I can remember when The Dandy Warhol's epic single Bohemian Like You was released. I was pretty much about ten or whatever and became majorly obsessed with that video, not only because the song was obviously totally bitchin', but because it featured all the things that we were not allowed to watch as children. Specifically, drinking, drugs, and nudity. All the good stuff. Our Mother would race into the sitting room in a crazed frenzy every time it began to play and switch it off with a furious anger. The scenario began to repeat itself almost like a comedy when me and my brother would set off the song on the loudest volume as possible as a trigger to provoke our Mother into a rage while we requisitely pissed ourselves laughing.
Anyway, their latest album, "Distortland", drops this Friday and I actually can't even deal. I've been a fan ever since that video. The video for their gnarly new track, "You Are Killing Me" has just been released and it stars one of New York City's counter-cultural icons, Mr. Joe Dallesandro. Who pretty much is one of the coolest people.
As it happens, I recently seen Dallesandro at a Lincoln Centre retrospective In NYC in honour of Charlotte Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin. I noticed he was accompanied by the late Teddy Antolin, the uber chic artist and genius Hair Stylist to David Bowie and Iman, amongst many others. Pictured below.
The Dandy Warhols, on a side point, first met Bowie when he was singing along to them playing live. Back at Glastonbury in 2000. The band looked to the side of the stage during their set to see Bowie and his band, in their black suits, playing along. Then Bowie took them on tour as the opening act for the European dates of his Reality Tour, which would be his last tour, ever.
Hear about it here in an audio interview they gave:
I also happened to see that Joe posted something about Teddy, on his Facebook:
Dallesandro first came to my attention through the Andy Warhol underground films, which I just became fascinated with as a teenager. They included Flesh, Heat, and Trash, all of which were directed by Warhol collaborator Paul Morrissey. Holly Woodlawn and Joe Dellesandro seemed like the coolest people I had ever seen. I would have been 16 at the time. Nobody in my school had a notion about any of this. I went to parties and people hadn't a clue. Most people wanted to be Hollywood film stars, or pop singers, footballers, or go into business when they left secondary. I knew what I wanted to be, I admired the hustlers, the bohemians, the challenging artists, the justifiable criminals, the underground writers. Most people had pictures of Kings of Leon or the Arctic Monkeys on their wall during that time. I had Bowie. Andy Warhol. Oscar Wilde.
In the new video for "You Are Killing Me", Dallesandro plays a writer being slapped around by a vicious dose of writers block. Running out of booze, a writers best friend, he stumbles out of his apartment where he's drinking and being crawled upon by tarantulas, and goes to a bar, and drinks, and drinks, and drinks. After knocking himself out, he dreams of . . . wait for it . . . Furries. Zia McCabe, from the band, did her part dressed in a bunny suit, and the video was shot in the hotel Dallesandro manages.
Video Director Mark Helfrich shared a statement regarding the video on Pitchfork's website:
"The concept for the video came out of Courtney's desire to have a film featuring not only Joe Dallesandro, but furries as well. I thought Joe had the perfect look for a Film Noir setting. So I came up with a trippy treatment and everybody signed off on it.
The day before shooting I got a message that Zia was flying to Los Angeles because she wanted to be the Bunny! So Zia's the Bunny. I was thrilled to work with the iconic Joe Dallasandro. He hasn't acted much in the past couple of decades, but he wanted to do this project because he digs the Dandy Warhols. It was an honour to direct him."
So basically, I still think they are all as cool as I ever did. Inspirational, to be sure.