Tag: Dandy Warhols

Categories
Playlists

Playlist: New tunes from 2024, part one

Well, hello there. Did you miss me?

Yes? No?

It’s been a minute (or over a month) since I last posted to these pages. This hiatus wasn’t planned. Life just happened to get in the way, as it has a habit of doing.

My intention was to post this first part of my annual playlist of new tunes just over six weeks ago. The playlist was put together, vetted, and reviewed near the beginning of April, and yet, I didn’t have the words to go with them.

Indeed, 2024 has been a mixed bag so far, good times and bad. Stuff has happened, life has moved on, and yet, I’m not sure I can point to anything specific or any detail anything of note for the first three months of the year. Nevertheless, if I look back at the previous year for comparison, I gotta say things are an improvement, right?

Right.

Well, at the very least I can point to music as a constant in the pro column. There has been some brand new discoveries, as well as new stuff from old faves. The music has definitely been there. And for that, I am grateful.

This will mark the sixth year running that I’ve done this exercise of sharing the best of the new music that has caught my ear during the year in playlist format. As I have for the last few years, I’ll be doing a separate part for each quarter of the upcoming year. This first part here is made up of twenty five songs from albums released between January and March and all things being equal, you ‘should’ see twenty-five more songs from the spring months at some point in late July.

So without further ado, I’ll present the music that has helped keep me going over the first three months of 2024. Highlights include:

  • Starting at the midway point in the playlist, we have “Caesar on a TV screen”, a single by British indie buzz band The Last Dinner Party and listening to it, it’s obvious that they are worthy of all the hype heaped upon them
  • Speaking of expectations, lots have been heaped upon the new album by Liam Gallagher (Oasis) and John Squire (The Stone Roses) and in my opinion, the results have been mixed but on certain singles, like “Just another rainbow”, we have seen these expectations realized
  • The Jesus and Mary Chain are a band that are revered for very good reason and their latest fits right in with some of their best, “JAMCOD” is just a perfect example of how excellent this band still is
  • Dan Boeckner has wowed the indie music world with the various projects he has unleashed over the years, like Wolf Parade, Divine Fits, Handsome Furs, and Operators, and “Don’t worry baby” is just one of the many great tracks on his debut solo album
  • Closing things off with “Peace sign”, the first single released off “Interplay”, the latest and very excellent album released by shoegaze icons Ride

Here is the entire playlist as I’ve created it:

1. “Literary mind” Sprints (from the album Letter to self)

2. “Sometimes, I swear” The Vaccines (from the album Pick-up full of pink carnations)

3. “No caffeine” Marika Hackman (from the album Big sigh)

4. “How lost” The Fauns (from the album How lost)

5. “Gone” The Umbrellas (from the album Fairweather friend)

6. “Say goodbye” Future Islands (from the album People who aren’t there anymore)

7. “I got the fear” Torres (from the album What an enormous room)

8. “Change my mind” NewDad (from the album Madra)

9. “Waves” Kula Shaker (from the album Natural magic)

10. “Language” New Model Army (from the album Unbroken)

11. “Caesar on a TV screen” The Last Dinner Party (from the album Prelude to ecstasy)

12. “Hollowed out” Ducks Ltd (from the album Harm’s way)

13. “House of self-undoing” Chelsea Wolfe (from the album She reaches out to she reaches out to she)

14. “Terrible news” Middle Kids (from the album Faith crisis pt 1)

15. “I want to be with you” Lime Garden (from the album One more thing)

16. “The spark” Elephant Stone (from the album Back into the dream)

17. “Water underground” Real Estate (from the album Daniel)

18. “Bubblegum dog” MGMT (from the album Loss of life)

19. “Just another rainbow” Liam Gallagher & John Squire (from the album Liam Gallagher & John Squire)

20. “JAMCOD” The Jesus & Mary Chain (from the album Glasgow eyes)

21. “The summer of hate” The Dandy Warhols (from the album Rockmaker)

22. “Don’t worry baby” Boeckner (from the album Boeckner!)

23. “Lover’s leap” Elbow (from the album Audio vertigo)

24. “Evil spawn” Waxahatchee (from the album Tiger’s blood)

25. “Peace sign” Ride (from the album Interplay)

Apple Music fans can click here to sample the above tracks as a whole playlist.

And as always, wherever you are in the world, I hope you are safe and continue to be well. Above all, enjoy the tunes.

If you’re interested in checking out any of the other playlists I’ve created and shared on these pages, you can peruse them here.

Categories
Albums

Best albums of 2000: #2 The Dandy Warhols “Thirteen tales from urban bohemia”

Just about five years ago, I was nearing the end of my Best tunes of 2000 list and the excellent second single of this record, “Bohemian like you”, came up at number two. I’ve got my posts linked so that when they go live, a blast also goes out through my Twitter account and I distinctly remember that when that particular post went out, whoever manages the Dandy Warhols Twitter account gave my tweet a like but responded that the song should’ve been number one. And they weren’t wrong. It definitely would’ve been at the top if it weren’t for that one niggling song by Coldplay.

Well, if the Dandy Warhols Twitter handlers are paying attention again, my apologies to you because you’re once again second best. But at least this time, it won’t be to Coldplay.*

“Thirteen tales of urban bohemia” was the album that got me hooked on the Dandies. When I saw the album on the CD racks of HMV**, I picked it up and flashed right on back to seeing them open for The Charlatans three years prior. That momentary jolt and total recall pushed me to bring the compact disc home with me. And the album’s mix of psych and glam and country rock was a whole lot of fun and had me returning the disc to the platter quite often that year. I remember bringing it into work with me and playing it for Michael, my tool rental colleague, as well as (incidentally) the recent Charlatans album, “Us and us only”, as a way of refuting his theory that rock was dead in the face of pop and hip hop. Of course, I didn’t know at the time that frontman Courtney Taylor-Taylor has made reference to the fact that the band had wanted to make one last great classic rock record when they went into the studio to make this album.

Well, I don’t know about classic rock but it is certainly a great rock record and criminally, overlooked, if you ask me. It got a bit of burn in the UK after the aforementioned single was picked up for commercial use but if it weren’t for that, it might have gone nearly unnoticed.

“Thirteen tales of urban bohemia” was the Portland, Oregon-quartet’s third album but first with new drummer, Brent DeBoer, who came on to replace the original kit man Eric Hedford. It is a collection of thirteen fantastic and playful tunes that show a band peaking and getting it all exactly right. There is so much to love here that I could go on all day but I will limit myself to sharing my typical three picks for you. Enjoy.

“Get off”: “I love god all the same / But all I wanna do is get off / I feel it I feel it I feel it babe / Baby, come on” The first of my picks was the first single to be released off the album. Track eight is just over three minutes of pumping and chugging adrenaline. It doesn’t seem to be deep at all. No hidden meaning. No politics or diatribe. Just good fun. Like the first night of frost week. Like the celebration after winning the championship. The guitars get a boost from The Brian Jonestown Massacre’s Anton Newcombe, who if you believe the hype from the documentary “Dig!” that came out a few years later, was in a constant feud with the band. It don’t sound as much here, the guitars fall right in line with the rhythm of the drums, the feet stomp and the whole band grunts and groans its agreement with our intrepid frontman.

“Godless“: The opening track was released as single number three. As an opener, it totally works, that yawning and searing, reverb soaked guitar intro just eases its way up and down your spine and allows you time to soak it all in until the song and really, the album starts in properly. At just after the thirty second mark, the acoustic strumming commences, as does the marching rhythm and the trumpet flourishes provided by hired gun, Eric Matthews. Courtney Taylor-Taylor’s vocals are understated here, mostly a whisper and a hint at what’s to come. “Hey, I said you’re godless man /Hey, and you’re a soulless friend /Hey, I said you’re thoughtless / And I swear, I swear.” He’s crooning and hitting out at all the evil deeds done in the name of religion and godliness, and it feels quite in line with thematic titles that appear later in the album, like “Nietzsche” and “Mohammed”.

“Bohemian like you”: The second single to be released off of “Thirteen tales” is arguably one of the band’s biggest tunes and commercially high points. Not bad for a tune that started off as Taylor-Taylor’s musings and fantasizing about a girl stopped at a traffic light outside of his apartment. “Wait! Who’s that guy? Just hanging at your pad. He’s looking kinda bummed. Yeah, you broke up, that’s too bad. I guess it’s fair if he always pays the rent and he doesn’t get bent about sleeping on the couch when I’m there.” As I wrote about the tune when it appeared at number two on my best tunes of 2000 list, it’s a hell of a rocker, like many of the tracks on the album. But this one, in my opinion, is elevated slightly higher by its ability to not take itself, nor its performers too seriously. Woo-ooo-ooo!

Once again, I’m still not on a regular schedule around here so I won’t promise when we’ll get to album #1… but, as I say below, I’m hoping to close off this list before this year is out. In the meantime, here are the previous albums in this list:

10. Richard Ashcroft “Alone with everybody”
9. The New Pornographers “Mass romantic”
8. The Cure “Bloodflowers”
7. The Weakerthans “Left and leaving”
6. The Clientele “Suburban light”
5. Belle and Sebastian “Fold your hands child, you walk like a peasant”
4. Coldplay “Parachutes”
3. Mojave 3 “Excuses for travellers”

You can also check out my Best Albums page here if you’re interested in my other favourite albums lists.

*Coldplay’s “Parachutes” came in at number four. I am hoping that the number one album for this list will see the light of day before the end of this year.

**Remember them?

Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 2012: #27 The Dandy Warhols “I am free”

<< #28    |    #26 >>

When The Dandy Warhols last graced these pages, it was September in 2017 and they were hitting up the number two spot on my Best tunes of 2000 list with the very, very excellent, “Bohemian like you”. I wrote in that post how I saw them live before I had properly become familiar with their music but was so enthused by their set that I purchased “Thirteen tales from urban bohemia” on CD a few years later, without first hearing a note. The rest was history, I suppose. I bought “Welcome to the monkey house” when it came out in 2003, watched the 2004 documentary “Dig!”, and went back to explore their 1990s output. It seemed to me that I had found a new favourite band – I’ve had many over the years – but then, the Dandies went through a period where their excesses were allowed to overflow their bubbling cauldron. I couldn’t get into their 2005 album, “Odditorium or warlords of mars”, at all, and ditto for its successor, 2008’s “…Earth to the Dandy Warhols…”. I moved on.

The Portland, Oregon based alternative rock quartet were relatively quiet for the next bunch of years, their only musical releases being an alternate version of “Monkey house” (called “The Dandy Warhols are sound”) that came out in 2009 and ‘best of’ compilation released by their old label just before they parted ways with them in 2010. There were murmurs of a new album in 2011 when frontman Courtney Taylor-Taylor joked about potential album titles while on tour. However, when “This machine” was finally launched in the spring of 2012, it came upon me as a surprise. Being the forgiving sort that I am, I gave it a spin and it ended up being featured on my old blog, Music Insanity, as one of my favourite releases of the month.

For this album, The Dandy Warhols opted for a simpler, ‘stripped down’ approach and for me, it felt a lot less excessive and a lot more palatable. “I am free”, for example, contrives to sneak up to some of their early singles and rival them in the ear worm category. The jumping and reverberating guitar line by Peter Holmström deserves a true guitar rock god stance, legs spread wide and axe held aloft. Brent De Boer pounds the drums and Zia McCabe holds the bass line steady and true. Taylor-Taylor, of course, fronts it all with his usual tongue in cheek attitude, his laidback, slacking delivery giving it just the right vibe. And when the horns kick in at the end, it doesn’t even feel like they’re crowding themselves into an already packed room. It feels effortless and easy.

Yeah. “I am free” is easily my favourite song on the album but it is by no means the only good track. To me, it was like a comeback of sorts, a righting of the ship, a beginning of a new course that followed the band through the string of their next bunch of albums.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2012 list, click here.