ARTS
Thursday, September 12, 1991
The Michigan Daily;
Page 5
Has Bob been told about this?
A cute rabbit on acid tells the Dykans everybody must get stoned
by Annette Petruso
fourth of five parts (and a Daily
exclusive - the Dylans' first U.S.
nterview)
(,'(Magic Roundabout)'s a bril-
liant old TV show, (a) sixties TV
show," explained Colin Gregory,
vocalist, bassist and whacked-out
leader-type of the Dylans, speaking
on the telephone from the Bob
Marley Recording Studios in the
Wicker, Sheffield, England.
It's this little drugged up
*abbit and he's called Dylan,"
Gregory continued, "and it's based
on Dylan, right? Really, Bob
D~ylan... obviously that's got a bit
to do with it (the band's name) as
vell. But the main part of it comes
from this right cool rabbit called
Dylan, and it's just a toy rabbit
(who) lives in this magic garden,.
He's got a guitar, and he's always
foing, yeah, peace, man, peace, yeah,
like, cool it. man, and that's all he
ever said, he was either asleep or
saying peace... ,And this is a kid's
program, you know, for five-year-
old kids. Brilliant."
Gregory is a hyperactive conver-
sant who injects his speech with- a
deep-throated hack of a laugh, like
Mumbly from Laff-a-Lympics. He
and his band, the Dylans, make music
* lot like Dylan, the rabbit, would
make if it were a musician.
,Gregory also has a serious '60s
fetish, but he expresses it in modern
musical fashion. "People sometimes
see you and they're like, 'You're
into the sixties,' and I go yeah,
yeah," Gregory said. "What we take
from the sixties is good vibes, know
what I mean? The way they felt.
right chilled when they were
writing a song. They just wrote
classics... Even the crappy garage
bands still wrote classics... I don't
full of dreamy, succulent melodies
created by electric instruments,
whirling machines and tuneful mas-
terminds. The song "Godlike" uses
moog synthesizer sounds talking
about a "she" who is "godlike,"
Colin Gregory speaks 'is bloody mind
Inspirations: "Mowing me lawn, doing simple
things like that are really interesting... Then I like
lots of old films with, like, James Garner and Doris
Day, all of those sort of things. Anything, for me,
from the fifties and sixties, and a lot of dancing..."
I went to university with - Jesus Jones:
"I don't like Jesus Jones. I used to be at
University with the keyboard player of Jesus
Jones. We used to play on the Defender machine.
video games... I used to write F-A-B on it, and he
used to write G-0-D, right? I'd be playing and he'd
be always beating my high score, and then I'd go
and beat his and every day I'd go and it would
say FAB, number two, and GOD, number one,
and then I'd put FAB, number one and what have
you. And then I met him, and it was like, 'You,
you're GOD, twat.' So we messed about for ages,
but I could've never believed he would ever be in
a band. He didn't have with doing music."
Heavy Metal can be amusing: "We're just out
to have a laugh, you know? Heavy metal is really,
really funny. It's the greatest watching all those
people, you know? Not having a clue as to what
they're doing. Just going waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah
and wearing spandex trousers. Yeah, brilliant
laugh, you know? Entertainers, aren't they? Pure
entertainment. I liken them all to Elvis Presley
impersonators. " -Annette Petruso
tambourine accents the beat to keep
it near the Earth, but the wavy key-
board lines match the light vocals.
"My Hands are Tied" combines the
best elements of the two other
songs, but plays more firmly on the
ground. The organ and the bubbling
keyboards are still essential, but
guitar and louder vocals have a much
larger, groovier role.
When I talked to Gregory, he
was just finishing up work on the
Dylans' new album, which will be
released here in late October. "It all
sounds like Godlike, but a bit better
now, I think," he said. They've added
even more instruments to their
eclectic mix: "We used a melatrom
(sic), right? A bit of sitar... some
weird sine waves, computer waves.
Don't know what they're called..
Stephen Street knows what they
are."
Street, who produced Mor-
rissey's Viva Hate and a number of
Moz's early solo singles, produced
the Dylans' forthcoming album. "It
was brilliant, he's a brilliant
bloke," said Gregory. "I think he'll
go far doing what he does, you
know? He doesn't seem to do
anything, but he's got it completely
under control, you know what I
mean? We just sittin' about, dossin'
around, and he's making a sound and
he's goin', 'It's gonna work, yeah
it's gonna work,' and he starts
clicking his fingers and dancing
around... Yeah, everyone else you
work with, you know, you come
away with the tracks and you think,
'Oh, that sounds crap,' but with the
stuff he's done, we just went away
and said, 'Yeah, yeah, it's brilliant."
Gregory doesn't solely find in-
spiration from an eccentric pro-
ducer. In his youth, his musical in-
fluences, while classic, were rebel-
lious. "I've got about eighty Beatles
albums and fifty Beach Boys al-
bums," he said. "As soon as I heard
Brian Wilson, I just decided that's
what I wanted to do... I was about
See DYLANS, Page 9
Ine uylans, looKing liKe iney just stepped out orthe ivonKees Head,
even have psychedelic fruit on their album cover. "I said we want to get
some kind of concept going with fruit," said frontman Colin Gregory.
"Fruit in different, weird situations, like a bit of art, and that's all that
was said. And they came up with the pictures... like, we said... an apple
in the clouds... oranges on the moon... a lemon underneath the sea with
a propeller on and little portals -- it looks like a submarine. And 'Planet
Love' looks like a tomato with rings around it, like a Saturn planet."
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think taking that idea is retrogres-
sive." As such, the Dylans could be
compared to the Stone Roses and
other such retro bands; but the
Roses do long, lush guitar jams,
while the Dylans don't limit their
musical focus.
The band's Godlike EP is chock
backed with airy vocals and '60s
organ garnishes. The guitar bit is
standard fare, but not essential to
the song.
"Lemon Afternoon" soars even
higher, with gripping angelic "ah's"
for harmonies and slow build-ups to
each lyrical and musical phrase. A
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