Black Album

Late January in Portland, 1996. The Dandy Warhols are hammering out the most deranged psych pop of their career in hopes of blowing the lids off their newfound suitors from Capitol Records, completely unaware that one of Oregon's biggest natural disasters was raging outside their studio walls. The notorious Willamette Valley flood of '96 chalked up over $500 million in property damage in the Pacific Northwest, but fell short of The Dandys' studio space by 2 blocks. Courtney, Peter, Zia and Eric escaped the carnage without a scratch, the perfect metaphor for the band's 3-decade-spanning journey. They survived the major label buzz, an international hit single, "the documentary", the rise and fall of brit pop, and a post-Napster music industry. What's a little water gonna do? Riding off the debut hype of 1995's Dandys Rule Ok, this new batch of songs saw a band spinning into an unknown. Bigger budgets meant bigger expectations, and The Dandy Warhols didn't want to lose their lipsticked