In a place as fast as New York, being the band of the moment means nothing.  Jordan Galland tells Keetologue why Dopo Yumé is more than just a passing fad.  

From all the music that I've listened to while I was growing up, there was many a songwriter who epitomized leaving their humdrum city and moving off to New York to make it big.  Frank Sinatra alone was largely responsible for the mass exodus of the most talented of suburban starlets to New York City.  After all, if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.  I had just accepted this as the norm - I mean, who really wants to live in the suburbs, right?  Actually, Jordan Galland does. In fact, with his latest two EPs, Yumania  and In the Bedroom, many of the songs allude extensively to this secret dream of growing up in the suburbs.  

"I think that has to do with the fact that I grew up in New York and fantasized about a life of cheerleaders, long grassy sidewalks, bicycles, beaches and suburbia. like the typical movie world, often portrayed in horror films. and I had little excursions off to visit friends [in the suburbs].  But I was mainly a city kid," explains Galland.  

The 22 year old Jordan Galland, a pouty-lipped, born-and-raised New Yorker, has just freshly graduated from NYU.  There he studied the history of ideas - mythology, cosmology, and the occult sciences - the latter of which explains all the horror movie references.  He is the leader of the band Dopo Yumé, a quintet made up of Galland, as well as Kevin McGuinness, David Muller, Japa Keenon, and Adam Crystal. 

"Finally, after five years of rotating all the members of Cibo Matto and fellow NYU students, the band I envisioned in high school, has taken shape. Japa Keenon plays drums, and had played with us before intermittently, when Sean (Lennon) wasn't playing drums. But now Japa's the man. David Muller, my dear friend of eight years, is the bass player and we write some songs together. Adam Crystal, an excellently superb violinist and my wonderful roommate, is the keyboardist, and his arrangements are interestingly informed by years of classical training in Prague and Vienna. We have all been together as a band for a year now. And the most recent addition, since June, is Kevin McGuinness on guitar."

As you can see, Dopo Yumé's membership has changed more than Michael Jackson's nose since Jordan formed the group almost 5 years ago, back in high school.  Similarly, Dopo's brand of music has never had a set style - it has involved everything from Brazillian heavy metal to polka to country music, but as of late, the band has headed into a poppier direction.  

"As a song writer, I definitely started with complicated things. but that's because my whole audience was Timo [Ellis], Sean, Yuka Honda and Miho Hatori, and my biology teacher. and since music is all about communicating, I wasn't really aware of what other people were listening to, and hence the audience never grew. I guess it's just a learning process. Now I'm writing poppier music, and everyone in the band has developed a vocabulary of and a deep respect for pop music."

With such an eccentric background, I ask him what his vision of Dopo Yumé was in high school.  He thinks about it for a second.  

"David Bowie meets Weezer who then meets Sean Lennon and Timo Ellis on the Spanish steps in Rome where at the bottom of the hill they eat at the traditional English tea house known as Babington's and watch Rosemary's Baby."

Oddly enough, this is not as farfetched as it sounds.  Except for the last part about Babington's and Rosemary's Baby.  If you can imagine a rock band, with a lot of Clockwork Orange synths, a sort of David Bowie vibe, and a sprinkling of Cibo Matto, this is what it is.  Some of Dopo's older (that is, 1 or 2 years ago) song lyrics had a tendency of glorifying inanimate objects, and middle school-esque crushes.   In the song 'The Coolest Boy On Earth', Galland laments to himself -  "Water gun / shooting at the sun / peach iced tea / isn't there anyone for me?"  However, Dopo Yumé has as of late been moving away from the "cutesy cute" image.  

"I think now I'm more concerned with the music than making it cute, and all the pop culture references were about making the music cute and clever, which kinda turns me off at least right now.  We have more than a handful of new songs which lyrically have moved on from the initial shock of having crushes and little arrows through the heart.  It's still fun to reminisce, but I've become more concerned with my own patterns of behavior and those of my peers. I think that's a reasonable way to put it."  

Some of the newer songs feature Galland with a faux British accent, ("I've just recently started listening to every Blur album and I think they're just lovely.  I never really got into them growing up.") but it still retains that Clockwork Orange synth quality to it.  But just where did this whole Clockwork Orange sound come from?  

"When I was eight years old my parents and older brothers would listen to classical music in the car and joke about how they were "all ready with their Clockwork Orange music".  The title was so intriguing but they would never let me rent it at the video store. So a couple years passed and I was staying alone at home with my grandma, and I rented A Clockwork Orange.  We watched it, and I felt the naughty taste of adult fantasy, and I equated the "orange" of Clockwork Orange with the fake fruity taste of an orange creamsicle.  My grandmother tried to turn it off, but being the spoiled baby of the household I had my way.  Then I immediately rented The Shining - I was only ten or eleven - and watched it alone. And when my parents realized they could no longer save me from twisted humour, and they themselves recognized the beauty in it, they started recommending Barry Lyndon and Dr. Strangelove.  Something about Kubrick's films, especially A Clockwork Orange, invaded my blood, and since then, I've been trying to capture that dreamy, cinematic elegance in my music."

Jordan was no longer a poetry writing, long-haired, purple sunglasses wearing fourteen year old after he met David Muller.  Muller, the current bassist for Dopo Yumé, also happened to be Sean Lennon's best friend in high school.  Yes, THAT Sean Lennon.  

"I met David Muller when I was fifteen, and he introduced me to Sean Lennon and Timo Ellis, who, for lack of better phrasing, blew my fucking mind.  And I just tagged along with them for a year and called them and harassed them. I mean they were  like five years older, Timo was ten years older, and looking back, they were generous and supportive in the way usually only mothers and fathers are. I would write such ridiculous songs and play them for Timo and Sean and David and they would help me and spend so much time recording them with me.  But it was those three boys that opened the door."

Sean obviously saw some talent in Dopo Yumé, because he asked Jordan if Dopo Yumé would open for him on his tour for Into the Sun.  Jordan's answer?  A resounding yes.  

"At our first show, Dopo's first show, Sean came and brought Yoko and a whole entourage.  We were psyched but the other kids in the band still weren't planning on playing any more shows with me.  A couple days later, Sean asked us to tour with him, so all of a sudden of course they wanted to continue playing.  And it was fucking funny.  But our third show was already on the road with Sean. and I've just been waiting to go back out on the road ever since. Which is kind of a long time now."

Lennon's work hasn't exhibited as much of Galland's influence as it has on Timo Ellis', whose EP "The Enchanted Forest of Timo Ellis" was released independently early last year.  Timo's song "Lite Brite" reeks of Dopo Yumé lyrics.  In return, Timo's penchant for grunge rock and death metal has rubbed off on Dopo's music (listen to the song "Horror Film").  Which brings us to the highly annoying, omnipresent question, "who are your influences?" 

"I'll try not to give you a boring answer," says Galland.  Like his Cibo Matto counterparts, Jordan cites everyone from David Bowie to Diana Ross to the Smiths to the Clash to Nina Simone as an influence.  

For now, Dopo Yumé continue to play in small New York hipster bars and concert venues all over downtown Manhattan and Williamsburg, where lines are so long they stretch down and around entire city blocks.  So, then what can we expect in the future from Dopo Yumé?  

"A Pulitzer prize?  No, I have no idea," shrugs Galland. 

Dopo Yumé's full discography:
first demo tape 1998: super immunity for kids, sold five hundred tapes.
second demo 1999: tape juice
1st CD, recorded with chaki, yuka's brother: four songs 4 four seasons.
2nd CD: dream barbie Q
3rd CD: glow in the dark (song titles) typhoons, the spaz song, proteen, air, metal love, payback time, and shopping mall.
4th cd: yumania
5th cd: in the bedroom
more info on dopo yume - check out dopoyume.com