Ears Wide Open: Dan Horne

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Dan Horne (Photo by McKenna Kane)

Dan Horne has floated around Los Angeles’ cosmos for well over a decade as the ultimate music handyman. He’s been called a “bass god” for his skills on that instrument (which he’s manned for Jonathan Wilson, among others). He’s mastered pedal steel. As a producer and engineer, he’s worked on albums by Cass McCombs, Mapache, the Chapin Sisters and Allah-Las. And he’s a founding member of the tribute band Grateful Shred and, with the late Neal Casal, the instrumental quartet Circles Around the Sun.

He finally releases a trickle (rhymes with “motorcycle”) of his own music today with “The Motorcycle Song EP.” It’s two originals along with two covers of ’60s nuggets, including Arlo Guthrie’s trippy 1967 single “The Motorcycle Song.” It’s joined by Horne’s take on the 1969 Canned Heat song “Poor Moon.”

The lead track on the EP, which was made in quarantine at Horne’s own Lone Palm studio, is the spacey five-minute instrumental “Blackjack,” and Horne finds his groove on “Rhythm 55,” a too-brief, loping jam draped in pedal steel. It feels carved from another, more carefree time, when embracing sentiments like communal spirit didn’t seem like such hard work.

||| Watch: The video for “The Motorcycle Song”

||| Also: Stream the whole EP here”