Baker Artist Portfolios

Dan Ryan has been a staple in the Baltimore music scene for over a decade.  With an ability on the guitar that can adapt to any musical situation, Ryan has contributed his playing, arranging, and producing to countless Baltimore projects. These projects include Super City, Talking Points, Outcalls, Hundred Dollar Girlfriend, Peachface, Ellen Cherry, Theljon Allen, Mary Prankster, Adjective Animal, Micah E. Wood, Kristen Toedtman, Danah Denice, LEAP, and Darius Christian. As a frontman for Super City he has written/recorded multiple albums as well as toured nationally multiple times.  As lead guitarist of BODEGA, he has recorded on the albums 'Broken Equipment' and 'Our Brand Could Be Yr Life', as well as embarked on multiple international tours. 

 

Starting out as a weekly gig, Jazz Lunch quickly became a compositional endeavor for Dan Ryan and Jon Birkholz. In 2012 they recorded and released the album 'Housewarming', which features compositions by both Ryan and Birkholz. Jazz Lunch featured a rotating cast of Baltimore jazz names, including Derrick Michaels, Jarrett Gilgore, Zach Swanson, Brian Brunsman, and Sam Balcolm. Jazz Lunch was also known to improvise live film scores for audiences at The Crown, once featuring WYPR host Aaron Henkin as voiceover for a documentary.  

 

In 2014, Ryan and his jazz group, Talking Points, released two albums. One of these albums, entitled 'Leonard', is a three-movement suite composed by Ryan, featuring the main jazz quintet, a string quartet, and a brass quartet. Stylistically it moves seamlessly from modern jazz into a style akin to Bartok, and finally into a post-rock world featuring innovative techniques on the guitar and sweeping strings. In the same year, Talking Points released their album 'Superposition', which features the compositions of Ryan, pianist Savino Palumbo, and Alex Weber, along with Derrick Michaels on saxophone and Mike Kuhl on drums. Talking Points has been regularly performing around Baltimore, recently opening for legendary metal bands Cynic and Atheist at the Baltimore Soundstage. 

 

Baltimore singer Kristen Toedtman employed Dan Ryan for her 2015 album 'Limbo (Baltimore/Los Angeles)', a collection of original songs split in two by separate sessions on the East and West coast. The Baltimore band was comprised of Ryan, Chris Pumphrey, Erich Von Marko, Dave Ballou, John Dierker, John Lipscomb, and many others. It was recorded by Ben Frock at Heartwood Studios in Baltimore. 

 

Jon Birkholz's exceptionally creative rock project Adjective Animal's first album, 'Escape or Erase' came out in 2016.  Dan Ryan provided the lead guitar work on the 8-track album, as well as the band's two following albums in 'America's Got Talons' and 'Every Moment a Portrait'. The song "Jay", from 'Every Moment a Portrait', was featured heavily on WTMD and made it into several DJs' top 10 tracks of 2023. 

 

Baltimore trumpeter Theljon Allen had Dan Ryan play guitar on his 2016 album 'Perspective', which features Allen's complex compositions and adventurous improvisations. The band performed at the James A. Johnson Young Artist Series at the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage. 

 

 His work with Super City has earned him WTMD's "Album of the Year" award with their 2018 release, 'Sanctuary.' With multiple appearances at Artscape and WTMD's First Thursdays, Super City has had a big presence in Baltimore. The band made its name off of its first single, ‘Find You’, which was featured on NPR’s World Cafe live in a segment that featured up-and-coming Baltimore artists. Since then they have gone on tour nationally multiple times, open for many national acts, and, most recently, perform at the 930 Club in DC. Super City has just signed a record deal with Sofaburn records. Ryan is one of the two main writers and producers, along with singer and guitarist Greg Wellham. Super City has just released their first album on a record label in 2023 with 'In the Midnight Room'. Ryan wrote and co-directed the music videos for "Getouttahere" and "Hang Up", as well as the videos for "42 Years" and "Greek". 

 

“The band’s second full-length record, Sanctuary, shows off their staying power. Its 10 sensational songs are the kind of rock-star-worthy anthems and power ballads that just don’t get made anymore, featuring searing guitar solos, all-out soprano vocals, thunder-and-lightning drums, and full-blown shimmering fun.” - Baltimore Magazine

“This type of smart-rock has been notably absent from the charts in recent years, and it sounds fabulous." -  Beats Per Minute 

“The Baltimore band shows off an uncanny ability to take inspiration from different eras of Rock. They are able to connect them together and create a nice little rocking sound that sounds, at the same time, like nothing and everything else all at once.” - V13

 

Also in 2018, Dan Ryan's guitar skills were used on the Letitia VanSant album 'Gut It to the Studs', the artist's first national release.  Ryan played on the tracks, "Where I'm Bound," and "For What it's Worth." 

 

Baltimore trio $100 Girlfriend, led by bassist/singer Melody Easton, sees Dan Ryan providing the drums and production for the outfit. The band came out with an EP entitled 'Easy to Please' in 2019 and has been featured on WTMD radio as well as played shows at the Federal Hill Spring Block Party and David Lynch Fest. 

 

Baltimore duo Outcalls has been known to frequently collaborate with Dan Ryan, most notably on “Keep Falling Over,” one of the many tracks he contributed guitar and arrangements to. The track went on to win “Song of the Year” on WTMD’s year-end list. He has worked on many more Outcalls tracks as well, contributing guitars, synthesizers, production, and string arrangements to four tracks on their 2022 album 'Greatest Hits, Vol. 1'. Ryan has also been seen performing live with Outcalls at shows like WTMD's First Thursday Festival, the Ottobar, and WTMD's "An Evening with Outcalls." 

 

Ryan's lead guitar work with BODEGA on their album "Broken Equipment" has been featured on NME, Pitchfork, Rough Trade, as well as a mention by Iggy Pop on BBC6. In 2022, Ryan embarked on a seven-week European tour on the release of 'Broken Equipment', playing shows in the UK, Holland, France, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Germany, and Luxembourg, as well as a six-week North American tour, part of which was opening for the legendary rock band Spoon. BODEGA has just announced that they are releasing an album, titled 'Our Brand Could Be Yr Life', in April on UK label Chrysalis Records. 

 

'Bodega’s ace is Baltimore-based guitar maestro Daniel Ryan. “Our secret weapon on this record is Dan,” Hozie says. “This is his first time recording with us, although he’s been in the band a long time, doing a bunch of tours with us from 2019. Lately I’ve been driving down to Baltimore to write with him. I bring him finished songs – the words and structure are done, the chords are there but I don’t know how the guitar should go, and I never know what the guitar will do until I work it out with Dan.”' - Guitar.com 

"Bodega, that's a great band." - Iggy Pop on BBC6 radio

"Dan Ryan’s guitar playing has really elevated these tracks in that regard. The lead improvisations he does over the drone jam in ‘Tarkovski’ and the guitar/piano work in ‘City is Taken’ are some of my favourite parts to be on a BODEGA disc." - Ben Hozie in DORK Magazine 

 

In the summer of 2023, Dan Ryan debuted his Guitar Quintet at An Die Musik. The group features original compositions by Dan Ryan that employ innovative guitar techniques and a wide variety of compositional styles. The piece "Time to Let Go," features four Ebows, an accessory to the guitar that vibrates the strings without making contact with them. The group has plans to play more concerts in 2024.

 

Dan Ryan's compositional prowess has recently seen him providing the musical score to a full-length documentary film, titled 'English Eccentrics: A Life in Textiles', directed by London filmmaker Oliver David. The score features an hour and a half of synthesizer-based music that was composed in the style of the film's setting: the London music scene in the late 70's and 80's. Ryan has also contributed the musical score to Baltimore filmmaker Daniela Mileykovsky's 2017 short film, "In Their Own Way." 

 

The common thread between all of these projects is an approach of intensity.  Ryan adds, no matter the project, an emotional depth and urgency that is immediately noticeable. From his blistering, technical solos in Talking Points to his understated and dark production work in Hundred Dollar Girlfriend, this intensity has brought an extra potency to Baltimore’s incredible music scene.