Dan Reed Network
Slam

The mulatto from Oregon, Dan Reed, and his quintet called Network were really strong. They sparkled with their mix of funky + hard rock for all three albums that the multinational label, which had them under contract, allowed them to release at the turn of the eighties and nineties, before they succumbed like many others to the clampdown imposed by record companies on commercial rock, in favor of the rather depressive but innovative (?) grunge. The work in question is the second legacy of the band, released in 1989, and probably the most valid.

The long-haired Dan was also a real cool guy, half Native American and half Hawaiian... As a typical American mulatto of the eighties, he had James Brown and AC/DC, Sly & Family Stone and Led Zeppelin, Earth Wind & Fire and Journey running through his veins equally, the result of an entire youth spent blasting his ears with them. The Network project was therefore a funky/rock proposal perfectly balanced between the two genres, with a propensity for one of them decisively swinging from one track to another. This was also due to the fact that his band consisted of a colorful multi-racial ensemble, with guitarist Brion James of Jamaican origins, bassist Melvin Brannon African American, keyboardist Blake Sakamoto obviously of Japanese descent, and drummer Dan Pred from a Jewish family!

Their music always kept the drums striking powerful quarters of hard rock while the bass pulsed in the usual funky way, maybe doubled by some synthesizer; meanwhile, the guitarist was mostly engaged in striking nice distorted power chords, thus bringing their sound closer to the prevailing AOR of the time. On the other hand, the keyboardist provided an Americanized style and injected rhythm & blues into the mix, and finally, the leader's singing, sexy in a Prince model but less phony, ultimately shook the ears, hips, and hormones of the listeners.

What was missing from the Dan Reed Network were a couple of singles capable of being remembered over time and of entering the realm of those symbolic of that era. In other words, the only flaw of “Slam” and the other two albums in their name, if such can be defined, is the same as many other works, namely a compact and excellent quality of all tracks from the first to the last, but lacking the stratospheric moment capable of pulling the rest and ultimately seasoning the menu.

For this reason, I can't isolate particularly interesting songs on this record. I like the more rock episodes, where the Led Zeppelin-style drumming and James' Def Leppard-style guitar get particularly busy, but that is my inclination because funky and rhythm & blues warm me less. The most well-crafted melodies seem to reside anyway within the track that titles the album and also in “Cruise Together” and “Lover,” in the kilometer-long ballad “Stronger Than Steel” and in the final anomalous boogie “Seven Sisters Road.” But I want to reiterate that it was the overall mood that worked in Dan Reed's proposal: an elegant and brilliant dance and arena music, seasoned and spiced by countless influences blended together and served by a cohort of talented musicians, full of groove.