I simply adore The Dandy Warhols. Love them the way some people love club drugs, which I would love too if my doctor hadn’t told me using them could leave me with a permanent stutter, stutter, stutter, stutter. The Dandy Warhols have the magical knack of finding that magic pocket, where you can groove all night long beneath the flashing strobe lights in your mind, and where every day is a holiday, and you’re encouraged to smoke it, smoke it, smoke it.
They gave us the great “Lou Weed,” the magnificent “Boys Better,” the totally transcendent “Holding Me Up,” the lift your arms to heaven “Godless,” the wonderful “Down Like Disco,” and that glorious wake-up call to ecstasy that is “Good Morning.” And let’s not forget “Cool as Kim Deal,” which proves they’re cooler than Kim Deal, for real.
And I could end this review there, except that like the junkie in “Not If You Were the Last Junkie on Earth” I want it all, everything they’ve ever released to a public that has proven it doesn’t deserve them, and that includes the 2009 four-song EP “Deep Cuts,” which includes two remixes, an original, and a cover of a David Bowie song. I have it right here, right now, at this very moment, and I swear to God, I love The Dandy Warhols so much I could lick it. You heard me. There, I just licked it. Tastes like great music! I think I’ll lick it again!
“Deep Cuts” opens with a hyperkinetic remix of “Every Day Should Be a Holiday,” speeded up and designed especially to get you moving on the dance floor or, if you’re like me, that dance club in your head. Same great groove as the original, only with lots of electronic zipping and zapping going on. You gotta love those vocals, and that guitar riff, and as for the sentiment, who’s gonna disagree?
Meanwhile, “Lance,” a song off of 2004’s double LP The Black Album/Come on Feel the Dandy Warhols, also boasts a neat groove, but it’s slower, and opens with the great lines, “I really might seem retarded/But I really want to see you again.” Meanwhile some great backing vocalists throw in, along with a plucky keyboard, and oddly enough, and this truly is odd, “Lance” kinda reminds me of a Nirvana song.
The Coates & Stiles mix of “We Used to Be Friends” does some big throbbing, while that big guitar riff buries the vocals somewhat. Somebody keeps tossing in a phrase I can’t make out, while electricity comes at you from all directions, and the song gets bigger and bigger until you’re free, it has freed you, basically by punching some sense into you with its humongous, pulsating rhythm.
It then takes its good old time fading out, leaving you with a haphazard acoustic cover (also off The Black Album) of David Bowie’s “Jean Genie.” Courtney Taylor-Taylor sings it in a carefully enunciated voice, somebody coughs, and Taylor-Taylor finally abandons the song, saying, “Alright. That’s all I know. I don’t know the third verse. You know, I a, I a, used it as an excuse to e-mail Bowie. That’s all. Thanks man.”
The Dandy Warhols produced some of the best grooves of the eve of the 21st Century, and if you really don’t know them but want to familiarize yourself with their work I recommend … The Dandy Warhols Come Down and Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia. To me they’re the epitome of cool; a band that does what it wants when it wants, and too bad if you don’t like it.
I will never get enough of “Godless,” “Holding Me Up,” or God help us “Boys Better,” which will always be one of my favorite tunes. Check it out. If it doesn’t sway you, you’re a hopeless case and might as well stick to your Killers albums, loser. If you like it, you’ll be one of the elect. Or check out the video for “Smoke It.” It features dogs and more dogs, and will make you happy, unless you’re some kind of dog hater, you unbearable prick. Plus they have a song called “Nietzsche”! And any band that’s up on its German philosophy can’t be wrong!
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A-
