Goddamn do I hate the cliché of the snarky blogster.

And now, thanks to The Morning After Girls, I’ve become one.

See, there’s good news and bad news:

The good news is that all indications from new music on TMAG’s myspace page are that after six years, they might have finally realized their 60s pop-meets-shoegaze mission statement.  After walking mostly on the wrong side of their influences with their previous effort — Shadows Evolve — a new line-up and a new home base (NYC rather than their native Australia) may have finally helped shape in practice the band that looked oh-so-very good on paper a few years ago.

The bad news is that it also appears that they’re still wielding unwarranted pretensions as fervently as ever.

You could certainly do worse than taking a Dandy Warhols’ approach to marrying 60s’ psychedelic rave-up numbers with My Bloody Valentine’s trademark wall of sound and shitting tambourine all over it, and to that end, TMAG has done well for themselves.  Their initial efforts garnered them enough success to earn a choice spot opening for Black Rebel Motorcycle Club in the States, where they found an easy audience already thoroughly ignorant of or apathetic toward second and third-generation genre robbery, er, “influence” (see also: early BMRC and the Jesus And Mary Chain).

Apparently this was enough to convince TMAG that though the closest thing they had to a hit in the U.S. was their acutely juvenile and vaguely sinister-sounding screamfest “Hi-Skies,” (an incongruous throwaway which lacks all the nuance and promise of their other material), they were entitled to espouse self-aggrandizing statements and behaviors in league with the likes of say, Oasis, who, though very much derivative themselves, had the common sense to write the anthems of millions before running their mouths and acting like pricks.

Of course, it’s completely unfair to generalize.  So let’s run through the evidence:

Exhibit A (from a WOXY “Lounge Act” interview and performance in 2006)

WOXY INTERVIEWER: Is it hard — do you guys get recognized now, pretty easily, here in the States?

TMAG #1: Uh, what — walking down the streets?

WOXY: Yeah, I’m just curious.

TMAG #2: No.

TMAG #1: Yeah. Well, I don’t know man.

TMAG #2: You do?

TMAG #1: Yeah, each time we come back, I guess.

Now, let’s clarify that question and its response:

Q: “Do you, The Morning After Girls, get recognized walking down the street in the United States?”

A: “Yes.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: 60s pop, always mine, black rebel motorcycle club, bmrc, Dandy Warhols, general public, hi-skies, hollywood bowl, mercury lounge, My Bloody Valentine, nickelback, oasis, shadows evolve, snark, Spaceland, spinal tap, straight thru you, The Cure, the morning after girls, TMAG, Troubadour, viper room, who is they, woxy, wyld stallyns

Check out this exclusive podcast interview with elusive MusicZeitgeist.com writer Truffle Jones during his exhaustive Week of Shows.

They cover such an exhaustive range of topics and bands from how indies should design their merch to why My Bloody Valentine still sounds more modern than ever, the hottest new indie bands you’ve never read or heard about anywhere (yet), mr. Gnome, Margot & the Nuclear So and So’s, Dandy Warhols, the downtown LA Weekly Detour festival featuring Mars Volta, the new Kings of Leon album and what it will take for MGMT to be truly ready for the big time.  There’s too much to list – you’ll just have to hear this one hour action packed special for yourself.

You can also hear it/subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.

Tags: Beck, Courtney Love, Dandy Warhols, Greek Theater, indie music, iTunes, Kings of Leon, LA Weekly Detour Festival, Los Angeles, Margot & The Nuclear So And So's, mars volta, MGMT, mr. Gnome, My Bloody Valentine tour, Pixies, PJ Harvey, podcast, Primus, Radiohead, Rage Against the Machine, Rattle and Hum, Rush, Sigur Ros, Tool, Truffle Jones, U2, Week of Shows

October 3, 2008
Week Of Shows, Episode Seven

If all you knew about The Dandy Warhols’ leader – Courtney Taylor-Taylor – came from the documentary DiG!, you might be under the impression that he’s an ego-motivated, publishing royalty-hogging narcissist.  And you’re probably right.  But whether or not he’s a danger to himself and his band, he’s also enviably talented and prolific.  Part of what’s continually set The Dandy Warhols apart from other purveyors of smart, self-aware pop tunes with limitless and obvious influences has been their ability to find moments on their records for unexpected, experimental sub-rock vignettes to separate their radio-friendly wares.  It’s in these moments that Taylor-Taylor and company show depth, demonstrating their development as artists while simultaneously keeping the rest of their material fresh.

So it’s ironic that what’s made The Dandy Warhols most intriguing to listen to over the years also made them relatively uninteresting to watch live Friday night at the Wiltern Theater.

It would be unfair to expect any rock band to put on a live exposé of just their best-known, up-tempo songs, particularly when touring in support of a new effort (in this case, …Earth To The Dandy Warhols).  But at the same time, it’s not unreasonable to expect a group to deliver the goods with minimal self-indulgence.  That’s sort of the unspoken understanding between rock fans and their idols – “You can play the new stuff and the ones that make you feel artsy, but don’t forget the hits.  We paid for this shit.  Don’t get all Van Morrison on us.”

Things got off to a good start with the show opener, “Minnesoter” (from 1997’s The Dandy Warhols Come Down or their Black Album, depending how you want to look at it), but rapidly decayed into an uninspiring showcase of new material and less-than-live-friendly meanderings.  A once-bobbing crowd grew sedate, then became thinner as the night wore on.

This isn’t to say the group avoided their most popular songs entirely, but it was a Friday night, and people wanted to have fun and dance, generally all at once — and for sustained periods of time.

To that end, the show’s zenith was the triple threat of “All The Money Or The Simple Life Honey,” (which Taylor-Taylor introduced as “appropriate for L.A./Hollywood.”) “Bohemian Like You” and “Get Off.”  At no time during the night before or after was the crowd as kinetic as when this trio hit – made evident when keyboardist Zia McCabe’s face burst into a spontaneous grin as she surveyed the energized crowd during “Bohemian.”

Soon after, a pair of women beside me wondered aloud if they were then going to hear “Everyday Is Like A Holiday” (no), “We Used To Be Friends” (no), or “Not If You Were The Last Junkie On Earth (very understandably, no).

There were plenty of other well-known songs in the set (“Sleep,” the Bowie-esque “You Were The Last High,” “Godless” and “Welcome To The Third World” were high points, as was the first single from …Earth, “The World People Together (Come On)”), but the odd pacing and order of these songs combined with others (such as “The New Country” and “The Legend Of The Last Of The Outlaw Truckers…”) made the night a mixed bag at best.

By the time things got going again with the set-enders “Boys Better” and “Country Leaver,” a lot of the crowd was gone and there was plenty of room in the pit to stroll right up to the front of the stage.  Not a sold-out affair to begin with (with pockets in the balcony painfully bare), the Dandies must have decided it was time for them to go, too – and left without an encore.

Come to think of it – those unsold seats?  Maybe the people who didn’t come saw The Dandy Warhols last time around, and knew what to expect.

Tags: black album, Brian Jonestown Massacre, Courtney Taylor-Taylor, Dandy Warhols, DiG!, friday night, indie clothing, indy, live review, Los Angeles, los angeles california, narcissist, new stuff, pop tunes, rock band, rock fans, royalty, self indulgence, Sundance, taylor and company, van morrison, wares, Wiltern Theater