7-9's Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia review (8 out of 10)
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neilchase.com
Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia
by Neil Chase
July 2000
With the wealth of distinctively average albums prevailing in the American mainstream, it's always a delight to come across a band that found a quirky niche and have made it their own. Fellow compatriots Cake or Eels have done the same thing. The Dandy Warhols are a bit brasher than those bands, but there's a whole lot of fun here too.
The four members come from Portland, Oregon, and this is their third album. Main man Courtney Taylor played drums in a band called Beauty Stab before putting the Dandys together in the early 1990's. The rest of the band are Pete Holmström (guitars), Zia McCabe (keyboards), and Brent DeBoer (backing vocals & drums). The previous drummer was Eric Hedford, but he left the band in 1998 - amicably! The previous two selections Dandy's Rule OK (1995) and The Dandy Warhols Come Down (1997) kicked off the sense of enjoyment that weaves it's way through this one too. They still continue to bring their brand of tunes to the party table. Godless starts the selection off nicely with a very easy tune that could almost launch into George Harrison's My Sweet Lord. That then flows into Mohammed, which meanders around wonderfully, mixing simple beats with a Middle Eastern flavour and slide guitars. Get Off is strikingly fun, but still with the underlying current of poignancy. Bohemian Like You starts off as it were the Rolling Stones, Horse Pills wakes you up with something that begins like ZZ Top. Thrashier maybe, but the clever lines are still there; taking a stab at the American nouveau elite. "You get so hot from the highlife bills, cruisin' and boozin' and rockin' on the horse size pills."
The Dandy Warhols don't get massive radio airplay around the world (though the first single from this collection; Get Off is about as pop-friendly as anything they've done before) and are generally known more by word of mouth, rather than big promotion. [Another good reason to play this album on "7~9" - if any more were needed!] Their fans have been more inspired by Brit-pop than traditional American rock, though this album bridges those divides perfectly. Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia is a thoroughly enjoyable collection of guitar rock tracks with a shiny pop side, which is both fun an intelligent. They are still unlikely to break into more mainstream acceptance, but these guys are having such fun that they don't seem to care.
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