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David Brusie
biography
Chances are, you didn’t go to high school with David Brusie, but after a verse or two, you will probably feel as if you had. He was the kid in the lunchroom wedged comfortably between the folkie singer-songwriters and the thick-rimmed pop crowd. He wrote songs and he played guitar.
David Brusie is a fledgling performer in Minneapolis, MN. He has opened for the likes of Mark Erelli and Felix McTeigue.
David grew up twenty miles west of Boston, in Acton. Absorbing music became his passion, and it wasn’t long before he was spending all of his candy money on the latest Weezer (or possibly Paul Simon) album. During high school, he picked up the art of songcraft and wrote a handful of truly catchy songs. He attended Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, where he struck out on his own, regularly performing at campus coffeehouses. Gaining momentum, he recorded his debut, the self-released Half-Extravaganza, in the summer of 2001.
Half-Extravaganza is a monument to the small defeats and small victories of daily life, the small (and sometimes large) distances that separate us. “I’ve seen everything like a live feed,” David opens the centerpiece track, “As It Happens.” Girls that have left him have left you. His songs are touchingly familiar and are informed by a sense of modernity and a striking self-awareness in the vein of Wilco or Magnetic Fields.
At the tender age of 24, David Brusie may be already too old to rock ‘n’ roll, but his sound is driven by a refreshing rhythm, accompanied by more-than-occasional handclaps. His songs move; even when downbeat, they are decidedly up-tempo.
Like those of his musical heroes Elvis Costello and Aimee Mann, David’s lyrics often turn on the subtly inverted cliché. Although smart, he comes across as much more than just witty or cute. Only someone with sincerity at his core could rhyme “care less” with “careless” and mean it. Even the hardest-hearted, swayed by the aching humanity of his voice a la Eef Barzelay of Clem Snide or Caithlin de Marrais of Rainer Maria, will want to take him home after the show and give him some chicken soup and a beer.
At any rate, David will impress you. How would Lyle Lovett or Elvis Costello sound if they grew up in metro Boston? You may be about to find out.
MP3s:
Cafetorium
As It Happens
Fort Wayne
New Year's Eve
Not About Cars