of the dead.
When I die, don’t bury me under forest trees
I fear their thorns
When I die, don’t bury me under forest trees
I fear their dripping water.
Bury me under the great shade trees of the market,
I want to hear the drums beating,
I want to feel the dancers’ feet.
- Kuba, Zaire (translated by Ulli Beier)
FEELING FUCKED UP (Rewritten for Dan Meichel)
Lord, he’s done gone left us done packed / up and split
and we with no way to make him
come back and everywhere the world is bare
bright bone white crystal sand glistens
dope death dead dying and jiving drove
him away and take his laughter and his smiles
and his smile and the midnight wail of his saxophone –
Fuck Coltrane and music and clouds drifting in the sky
fuck the sea and the trees and the sky and birds
and alligators and all the animals that roam the earth
fuck marx and mao fuck fidel and nkrumah and
democracy and communism fuck smack fuck pot
and red ripe tomatoes fuck joseph fuck mary fuck
god jesus and all the disciples fuck freedom fuck
the whole muthafucking thing
all we want now is Danny back
So our souls can sing
- Adapted from Etheridge Knight
original at: http://plagiarist.com/poetry/3111/
TO BE A SLAVE OF INTENSITY
Friend, hope for the Guest while you are alive.
Jump into experience while you are alive!
Think . . . and think . . . while you are alive.
What you call “salvation” belongs to the time before death.
If you don’t break the ropes while you’re alive,
do you think
ghosts will do it after?
The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic
just because the body is rotten –
that is all fantasy.
What is found now is found then.
If you find nothing now,
You will simply end up with an apartment in the City of Death.
If you make love with the divine now, in the next life you
will have the face of satisfied desire
So plunge into the truth, find out who the Teacher is,
Believe in the Great Sound!
Kabir says this: When the Guest is being search for, it is
the intensity of the longing for the Guest that does all the work.
Look at me, and you will see a slave of that intensity.
- Kabir
A RITUAL TO READ TO EACH OTHER
If you don’t know the kind of person I am
and I don’t know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.
For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.
And as elephants parade holding each elephant’s tail,
but if one wanders the circus won’t find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.
And so I appeal to the voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk;
though we could fool each other, we should consider –
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.
For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give – yes or no, or maybe –
should be clear; the darkness around us is deep.
- William Stafford
WALKING THROUGH A WALL
Unlike flying or astral projection, walking through walls is a totally earth-related craft, but a lot more interesting than pot making or driftwood lamps. I got started at a picnic up in Bowstring in the Northern part of the state. A fellow walked through a brick wall right there in the park. I said, “Say, I want to try that.” Stone walls are best, then brick and wood. Wooden walls with fiberglass insulation and steel doors aren’t so good. They won’t hurt you. If your wall walking is done properly, both you and the wall are left intact. It’s just that they aren’t pleasant somehow. The worst things are wire fences, maybe it’s the molecular structure of the alloy or just the amount of give in a fence. I don’t know, but I’ve torn my jacket and lost my hat in a lot of fences. The best approach to the wall is, first, two hands placed flat against the surface; it’s a matter of concentration and just the right pressure. You will feel the dry, cool inner wall with your fingers, then there is a moment of total darkness before you step through to the other side.
- Louis Jenkins
DENIAL
ANGER
BARGAINING
DEPRESSION
ACCEPTANCE
FEELING FUCKED UP
Lord, she’s done gone left me done packed / up and split
And I with no way to make her
Come back and everywhere the world is bare
Bright bone white crystal sand glistens
Dope death dead dying and jiving drove
Her away and take her laughter and her smiles
And her softness and her midnight sights –
Fuck Coltrane and music and clouds drifting in the sky
Fuck the sea and the trees and the sky and birds
And alligators and all the animals that roam the earth
Fuck marx and mao fuck fidel and Nkrumah and
Democracy and communism fuck smack fuck pot
And red ripe tomatoes fuck joseph fuck mary fuck
God jesus and all the disciples fuck freedom fuck
The whole muthafucking thing
All I want now is my women back
So my soul can sing
– Etheridge Knight