After CD Release, ’08 Grad Looks to Big Time
Clayton Rosa
Staff Reporter
Maybe you are ordering a caramel macchiato from Westminster Station, or buying a book from the College Bookstore. Either way, if your eyes are wandering the counter, then you may come across Blind Man Leading’s debut CD, “Fire/Escape.”
Dave Wentz,’08, will be moving to Chicago permanently to pursue his music. Wentz began songwriting after an initial stint in poetry at 13 years old.
“I would fill up these notebooks with poems, or what I thought was good poetry,” Wentz said.
Shortly thereafter, Wentz learned how to play guitar and realized many popular songs were simple in nature. “I tried writing songs, the first songs I wrote were bad but they taught me my limitations and the ways I needed to grow if I pursued this type of expression.” Wentz says.
Wentz, a music history major with a minor in jazz studies, describes the music of Blind Man Leading as “acoustic, indie, folk, and rock with a twist of jazz in it. The jazz comes from studying that music form at McDaniel.”
“I tend to gravitate towards darker lyrics but I try to differentiate between happy and sad melodies so that there is a wide spectrum of tempos and feels for the music,” Wentz says.
This transition from Westminster to Chicago, for Wentz, is influenced by a variety of components: “I wanted to get into a big urban community, I loved going abroad to Budapest and I went to Chicago recently for four days and fell in love with the city.”
“I feel like it’s time for a change of scene after graduating McDaniel College,” Wentz said. “And I’d like to move on from somewhere like Carroll County where for my purposes it may not be the best place to flourish in my art form and what I’d like to do.”
Blind Man Leading has performed at Recher Theater, Penguins down in the iGloo, and several other venues across Baltimore as well as local venues such as Westminster Station.
Blind Man Leading’s CD is available in the College Bookstore or online at: www.cdbaby.com/blindmanleading.