For Dandy Warhols, change is a constant

The Dandy Warhols, with a newfound stripped-down vibe, will play the Trocadero on Wednesday with 1776 and Psychic Ills.
The Dandy Warhols, with a newfound stripped-down vibe, will play the Trocadero on Wednesday with 1776 and Psychic Ills.
Posted: May 25, 2012

In a recent conversation with Courtney Taylor-Taylor - de facto leader, singer, lyricist, and guitarist of the Dandy Warhols - the subject of progress comes up: Would his next album resemble his band's newest project, This Machine?

"We won't know until we get there," Taylor-Taylor says of Dandy Warhols' newfound stripped-down vibe. Not knowing where he's going until he gets there is what has made Taylor-Taylor's career noises so challenging to his audiences, and to himself.

"We have found that we do what we do, and any result of that is purely incidental," the singer says with a laugh before admitting he's not sure who his new fans are or where they come from, let alone knowing much about how he snagged the original ones in the first place.

You wouldn't usually think of the Dandy Warhols' often dramatic brand of nu-new wave as threadbare or unadorned. Between the years 2000 and 2008, Taylor-Taylor's band recorded four albums of melodic, glittering pop art-inspired rock, the most infamous being 2003's Welcome to the Monkey House, produced by Duran Duran's Nick Rhodes.

The album was inspired by David Bowie's famed Berlin trilogy ( Low, Heroes, Lodger), and it was hardly a surprise that Taylor-Taylor's Dandys finally came around to epically theatrical pop. Yet, longtime fans of the Dandy Warhols will recall that 1995's debut, Dandys Rule OK, was lean, mean, and heavily influenced by Lou Reed's minimalist '60s outfit the Velvet Underground. They even had a song titled "Lou Weed."

But here we are at the near primal This Machine, a spare and gloriously grimy album, with Taylor-Taylor and his crew aping the garage grotesque of Texas' 13th Floor Elevators as well as the Cramps' acrid brand of shockabilly.

"I think, when you strip back to just two guitar parts, you naturally find that dirtier is better," Taylor-Taylor says of the new album's raw and rangy roar.


The Dandy Warhols, 1776, and Psychic Ills play at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Trocadero, 1003 Arch St. Tickets: $23.50 advance, $25 at the door. Information: 215-922-6888, www.thetroc.com.

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