What did Andy Warhol's mid '60s lair on East 47th Street have in common with the Rolling Stones' classic Beggars Banquet album of '68?
To any moderate pop culture obsessive, the answer would be something to do with Factory Girls. In Warhol's entourage, they were glamorous wannabe superstars caught in a whirlwind of sex, drugs and high society. On the Stones album, she was a salt-of-the-earth wench on her way to the pub, a stray cat with fat knees and a headscarf sketched in gritty acoustic blues.
These Factory Girls, the ones comprising Dallas Crane's second album for Albert Productions, seem to come from somewhere in between. There's no specific debt to Keef or Andy, but you'd have to be deaf not to hear a timeless echo of pop art and low life, style and danger, sleaze and power, filth and beauty, lovers and sinners.
Dallas Crane have spent a decade honing these and other mysterious elements down to the raw essentials you hear on this record. In a very real sense, the 12 songs on Factory Girls have been simmering over a slow heat, till every drop of fat has fallen from their bones.
Or, in singer/ guitarist Dave Larkin's more economical turn of phrase, "What you hear on the record, we want to be able to play live."
"We've sort of gone the opposite way to most bands," says the band's other singer/ guitarist, Pete Satchell. "A lot of bands start off very minimal and get more complex. We started off really complex and we've gradually stripped it all right back.
"When we sat down to write again, we really tried to boil it down: What are the elements that make a classic song a classic song?" Pete counts off three fingers with curiously familiar names: "Melody, groove and harmony."
Bassist Pat Bourke: "We've also started to really understand how less is more: the bass, guitars and drums have got to work together, bounce off each other, but stay out of each other's way. That's the big challenge."
Hence the deceptively demanding rules of engagement on Dallas Crane's finest 38 minutes to date. There's barely a song that strays past 3 minutes, not a single chorus that fails to instantly transform your blood chemistry, not one superfluous beat or riff that doesn't know its precise place and purpose.
For starters, "Marsanne" is pure, electric rock'n'roll compressed to the kind of fundamentals that could make Lou Reed crack a smile: a pair of variously distorted guitars, a bass-line that entwines them like bondage trousers, a drum sound to make your spine crack, a chorus big enough to sing the first time around and a solo that kicks in like all your Friday nights at once.
And the party?s just begun. "Tonight (There's A Party Goin' Down)" is a rush of gleefully malevolent intent, a burst of sheer, irresponsible hedonism that strikes at the heart of Dallas Crane's unwritten manifesto. The explosive sonic hurricane of "Curiosity" ? the track that gives Factory Girls its title ? delves deep into the forbidden fruits of desire, bloodstained stilletos and all that surrounds it.
The sleazy metallic edges of "Lovers & Sinners" and "Two Can Play At This Game" contrast with the sky-bound pop harmonies of "Black Angels"; "Teenage Superpot" and "Matter of Time" twist rock ?n? roll and Motown beats to their own sinister ends; "Muddy Water" dips into some of that classic Haight Ashbury jangle.
"Kiss It All Goodbye" blends a straight Bo Diddley-style stomp with a lone, demented guitar meandering round the right channel like it's in the throes of indecision; "God Damn Pride" is a song of comfort that extends a branch to a drowning man, then offers to break his jaw. "Keep Your Head High Bella Mae" ends on a Faces meets The Band high, complete with a wall of Beach Boys harmony.
In short, Factory Girls finds Dallas Crane at the top of their game, which is hardly surprising considering how they got this far: with little more than self belief and an incurable passion for the sticky carpet of a live stage.
For those who came in late?
Dave, Pete and drummer Shan Vanderwert made their first album, Lent, eight years ago. They hit the road hard, famously bonding with You Am I en route to a second self-determined album, Twenty Four Seven, in late 2000, which entitled them to, well, play a whole lot more gigs.
In '02 the band signed a rare deal with Albert Productions, the legendary Australian label that?s handled AC/DC?s world-conquering catalogue for 30-odd years. Their self-titled album was the first to properly reflect Dallas Crane's official status, as bestowed by the Australian Live Music Awards, as the country's Best Live Band. At the 2004 ARIA Awards it was nominated for three awards, including Best Rock Album.
Factory Girls began to take shape late last year with producers Jonathan Burnside (Sleepy Jackson, Eskimo Joe) and Wayne Connolly (The Vines, You Am I) at Eastern Bloc Studios in Melbourne. Connolly joined them for additional sessions at Alberts in 2006 before Jonathan and the band reconvened to mix in Melbourne.
The result is an album that brings long-held perceptions of Dallas Crane in line with reality at last, and yet again raises the stakes for Australia's most consistent and committed rock'n'roll band.
As Pat Bourke puts it, "We haven't taken a backward step, ever. We've always progressed, every step of the way, and we?re still climbing."
Track by Track With Dave Larkin and Pete Satchell
Tonight (There's A Party Goin' Down) "It's a soundtrack to getting excited about what might be about to happen in the night ahead, possibly with a pocket full of illicit substances."
Marsanne "That's a girl's name. Inspired by the wine she used to drink."
Lovers & Sinners "That's about being a Gemini. Neither left nor right."
God Damn Pride "You know when you need to say something to someone but it's kind of uncomfortable doing it to their face? It's about venting your state of mind about a certain situation."
Kiss It All Goodbye "The verse is the grievance and the chorus is the solution."
Curiosity "It's about having fun with the deep, dark recesses of the human soul."
Black Angels "Not so far off the vein of Unlucky Star. Bad luck attracts certain people."
Teenage Superpot "That stems from a 60 Minutes report we saw, freaking out about a certain kind of marijuana. It was basically a sensationalist scare campaign so we thought we'd pick up the theme and run with."
Matter of Time "It's a bit of an anthem for hedonism. Get on with it, don't waste too much time thinking about it, just do it."
Two Can Play at This Game "It's kind of taking the sentiment of a revenge anthem and turning it into something more loving, like, two can play at making love to each other rather than tearing each other's life apart."
Muddy Water This came together in Vietnam, sitting on a beach and feeling pretty good. It was just after the rain so hence the metaphor of muddy water.
Keep Your Head High Bella Mae "Pete had a verse progression, Dave had a chorus and they sounded so up when we put 'em together we knew we had a positive song on our hands. We know a girl called Mae and Dave's sister is Bella, so we stuck 'em together."
In 2008 the members of Dallas Crane are taking a break from the road to pursue other musical projects.
