by LORRAINE CARPENTER

“I think we made the ultimate Dandy Warhols record,” says the band’s guitarist Peter Holmstrom of their latest LP, Odditorium or the Warlords of Mars. “There’s nobody else in the world that could have made this record.”

Dropping the stylistic concepts that have driven the Portland quartet’s previous six albums, the band strove to deliver what they do best, incorporating elements of a decade’s worth of work, and what they do live, pushing several tracks into the epic psychedelic stratosphere.

And luckily there’s a title to match. The Odditorium is the Dandys’ studio and rehearsal space (“There’s nothing really odd about it except that we own it,” says Holmstrom), and singer Courtney Taylor-Taylor has been itching to re-use the name for years. As for “the Warlords of Mars,” Holmstrom draws a blank.

“I never quite understand the titles of records,” he says. “Welcome to the Monkey House made the most sense to me because it was a comment on the record company. They were getting their little hands into everything we were doing at that point. It was really, really frustrating.”

Also frustrating for the Dandys is Ondi Timoner’s Dig!, last year’s Sundance-award-winning profile of the band and their friends/rivals the Brian Jonestown Massacre, shot between 1996 and 2003. Despite their share of rock ’n’ roll decadence, the Dandys are portrayed as “the most well-adjusted band in America” (as Taylor-Taylor says in the film), whereas the BJM’s Anton Newcombe comes off as a mad, messianic genius—and a major asshole.

“We were used as a foil to make him look even worse, but in the process we came across as a very shallow, ladder-climbing, success-hungry party band. We’ve had nothing but battles with our record company from the beginning, we don’t play any of the games, and that doesn’t show [in the film].”

While Newcombe has disowned the documentary, and largely stopped speaking to journalists because of it, the Dandys happily posted its screening info on their Web site over the course of last year. Ironically, the film seems to have boosted BJM’s record sales worldwide, and it hasn’t done the same for the Dandys. Holmstrom actually attributes Odditorium’s particularly negative reviews to their portrayal in Dig!, at least in part. But despite the critics, the band’s audiences on their current tour are bigger than ever, and their opening band the Out Crowd, featuring former BJM member Matt Hollywood, is benefitting too.

“It’s kinda doing what we hoped it would do for [the BJM] ’cause we’ve been trying to spread the word about them and all our other friends’ bands for years, and nobody really paid any attention.”

In the end, Holmstrom doesn’t begrudge Timoner for choosing entertainment over accuracy, and furthering her career in the process. “She made a great movie, it’s really captivating, and ultimately, she took care of herself. If it had been about making music, it probably wouldn’t have won at Sundance, it wouldn’t have had the excitement of who’s gonna get kicked in the head next. But really, Anton’s not a violent guy—he’s a guy who makes incredible music, and I think we do alright too.”

With the Out Crowd at the Spectrum on Friday, Dec. 2, 8 p.m., $22

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