Though they still tend towards
pastiche, the Dandy Warhols' third full-length, Thirteen Tales From
Urban Bohemia, presents a bakers' dozen of their most focused and
cohesive songs. Where their earlier albums were eclectic to the point
of being scattershot, this release manages to limit the band's
style-switching to dreamy, sweeping epics like "Godless" and
"Nietzsche," sussed, sleazy power pop like "Horse Pills" and "Cool
Scene," and country and gospel ventures like "Country Leaver" and "The
Gospel." The group's increasingly strong songwriting makes most of
these experiments successful and distinctive, though the Dandys fall
into their old habit of appropriating sounds they like wholesale with
"Shakin'," a "tribute" to Elastica's uptight yet sexy riffs and
rhythms. Not surprisingly, the most successful songs on Thirteen Tales
From Urban Bohemia are the least derivative ones, such as anxious pop
songs like "Solid," "Get Off," and the delicate, lovelorn ballad
"Sleep." On those tracks, as well as the satirical single "Bohemian
Like You" — this year's model of their hit "Not If You Were the Last
Junkie on Earth" — the Dandys reveal themselves as a savvy pop band
with a voice of their own. Though they're not all the way there yet,
Tales From Urban Bohemia is a worthwhile step in their developing
creativity.
by Beth Massa, Amazon.com
Amazon.com's Best of 2000
"I wear my influences like a f***ing badge," proclaims lead
singer-songwriter Courtney Taylor regarding Thirteen Tales from Urban
Bohemia. But while the Dandy Warhols liberally steal Rolling Stones
riffs, Iggy Pop vocals, Britpop sonic surfing, and even Burt Bacharach
horn sections, they give it back in spades, delivering one of the best
rock albums of 2000: a masterpiece of sex, beauty, strife, and wry,
raunchy-cool attitude.
by Robert Burrow, Amazon.co.uk
13 Tales From Urban Bohemia,
the third album from the Dandy Warhols, has the band departing from
the degenerate slacker psychedelia of their previous works. Well,
mostly. From the first three tracks of Urban Bohemia, you'd be
forgiven for thinking that it's business as usual for the Dandys.
However, when the slide guitar (and, yes, banjo) of "Country Leaver"
kicks in, it's clear that Courtney Taylor is taking his Portland,
Oregon-based band somewhere different. From that point, the album
changes tack and becomes one of the catchiest--and sardonic--American
rock albums in recent memory. "Solid" is all upbeat harmonies about
the joy of getting over a previous lover, while "Horse Pills"--which
starts with Taylor's deadpan and indifferent command to "kick it"--is
all big, fuzzy guitars and hip-hop beats wielded against too-rich,
silicon-and-valium-addicted divorcées. Easy targets, to be sure, but
it's when the Dandys focus their attention on wannabe artsy types on
"Bohemian Like You" that this album truly proves its worth, with a
guitar riff lifted straight off of the Rolling Stones, backed by some
Hammond organ and one of the catchiest sing-along choruses since
Pulp's "Common People". With obvious influences ranging from Lou Reed
to the Cult to Adam and the Ants, 13 Tales From Urban Bohemia is a
classic, and classy, rock album.
Description
Third effort from these Portland, Oregon rockers featuring the singles
'Get Off' and 'Bohemian Like You' which was a Top 5 hit second time
around after being used on a Vodafone advert. 'Thirteen Tales...' is
an eclectic mix of 60's influenced pop and more dreamy soundscapes
which display a heavy MyBloody Valentine influence.
Initial pressings included a
limited edition bonus disc featuring rare B-sides and live tracks.
The Dandy Warhols: Courtney Taylor-Taylor (vocals, guitar);
Pete Holmstrom (guitar); Zia McCabe (keyboards, bass); Brent DeBoer
(drums).
Additional personnel: Anton Newcombe (guitar, strings); Troy Stewart
(slide guitar); Kevin Ritchie (banjo); Eric Matthews, Vince di Fiore
(trumpet); Joe Kaczmarek, Erik Gavriluk (organ); Phil Baker (upright
bass); DJ Swamp (scratches); Meg Bobbitt (background vocals).
Producers: Courtney Taylor-Taylor, Gregg Williams, Sardy, Clark
Styles.
For their third album, everyone's favorite Portland quartet asks you
to break out the bong as they continue down the same woozy musical
paths trod by Primal Scream and The Velvet Underground. Fronted by the
always-insouciant Courtney Taylor, the Dandy Warhols mine a fertile
vein of dream pop that includes forays into atmospheric country twang
("The Gospel"), Jesus & Mary Chain-like shoe-gazing ("Horse Pills"),
and psychedelia with both Middle Eastern ("Mohammed") and Burt
Bacharach-like ("Godless") touches.
Proving that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, this very
American band manage to sound like Squeeze ("Get Off"), Elastica ("Shakin'"),
and Jonathan Richman fronting Blur following a few too many pulls on a
hookah ("Solid"). The one time where the band manage to emulate
themselves is on the driving "Bohemian Like You," a number that serves
as a follow-up to 1997's "Not If You Were the Last Junkie on Earth."
Throughout THIRTEEN, any sleepy sounding fuzz guitar or laid-back
presentations are superseded by the unmistakable pop chops of the
Dandy Warhols.
by Marc Savlov, Austin
Chronicle, October 27, 2000
Dandy vox populi Courtney
Taylor-Taylor has both the chops and the cheekbones to rule the world,
so why do the Dandys continue to play out their existence within the
deadly wilderness of post-collegiate radio and M2? They're big in
Europe, sure, but so is my dick. 1997's The Dandy Warhols Come
Down..., with the achingly catchy "Not If You Were the Last Junkie on
Earth," was a hooky little masterpiece that passed under pop radar
like a Blur in the night. This new disc, admit-tedly, took some
getting used to, with its smooth horns and Lock-Tite production, but
it's now lodged in my CD player like a bad cold. Opener/ single
"Godless" is all brass and pocket change, pure pop pleasure for wow
people, sleek and chill and yummy, so cool it oughtta be required
listening for Ob-Gyn waiting rooms. "Nietzsche" and "Cool Scene" are
psychedelic rave-ups that make you want to be the last junkie on
earth, and the sarcastic Byrdsian romp of "Bohemian Like You," with
its "whoo-hoo-hoo" chorus and Pete Holstrom's sleazy riffs, is enough
to make you go stock up on the oxblood pegged pleather trousers.
Taylor-Taylor channels both Velvets-era Lou Reed and unfiltered Luckys
this time out, and the result is a deadpan coup, improbably gorgeous,
a gooey slice of Portland boho slackadelia, horns and all.
by Joanna Lux, Ink Blot Magazine
Imagine a friend gives you the
address for a mysterious underground party. Upon arriving, you glide
through a velvet curtain while the Dandy's "Godless" chimes through
the speakers, setting the scene for the warped and surreal atmosphere.
As the seamless transition into "Mohammed" clouds the dark space, it's
clear your friend is a no-show and that your cocktail was spiked with
a heavy dose of chemical enhancements. As the effects intensify, the
volume is turned up for "Nietzsche", and the beautiful faces around
you turn sinister.
After escaping the maddening scene with a group of people who also
drank from the tainted punchbowl, together you head to the beach. The
ocean air delivers freedom without pretension, and strangers become
friends. The about-face, giddy-up sound of "Country Leaver" and
"Solid" match the feeling, "Horse Pill" moves left of the twang and
revs it up, and while grooving around the bonfire, that man with the
guitar learns all the chords to "Get Off." As the sparks flicker down,
you wander alone to the waterside. The music softens into the haunting
lullaby "Sleep", and you sit on the sand, arms grasped around your
knees, staring up at the stars. Is that angelic chorus from the
heavens or a stereo?
Back in the city at an upbeat and friendly after-hours gathering,
"Cool Scene" strikes you as a Zombies or Turtles tune for 2000. Super
catchy "Bohemian Like You" also oozes mid-60's pop, but "Shakin"
flashes forward to the '80's with its Cars-inspired vocals. The crowd
thins out, and realizing it's a useless fight, you agree to leave with
the one you're attracted to. The intensity of "Big Indian" reinforces
your ultimate surrender - "maybe its karma... keep an open mind all of
the time... the future is frightening, but I feel fine." "The Gospel"
and its borrowed background chant of "comin' for to carry you home" is
a fitting end note as dawn peeks over the horizon and you finally slip
into dreamland.
thirteen tales from urban bohemia is akin to a perfectly plotted
soundtrack to an unplanned psychedelic journey - multi-dimensional and
anything you want it to be. Enjoy the ride.
by Michael Goldberg, Neumu.net
Once again, the Dandys'
Brit-pop, by way of Portland, Oregon (and a touch of early Pink
Floydian psychedelia), is on the mark, big time. One-upping their
previous masterwork, 1997's The Dandy Warhols Come Down, Thirteen
Tales... will trip you out, especially when listened to on headphones
in the post-midnight hours. With its repeated chorus, "If I could
sleep forever," "Sleep" is as hauntingly beautiful as it is hypnotic.
by Neva Chonin, Rolling Stone,
issue 848, September 14, 2000
Thirteen Tales from Urban
Bohemia signals a departure for the Dandy Warhols, a Portland,
Oregon, quartet best known for its spaced-out Brit pop. The Dandies
can still harmonize you into a trance, but they've replaced the dreamy
drone of 1997's . . . The Dandy Warhols Come Down with more diverse
atmospherics. On "Country Leaver," vocalist-guitarist Courtney Taylor
drawls his way through an archetypal country backdrop -- complete with
whinnying horses; "Solid" and "Horse Pills" (no whinnying here) cover
more abrasive, Velvet Underground-lined terrain. The cosmopolitan glam
of "Shakin' " downshifts into the disenchanted indie rock of "Big
Indian" and finally ends with the doleful harmonies and sweet,
countrified resignation of "The Gospel." Coming from a band whose
greatest hit was "Not If You Were the Last Junkie on Earth," this
album suggests that it's possible to be elegantly wasted for fifteen
minutes and survive to eloquently tell the tale.
Godless
