E-Mail This Article to a Friend Bands on the run The Dandy Warhols continue to outpace BJM BY ADAM BREGMAN
	Related Links The Dandy Warhols' official Web site Matt Ashare watches the Dandy Warhols at the Paradise. Matt Ashare discusses the Dandy Warhols and their ’60s-ish garage-band sound.

Back in the mid ’90s, as the Dandy Warhols, who play the Paradise this Wednesday with the Out Crowd, were on the upswing and the Brian Jonestown Massacre were, well, busy being the Brian Jonestown Massacre, the two retro-hip, ’60s-loving bands were the best of friends. Filmmaker Ondi Timoner tried to document their corner of the indie scene, but it was the rivalry that was fast developing between the Dandys and BJM that caught her lens. She spent seven years around both bands and came out with the award-winning, if rather disturbing, Dig! (now on DVD). The Dandys moved smoothly from indie heroes to international success even as the erratic behavior of BJM frontman Anton Newcombe doomed his band to obscurity.

The rise and fall of drug-addled rock bands is nothing new, but Dig! went a step farther, watching one band succeed as another failed. Dandy Warhols singer Courtney Taylor-Taylor, a readymade rock star, at one point brags, "I sneeze and hits come out." Newcombe’s main skill seems to be antagonizing his mates.

Very little looks to have changed since Dig!’s release. Both BJM and the Dandys have new CDs that cement their celluloid images. The new BJM EP, We Are the Radio (Tee Pee), comes with a press sheet in which Newcombe states, "[Co-writer/vocalist] Sara [Sarabeth Tuceck] and I believe this to be the most important work of our lives, and to a greater extent, our time." Tuceck’s main job seems to be to conjure Nico with her breathy vocals on tracks like "Never Become Emotionally Attached to Man, Woman, Beast or Child." Mostly, though, the EP’s five jangly, guitar-based tunes meander around in search of hooks, like a wasted kid looking for a roach in a heavy-metal parking lot. It’s just another reminder that no matter how many times Newcombe, the Dandys, or anyone else calls Newcombe a "genius," the word means little more than "eccentric" or "weird."

The Dandys, on the other hand, have been teetering on the edge of superstardom for a full decade. Taylor-Taylor and his main collaborator, co-producer Gregg Williams, are skillful enough songwriters. The band’s crafted image — fashion-conscious junkie bohemian — and a swirly guitar vibe accentuated by Zia McCabe’s organ and synth fills have worked wonders in Europe, where the they’ve been festival regulars for years. But they haven’t quite cracked the US market.

Odditorium or Warlords of Mars (Capitol) would seem to be the disc for the job. It’s filled with "Wonderwall"-like hooks, and Taylor-Taylor’s alluring whispers on the layered, percussive-heavy "Love Is the New Feel Awful" pulls you into one of the catchiest tracks. "Everyone Is Totally Insane," with its drugged-out, tripping-through-the-hallway-of-a-house-party groove, puts the Dandys either on the crest of a new wave of ’93 nostalgia or hoping for one to coalesce. And the first single, "Smoke It," doesn’t pretend to be more than a frenetic, playful tune with random lyrics and rhymes: "Alimony palimony/Don’t get too drunk in Vegas/At least not with a waitress/From any of those places/People got more baggage than JFK/And I’m talking about the airport man/You gotta smoke it!"

Newcombe and his band have remained trapped in the late ’60s, over-idolizing Syd Barrett’s dementia. The Dandys have kept moving on. And from the Lou Reedings of their 1995 debut, Dandys Rule OK? (Tim/Kerr) to the neo-new-wavings of 2003’s Nick Taylor–produced Welcome to the Monkey House to the willful self-indulgences of Odditorium or Warlords of Mars (all Capitol), Courtney Taylor-Taylor has ensured that they don’t get stuck in any nostalgic ruts.

Dandy Warhols + Out Crowd | Paradise Rock Club, 967 Comm Ave, Boston | Nov 30 | 617.228.6000