It’s hard to know where to start with the Godlike, but still largely-ignored Dan Treacy.
For the uninitiated, Dan was one of the biggest influences on the fledgling Alan McGee before Creation were barely a twinkle in his eye; he’s one of the few direct links with the original ‘Punk’ movement in England (i.e 1976 and all that) who never entirely went away or split up or compromised his mad, quintessentially English ideals (see also Lawrence Heyward of Felt/ Denim) and he once famously made a single proclaiming “I Know Where Syd Barrett Lives.”
So for his wayward, but often ace back catalogue, Dan deserves to be hailed as a maverick genius and for the very fact that this single is here, this reviewer’s smiling, simply because the last he’d heard Dan had simply disappeared.
Sadly, though, it appears he’s returned with a scarcity of fresh ideas, and while I was dying to trumpet the horribly-topical “All The Young Children On Crack” as yet another surreally brilliant salvo from a perennially undersung Wunderkind, it simply doesn’t cut it. It finds Dan armed with a cheapo, Fisher Price version of the beat from Queen’s “We Will Rock You”, a spindly acoustic guitar and the great man declaring “all the young children on smack, all the young children on crack…they deserve something better, let’s give ‘em something back.” Ironically, for all the concern, it sounds spookily like a washed-up Peter Doherty B-side, which – I hope – wasn’t the idea.
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Maybe I’m missing the point then, but this one’s a one-trick pony severely lacking in kick. Sorry Dan. If you can forgive me, it’s still good to have you back with us.
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