Shoplifting with The Lemon Twigs
Brothers Brian and Michael D'Addario are continuing the momentum of a whirlwind 2023, evolving vision and voice, distilling a history lesson of baroque and power pop.
Since the release of their debut studio album Do Hollywood (on 4AD) in 2016, The Lemon Twigs—the New York City rock band fronted by brothers Brian (27) and Michael D’Addario (25)—have waved the same revivalist torch as Alex Chilton and his Big Star crew, working to prove that archaic music from the ‘60s and ‘70s can still be relevant in digital world. Alongside peers like Foxygen and Drugdealer, The Lemon Twigs have explicitly documented a synchronistic blend of contemporary narrative motifs, old-school recording techniques, and flawless, consistent attitudes collaged from various crucial stages of rock ’n’ roll.
A Dream Is All We Know is grandiose yet grounded; meticulous, yet wild and glowing. Made with analog precision, the album was finished in the immediate months after the band completed Everything Harmony during a vibrant, prolific period split between three studios on separate coasts. A Dream Is All We Know is a profoundly dense and charged album, rife with string arrangements and a sonic thesis statement that has quaked through phases of glam, conceptualism, baroque, and Mustang-loud, stone-cold rock ‘n’ roll for more than half-a-century. A Dream Is All We Know sounds like it’s lived a thousand lives already.
We caught up with Brian and Michael at our NYC store for our newest session of Shoplifting. An invitation to roam the racks in pursuit of the recorded material which has most inspired and shaped their sound today. Be sure to check out their newest album A Dream Is All We Know out now via Captured Tracks.
Michael D’Addario: I got this Laughing Dogs record. Our drummer turned me on to the Laughing Dogs, and they have a lot of great songs, like a lot of stuff that was never released and stuff. But this is the record that came out in the late 70s, and it's pretty good. I think I like their stuff that was unreleased more, but this is cool. Yeah, one of their guys just died, which is sad, but I kind of stalk one of the guys on Facebook.
Brian D’Addario: Love Forever Changes is an absolute classic. One of my favorite records ever. I love it. I don't have it on vinyl. You know, I love the orchestral arrangements, I love the lyrics, I love the playing. There are a lot of great stories associated with the record.
Michael: Yeah, we're huge love fans. I got this Rocking Horse record which I was stoked to find. It's like the first pressing and it's early power pop. And then I got this Critters Best Of; I like some of their singles like “Mr. Dyingly Sad” and yeah, they're a great band. What I've heard is great.
Brian: Pet Sounds, Beach Boys; greatest album of all time in my opinion. I'm curious to see if this is the version that they released in the 90s or whatever. I guess the discrepancy is, I thought at one point they might have put the doubles back into certain songs that they didn't have the multitrack. Yeah, I just love it so I figured I'd get it. And last I got Todd Rundgren A Wizard / A True Star. I'm curious what this sounds like because it says it's an audio file pressing. But yea this is just a wonder of production and arrangement, like many of his albums, and I love the sound of it.