Dion Lunadon Interview & Show # 675

For the past seven years, Dion Lunadon has been playing bass in New York’s A Place To Bury Strangers. Prior to exploring the noisy world of A Place To Bury Strangers, Dion played in numerous bands. The D4 are now known as garage legends from New Zealand and were part of the garage revival of the late 90s/early 2000’s. Dion played guitar in this band and would take lead vocals on several tracks at times, trading off with Jimmy Christmas, The D4’s other singer/guitarist. Following the end of this band, Dion relocated to New York, where he started a new group, The True Lovers. This band adopted a more soulful approach, but after about a year and one album they ended too. Beneath the noisy waves and bass grooves in A Place To Bury Strangers, something was rising to the surface. For Dion it was a raw, unbridled blast of songwriting. During a recording/touring break with A Place To Bury Strangers, Dion wrote fifty new songs and from this list he culled eleven tracks (twelve if you count the B-side to 2016’s Com/Broke single) to create what would become his first self-titled and debut album. The songs that make up Dion Lunadon are filled with a certain raw, visceral aesthetic.

Released on the Agitated Records label, the first track on this release is a fuzzy and a distorted exploration in sound, something that is present throughout this release in various forms. “Insurance, Rent and Taxes” is less than a minute and a half, but establishes a noisy beginning to the album reflecting an uncompromising attack. “Reduction Agent” is a stop and start song with a blend of garage and punk influences. With lyrics such as “Much too young to get any older/drop the microphone cry on your shoulder” and a chorus that echoes the words “Feel the pain,” this song displays a sense of determination and fearlessness. “Fire” burns with intensity as drums, dizzying organ and fuzz-driven bass bring us into the song. The guitar leads simmer with a wild intensity as lyrically the song brings forth smoky, vivid metaphors with words such as “You fill it smoke/Behind it you hide/I can’t ever see the whites of your eyes” and other lines like “It sounds like the truth but you know it’s a lie.”

“Com/Broke” was first released as a single back in 2016 on Infinity Cat Recordings. The song features guitar with walls of feedback and intense basslines that suck the listener in. “Com/Broke” musically combines a mix of 70s punk and bands such as Toy Love, Supercar, Gestalt and The Gun Club. When originally released as a 7 inch single, Lunadon described the song as “being anti- what’s expected of someone entering their mid-life. Most people mellow out, but I don’t want that. I want to create music that is even more ugly and more real.” This song is one of the many that stand out on this release. “Hanging By A Thread” is for the most part an instrumental post-punk/industrial influenced track and serves as a good interlude to the chaos that preceded it. “Eliminator” a noisy garage track, seeming to draw on a frustration with lyrics such as “I got a little howl in my heart.”  It leads into the next track on this album, “Howl”. This song was the first song written for this album and this spunky song draws on a galloping/danceable drum rhythm, organ, chugging guitars and well, howling screams. Lunadon told Consequence of Sound earlier this year that “Howl” is about finding and being able to freely use my voice literally and creatively.”

Two shorter tracks follow before the album’s final track. “Ripper” is a song drawing on frantic Chuck Berry rhythms and harmonica coming off with an almost early Replacements feel and “White Fence”, which cuts into an angular post-punk/punk direction. Fittingly, the final and eleventh track on Dion Lunadon is a song called “No Control”. The song builds with a slow and hollow sounding bassline as psychedelic guitars and echo-laden vocals swarm the listener’s subconscious. The song ends with a swirling of guitar, vocals with effects, the same penetrating bassline and the haunting lyrics “Never fall in love again/No Control.”  With this release, Dion Lunadon explores a noisy world encompassing a variety of influences drawing on punk, garage, psychedelic, post-punk and others while lyrically it taps into urban life and the frustrations and determinations that come along with it. Dion Lunadon is an album that was created within a certain moment in time and it is something that not only grabs, but demands your attention.

Check out my interview with Dion Lunadon here:



The Playlist:

1. The Fads - Dead End Town
2. The Haunted - 1-2-5
3. Painted Ship - Frustration
4. The Ape-ettes - Bless This Mess
5. TOPS - Dayglow Bimbo
6. The Thin Cherries - Dorian Gray
7. The Rainy Days - Uh-Huh!
8. Nothing At All - Get Some
9. Dion Lunadon - Reduction Agent

DION LUNADON INTERVIEW

10. The D4 - Ladies Man
11. The True Lovers - Obsession
12. A Place To Bury Strangers - Straight
13. Dion Lunadon - Howl
14. Teengenerate - Dressed In Black
15. Guitar Wolf - Can Nana Fever
16. Toy Love - Squeeze
17. Teenanger - Dawn
18. The Modernettes - Confidential
19. Dead Ghosts - Girl Across The Street
20. Young Rival - Black Popcorn
21. Betrayers - Hand O' Glory
22. Kevin Morby - 1234
23. The Adverts - One Chord Wonders
24. Sam Coffey & The Iron Lungs - O'Anvil
25. Paul The Tailor - Gold
26. The Cramps - The Way I Walk
27. The Gories - Let Your Daddy Ride

To download this weeks program, visit CJAM's schedule page for Revolution Rock and download the file for July 8.