DADA, “DIZZ KNEE LAND”

Welcome to The Minute of Spin, a bite-sized music segment in which we explore a single song that came to define an entire band. Unfortunately, we can't afford the rights to the songs we spotlight, so you won't actually hear the song. But you're welcome to listen to it here.

In June of 1993, I found myself wandering one day through the park in DC’s Farragut Square.  The local alternative station, WHFS, had been holding a series of lunchtime concerts there, and the band that day was a three-piece from California called dada.  Their album Puzzle had been released the previous year, and a couple of singles were in heavy rotation on ‘HFS.  In concert, the band was on fire, with Joie Calio and Michael Gurley’s vocals beautifully complementing one another.   I ran out and bought Puzzle on cassette, and it remained in on my Walkman until the tape practically disintegrated.

Dada’s still around, touring and recording with its original lineup, but I’m willing to bet they’ll best be remembered for the first single off Puzzle, “Dizz Knee Land.”  A song melding images of violence, hatred and crime with the line “I’m going to Disneyland,” dada took the tune all the way to #5 on the Modern Rock Chart.  When asked about the song’s origins, Calio said it came to him in a dream in which he’d seen the name Disneyland on a bus, and heard the melody before waking.  To avoid copyright infringement, dada spelled Disney D-i-z-z K-n-e-e.

Unfortunately, the band never matched the success of Puzzle, due perhaps to their lack of luck with record labels than anything else.  Dada released two more albums on the IRS label, American Highway Flower in ‘94 and El Subliminoso in ‘96.  Then IRS folded and the band moved to MCA, before MCA’s parent company was bought out.  Dada took a six year hiatus, with Calio, Gurley and drummer Phil Leavitt moving on to other projects before reuniting in 2003 with a live album. 

Given I was 25 in 1993, alternative rock was right up my alley, and in DC, no station captured the youth vibe better than WHFS.  Watching videos of dada, you see a band perfectly in synch with its time:  Calio in his untucked plaid shirt, Gurley with his blonde hair tucked under backwards baseball cap – it’s straight out of the Nirvana school of alternative dress.  But that was the 90s for you, when power pop ruled the airwaves, and songs like “Dizz Knee Land” were aimed directly at the heart of Generation X.