Howdy stranger: D is for The Doleful Lions
An introduction to this series is provided here.
The Doleful Lions' Motel Swim is located between Do Make Say Think's Goodbye Enemy Airship the Landlord Is Dead and Euphoria! The Best of Dr. West's Medicine Show & Junk Band.
The Ds were a difficult bunch to choose from. I found several other CDs desperate for some attention; Dump's Superpowerless, Jacques Dutronc's 1968 self-titled debut, and Dub Narcotic Sound System's Out of Your Mind were all in contention. But, I really just wanted to write about The Doleful Lions, cause maybe you haven't heard of them before, and you definitely should become acquainted.
I don't think I would have ever stumbled upon The Doleful Lions if not for my stint working at Parasol Records. At the time I started working at Parasol, I was two years removed from college. I had a day job that paid okay. But, my musical itch was simply not being scratched. Since leaving college I hadn't participated in any extracurricular, so to speak, musical activities. I missed DJing, and even though I was still purchasing lots of records, I wanted music to play a larger role in my life.
I don't actually recall exactly why I was hired at Parasol. I think they had an opening in the mailorder room due to an employee that had moved away, and I probably pestered Bill Johnson until he hired me. I had been ordering from Parasol for a few years at that point. And, I'm sure it didn't hurt me any that I had dropped $1,200 on records at Parasol in just one evening. (I bought up some guy's Sarah and Creation collection, which amounted to a bunch of mint, out-of-print LPs, most of which I don't own anymore. But that's a story for another day.)
Anyway, I went to work at my day job, and then three days a week I headed on over to Parasol right after work to man their phones until 9 p.m. It made for a long day, but honestly the work didn't seem like work to me. Maybe that's because Parasol didn't really pay me in cash. Thanks to my generous employee discount and the ability to listen to every album that landed on the store's shelves, I basically ate up each paycheck by purchasing new records. In retrospect, I bought a bunch of crap that I didn't really need and have since sold. But, I also traded my manpower for some really great music, The Doleful Lions included.
None of the group's subsequent records that I've heard did that much for me, but this debut from 1998 is a slice of power-pop perfection. I could wax on forever about the joys of a wonderful power-pop album, about its potential to lift even the saddest son of a bitch from the doldrums of day jobs that pay okay but ultimately leave one feeling utterly empty. But, either you dig Cheap Trick or you don't. And if you don't, your life is worse off because of it.
The Doleful Lions
Anyway, The Doleful Lions have got it going on on Motel Swim. Not only are the melodies absolutely infectious and the vocals at-times gorgeous, but the songs just jump out at the listener with the kind of confidence only naivete can muster. Case in point: the album's hilarious opener, "The Sound of Cologne," which begins with an answering machine message. "Hey, this is a message for Jonathan. This is Jeb up at Two-Way Pull Records. You wanted a copy of Can's Future Days, and it came in." As you might be able to infer from the song's title, this little gem is an ode to Krautrock. No, it's not a slaughter at the alter of prog-rock. Rather, it's a straight up power-pop number with a killer hook that finds frontman Jonathan Scott raving about all the great Krautrock records he just discovered. Check it:
When the record I just bought hits the needle
And the man that rocks my world, his name is Deiter.
Cause I love to hear the sound
as the drummer drowns out all the singing.
All alone down in my room is one of my ways
to bury all this hard-luck world with Can's Future Days.
...
And when Neu! makes a noise,
they sound just like the Beach Boys.
From Dusseldorf to Highway Cone,
digging the Sound of Cologne.
You just gotta hear him belt it out...this American kid singing his heart out about how fucking rad Cluster is. It's fucking brilliant.
But The Doleful Lions aren't only into celebrating their record collections. On the compelling "Viper in Hiding," they try on some Superchunk-inspired rock for size in telling the tale of two lovers who love to hate each other. And on "Motel Swim," one of a couple exceptional ballads, Scott tries to convince his girlfriend to take the afternoon off work and head down to the motel for a skinny dip in the pool. If it all sounds clumsily "emo" it's because it is. But Scott nails the heart-on-the-sleeve approach by focusing on the subtleties that are easy to identify with, rather than bludgeoning the listener with romantic cliches.
"Hang Around in Your Head" is arguably the album's tour de force, a pop 'n' roll bopper in the mold of the dB's and Let's Active. (Proving that the acorn doesn't fall far from the tree, Mitch Easter of Let's Active fame actually produced the album.) The jangly rock of Motel Swim is not going to win any points for originality, but what it lacks in innovation it more than makes up for in contagious enthusiasm, which is exactly what we expect from record collecting nerds who probably obsess over which is the better Cheap Trick song: "Surrender" or "I Want You to Want Me". (I still say it's the later, even though no one agrees with me.)
I'd recommend checking this album out, except that it's out of print. I'd still place a phone call to Parasol to see if they can dig up a copy for you. If not, buy this seven-inch single for fifty cents, which features two of the album's better cuts (in alternate form). It'll have to do, I suppose, cause you are not prying my copy of Motel Swim from me.
First of all, who the hell is Jacques Dutronc??
Secondly, I forgot you worked @ Parasol for a time.
Thirdly, that krautrock song sounds great!
Fourthly, it's "Surrender", dummy!
And lastly, I'm ordering that 7"!!
By 
Jonathan Wright, at 12:37 AM
Ah...I will have to get you some Dutronc. I have only one of his records. He was a French pop star, a contemporary of Francoise Hardy and Serge Gainsbourg and the like. I think the Krautrock song can make an appearance on a future mix. But only if you admit that "I Want You to Want Me" is pure sappy pop genius. And that it's harder to do a midtempo pop song right than it is to do an uptempo pop song right.
By thenoiseboy, at 8:27 AM
12:37 AMFirst of all, who the hell is Jacques Dutronc??
Secondly, I forgot you worked @ Parasol for a time.
Thirdly, that krautrock song sounds great!
Fourthly, it's "Surrender", dummy!
And lastly, I'm ordering that 7"!!
8:27 AM
Ah...I will have to get you some Dutronc. I have only one of his records. He was a French pop star, a contemporary of Francoise Hardy and Serge Gainsbourg and the like. I think the Krautrock song can make an appearance on a future mix. But only if you admit that "I Want You to Want Me" is pure sappy pop genius. And that it's harder to do a midtempo pop song right than it is to do an uptempo pop song right.