
I became familiar with the California trio Dada the same way I came to know about a lot of my favorite bands in the 80's and 90's; I happened upon their first album in the bins, flipped it over, and saw the esteemed IRS Records logo. I then walked with great purpose to the cashier, whom I then allowed to remove as much money from my wallet as was necessary for me to procure said album. I then headed straight home to listen to the album.

Of course, I knew not what to expect, which is what made hearing each new IRS Records act such an adventure, but I fully expected to like it. Astonishingly, as I drove home, the local radio station played a song called "Dizz Knee Land" that I thought was completely kitschy and lame on first listen. When the DJ announced that the song was by a new band called "dada", my heart half-sank.
Aw, man...
Still, when I got home, I figured I may as well get it over with and listen to the rest of the album. Truth be told, the needle never actually landed on the song I'd heard on the radio ever again. Sure, I could understand how a song like that could be seen by cock-eyed IRS exec Jay Boberg as "the song that's gonna break this band wide open, baby", but it wasn't my cup of tea, nor what I had come to expect from IRS.
Thankfully, there was a lot more to like about the album in songs like "Dim" and "Here Today, Gone Tomorrow". Both songs seemed to so completely embody the sound of the seemingly endless number of indie-level L.A. bands that had come and gone through my record collection over the years. These bands came with so much promise and hope, but never quite put all the components together in such a way as to blow my hair back. Each one came close, but, ultimately, no cigar.
In dada's case, it was obvious they had the chops (not necessarily a prerequisite for four-on-the-floor rock & roll and post-punk that I tend to favor) and wrote decent songs. Still, there was a certain generic vibe about them; the lack of personality in both presence and in the singing department. I could tell the guys could play...to a virtuosic level even...but it all sounded somewhat rote and by-the-numbers.
I liked them, but I wasn't crazy about them the way I'd been crazy about Wall Of Voodoo, The Police, or the Go-Go's, among others associated with the Miles Copeland empire, if you will. To my ears, dada was a sure signal that the IRS I knew and loved its edge. However cutting edge anyone may have ever thought Jay Boberg was back in the day, the truth was that I always saw him as nothing but a corporate suit. In the world of IRS, he was a rooster in the hen house, and as he began to wield more influence at the label, shit began to roll downhill.
The writing had been on the wall a few years before signing dada, when IRS added a metal label in order to sign (and promptly bury, it would seem) mid-level hair metal bands like Shok Paris and Lillian Axe. The move was such an obvious result of seeing fellow indie Enigma Records score huge with Poison in the mid-80's.
To their credit, they had also formed Primitive Man Recording Company (the initial of the label being PMRC, get it?) and releasing brilliant but poor-selling albums by Adrian Belew's band The Bears and the Balancing Act. By this point, my estimation of IRS as a label had gone from complete awe to one that saw recent decisions by the label fall into the "two-steps-forward-one-step-back" category.
As a result, dada's debut album "Puzzle" was just that; a puzzle. Back in the day, dozens of like-minded bands had succeeded at creating a moderate buzz on the L.A. scene, releasing an EP or two for the likes of Posh Boy or Restless Records, and getting a few spins on KROQ's Rodney on the ROQ before momentum faded and such bands called it a day. What made dada different and, therefore, worthy of a deal with IRS and the resulting national AOR and Modern Rock radio airplay?
Turns out I had been vaguely familiar with the guitarist/singer Michael Gurley from his stint in the short-lived L.A. band Louis & Clark (resulting in a single EP for Posh Boy Records), which also featured ex-Three O'Clock (a band I adored that, coincidentally enough, released two albums for IRS in the mid-80's) and future Mary's Danish guitarist, Louis Gutierrez.
After many listens, I realized that what set dada apart from any number of L.A. also-rans was that singer/guitarist Michael Gurley is a blues guy at heart. In hindsight, I can't believe I hadn't noticed it from the start. His crisp, clean Strat tone and bluesy licks are everywhere. Me not being that into "da blues" at the time had been what kept me from really connecting with the band. Today, though, I find his blues influence oddly refreshing. What I had initially seen as a drawback was what had initially set them apart from the dozens of other L.A. bands mining a similar territory.
But I digress...
In a tune like "
Here Today, Gone Tomorrow", it's easy to be sidetracked by the spoken-word verses that are part and postal of a handful of late-great L.A. radio favorites like "Detachable Penis" or "88 Lines About 44 Women", but dig a little deeper and you'll hear Gurley's blues pedigree coming through loud and clear.
At the time, I just chalked it up to a lack of imagination - I was more a fan of the aforementioned Adrian Belew or latter day Bowie accomplice Reeves Gabrels. I had little appreciation for guys who took such a straight-ahead approach, guitar-wise, and thus my initial interest in dada never quite took flight.
Sadly, never did the band's career as a typhoon calling itself grunge had cleared the landscape of any and all comers.

1994's "American Highway Flower" came at a time when grunge was just beginning to subside enough to allow for other rock sub-genres to gain their little slice of the radio airplay pie. Jam bands had long been favorites on the college scene and acts like Dave Matthews Band, the Samples, and Blues Traveler were beginning to reach mainstream audiences.
With a more pronounced blues vibe and meatier, more muscular performances, dada had created an album that should have fit right in on the radio playlists and Billboard Top 40 charts. Unfortunately, despite promising radio play for first single "
All I Am", IRS Records was unable to effectively promote the album, much less albums by any other current artists.

Their third album, "El Subliminosa", one of the last to be released by IRS before the label's untimely demise, came and went without seemingly causing a ripple upon the water. That's a shame because the album is easily their most ambitious musical outing, with real gems to be found in the prophetic (and timely) "
The Spirit of 2009" and "
The Fleecing Of America". Most notably, Gurley was employing a more distorted and angular guitar approach, giving the band a stunning ferocity that stood as an intriguing juxtaposition to their soaring choruses and trademark vocal harmonies
Of course, it was all for naught as the band soon found itself touring in support of an album that was not to be found in most stores along the tour route. Soon, they were without any label backing to promote further touring. After three critically-acclaimed albums and four years of hard work on the road, dada was back at square one.
Now this is just my opinion, but I am certainly not alone in sharing it, but IRS Records died the moment they parted ways with A&M Records and inked a distribution deal with MCA (they didn't call the label "Music Cemetery Of America" for nothing). The label's inability to break dada and several other IRS acts at the time fell squarely on a lack of cooperation on the part of the parent label...again, MCA.
So, after IRS was shuttered, dada inked a deal directly with, you guessed it, MCA Records. If anyone can name three rock bands MCA has successfully promoted in the last thirty years, I'll buy you lunch. Mind you, in that time, they've signed and released albums by hundreds. Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers...okay, that's one. Elton John...well, technically, he's not a rock band, but we'll give you that one anyway. Now, uh, number three...wow. Not as easy as you thought it was going to be, now, is it?

Thus, it should not surprise you that the album with the obtuse cover and the boring title ("dada") should also carry the MCA label. Sigh.
Everything about the album seems like an attempt to reboot the system in hopes of achieving different results. While I personally think the album had a great deal of commercial potential, more than a few songs seem to be stylistic re-writes of songs they'd recorded before. "Playboy In Outerspace", while one of the albums highlights, still sounds like a leftover from the "El Subliminosa" sessions. "Information Undertow" also sees a return to the jam-band vibe they used to great effect on "American Highway Flower".
For most of the rest of the album, they seem to be spinning Their wheels, which makes the appearance of a song called "Spinning My Wheels" all the more apropos. Still, it's one of two standout tracks on the album - the other being the spoken-sung rocker with the killer chorus, "
Beautiful Turnback Time Machine".
Sadly, the album soon disappeared without a trace and the band parted ways with MCA.
Unable to land another major label deal, the band eventually when on a hiatus that lasted five years. "Live Official Bootleg, Vol. 1" (which includes a pretty cool live take of "
Dizz Knee Land") was issued independently in 2003 and brought longtime fans back into the fold in time for the release of their first studio album in six years, "How To Be Found". Budget CD artwork aside, the album lacks the energy of their last two studio efforts. Also long gone is the distorted guitar sound Gurley had been favoring. Perhaps it was no longer necessary to keep up with the Pearl Jams and Third Eye Blinds, both bands having faded from the spotlight themselves.
Having spent a great deal of time with the album, it is a listenable, but ultimately unremarkable effort that lacks any ability to re-ignite the band's career, forever destined to line the budget bins of 9 out of 10 used CD stores.
2006's abbreviated album "A Friend Of Pat Robertson" is built around a song of the same name, which seems to be at odds with Robertson's staunch anti-gay stance. Again, the cover art (like the song itself) is cheesy and amateurish, scaring off most who might be interested in some of the much better material to be found on the album, like the beautiful "
72 Hours" (which I can't help think would have been a hit for the band if they'd released it around the time of "American Highway Flower").
Lo and behold, that is the last we've heard from dada, although Gurley and dada drummer Phil Leavitt did record an album together for Vanguard under the name Butterfly Jones which has remained a very well-kept secret, so much so that I did not know of the project's existence until I happened upon the band's Wikipedia page.
While the band's output is out-of-print on CD, you can download tracks from all of their albums at
Amazon
.