Courtney Taylor-Taylor is having a good day. The Dandy Warhols singer, guitarist and bon vivant just hung up the phone with AT&T after securing a deal that’ll save him big bucks. As he lives in a small town in Washington, right by the Columbia River, his long distance bill gets substantial. Still, it’s worth it to live among some of the most spectacular landscape a glacier ever created.
“It’s just epic. Giant cataclysmic events tend to result in what we call beautiful landscapes. It’s very beautiful where I live,” says Taylor-Taylor. He sounds like a man at peace.
The Dandy Warhols broke out of Portland, Ore., in 1995 and Taylor-Taylor (formerly just one Taylor before he whimsically expanded his name) retains his old house there.
“Cities have such an emotional cost. I like small-town life, it’s just free.”
What with the band’s still-sizable schedule of city-trekking touring though, Taylor-Taylor has the best of both worlds.
“Touring is this other thing, it’s pretty crazy. For me, the country is where you really can relax. Later, I’m going to walk down to hardware store to pick up some outlets, it’s about 60 yards away. Then I’m gonna get a couple of steaks from the market. I’ll open a nice Bordeaux from the ‘90s. That’ll be my day. And,” he adds in a tone of grand accomplishment, “that was the day before and the day before.”
The Warhols get a best-of
The title of The Dandy’s latest album says much: Issued by their former major label, “The Dandy Warhols Collection: The Capitol Years: 1995-2007” collects material from the band’s four Capitol Records releases and adds the new song, “This Is The Tide,” as well as two tracks from their 2009’s “The Dandy Warhols Are Sound” — forming a catch-up retrospective that romps through the band’s fabulous, fun, Velvet Underground-influenced, shoegaze-y psych-pop.
