My Formative Years: "The Dandy Warhols Come Down" by The Dandy Warhols, 1997

This week, Rusty picks up where the inaugural My Formative Years post left off, looking at the second of what he uncommonly refers to as the "Trifecta" of albums that came out in that magical year now a decade ago.

The summer of 1997 brought to me a lot of great things that I still enjoy today. One of them was The Kids In The Hall; thanks to weekday reruns on Comedy Central, I was introduced to this Canadian sketch comedy show and such memorable characters as The Chicken Lady, Gavin, and Bellini. That, and I was able to go, "Hey Dad, look, it's Dave from Newsradio!" Needless to say, he wasn't impressed by my findings. The other thing I discovered was again, thanks to MTV surprisingly enough, some great music. Every Sunday night, I found myself glued to the TV set to catch the newest installment of 120 Minutes, the only show that mattered on MTV. Started in the late 1980s, the show was a haven for new and undiscovered bands. Think of it as college radio's equivalent to TV basically. I remember Matt Pinfield starting off the show, and saying they had a new video to show from Portland, Oregon's The Dandy Warhols. The name alone intrigued me, and I knew that I would like them, I just did.

Low and behold, I was right with my intuition based on a band's tribute to the artist Warhol and the whole factory scene of the late 1960s. The video was for their single, "Not If You Were The Last Junkie On Earth" and it just floored me. It was insatiable pop that I couldn't just shake. For the next several days, I was humming the song in my head, it's infectious moog in the second verse, and daydreaming about key bassist/percussionist Zia McCabe. Now, I was 13 at the time, and I honestly didn't know what in the world Courtney Taylor meant when he sang 'Heroin is so passe.' Was he praising the drug, or was he lashing out against it? Thanks to the 2005's Dig!, an amazing documentary based on the tumultuous friendship between the Dandys and their comrades the Brian Jonestown Massacre, I learned that Taylor had written the song for BJM leader Anton Newcombe. The look on Anton's face when he first hears the song blaring from the tape deck was priceless: the guy was in shock, he didn't know what to do or say.

I've noticed over time that you grow to love songs instantaneously, but as the years pass by those songs lose their meaning. Upon my initial owning of ...The Dandy Warhols Come Down, their second album and first for Capitol, it was songs like "Junkie" and "Hard On For Jesus" that were the front runners as favorites. "Cool As Kim Deal" was something I noted in an unpublished 1997 review for my junior high school's paper, The Thunder, as a song about their love for a member of The Breeders who had died (I obviously have been schooled since then, and know that Kim Deal is alive and well. I met her once.) But today, it's more of the A-side that still sticks with me, "Orange" specifically. It was such a simple song and infatuated me with its production. The same, hollow drum beat, simple guitar and three bass notes trudged along for almost six minutes. None of my friends dug it, but I did. The beautiful lament "Green" was my 'I have a crush on you, let me scribble the lyrics to you in a note during 5th period' song in high school. Let me tell you how successful that was.

But I digress. I don't know if they've made an album that has topped this. Maybe it's follow-up, 2000's Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia might top it, but that's up for discussion. What some may not know is that when the band was signed to Capitol in 1996, the album they handed over was rejected by the label. They were told to return to the studio and record some hits, and "Junkie" and "Everyday Should Be A Holiday" were born. Songs like "Good Morning" and "Boys Better" went through some drastic changes, but the band still acknowledges their beginnings. You can get the appropriately titled The Black Album at their official webstore. Compare and contrast and see which one holds up better. Their near 10 minute rendition of "The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald" is rather amazing.

"Not If You Were The Last Junkie On Earth"


Buy: ...The Dandy Warhols Come Down [Here]