Early on in F For Fake—Orson Welles’ famous 1973 pseudo-documentary about master art forger Elmyr de Hory—de Hory’s biographer says: “The important distinction to make when you’re talking about the genuine quality of a painting is not so much whether it is a real painting or a fake—it’s whether it’s a good fake or a bad fake.”
Itself a matryoshka doll of forgeries within fabrications within fakes, F For Fake comes to mind when we consider Portland’s formerly most prolific music nerd: Harrison Patrick Smith AKA the latest incarnation of New York sleaze, the Dare.
When Smith lived in Portland, we knew him as an investigator of music cultures past, as much as he was an artist himself. His indie rock project Turtlenecked rose out of Lewis & Clark College house shows and the university’s internet radio station, KPH.
After moving to New York City in 2018, Smith rebranded as indie-sleaze / electroclash DJ party scene darling the Dare, where his 2022 New York club hit “Girls” seemingly launched him into the world of micro-celebrity.
Smith’s subsequent The Sex EP, collaboration with Charli XCX on Brat bonus track “Guess” (later remixed with Billie Eilish, who Smith appears alongside in the music video), and now his first LP as the Dare, What’s Wrong With New York?, proves he isn’t a meme to be forgotten. In fact, Smith has always written songs with the skill and craft of Elmyr de Hory.
It’s impossible to deny that the hits are hitting. “Girls,” “Good Time,” and “Perfume” are incredibly catchy, and ooze with Smith’s solo charisma. What Smith does as the Dare is only possible through years of focused musical study. Yet, while Smith is no stranger to a good ballad—“She’s an Artist” (Kapow!; 2020) and “Underwear” (High Scores of the Heart; 2018) are among the best Turtlenecked songs—the Dare’s throbbing-yet-melancholy “Elevation” falls flat compared to the energy of “I Destroyed Disco,” “Good Time,” and even “All Night.” After all, the ballad is a moment of pause, reflection, something sappy and sentimental. The Dare doesn’t have time for that.
As the Dare, Smith is tongue-in-cheek. Not unlike LMFAO by way of Peaches, on “Girls” he lists all the qualities of women he likes: doing drugs, smoking, having guns, hating cops, having dicks, fucking in public, etc, over a catchy acid synth line. On the surface, it’s quite the step from Vulture (2017), when Turtlenecked asked, “am I the only one who wants a movie romance?” against a computerized harpsichord riff and string section—before abruptly transitioning to a heavy noise rock guitar bridge as he screams about dealing with death and lost love (“Meeting You in the Hospital”). The untrained eye might call one of these sincere or authentic, and the other not.
In the audience, at the Dare’s recent Holocene show, I ran into an old friend, who I actually met at a Turtlenecked gig years ago. She told me how much she liked the new album, and noted how real he seems, making goofy TikToks and receiving “thirst” comments from fans.
For all public appearances, Smith sports a cartoonish persona and uniform: black suit, skinny black tie, dark sunglasses. Unlike a Looney Toon, his eyes do not bulge out of his face when Bugs Bunny walks by in a dress. But from his first single to his collabs—the Dare is HORNY.
Obviously, questioning authenticity, irony-posting, remixing, and being horny aren’t new. Smith’s critics often complain that he’s imitating the indie sleaze of mid ’00s New York, like LCD Soundsystem or the Rapture. And yes, What’s Wrong With New York? features these touchstones: funny, observational, half-shouted lyrics, synthy dance beats, cowbells. However, when he was Turtlenecked, Smith’s critics complained his songs sounded like Parquet Courts, Modern Lovers, or Joy Division.
The free association comparison of ‘X’ band sounds like ‘Y’ is the gasoline that makes the music industry run—whether it’s a radio DJ, blogger, algorithmically generated playlists, or TikTok feeds. Smith would readily admit he likes, or at least at one point liked, the artists he references.
The quest of authenticity is eternal. It’s also silly. As silly as being caught horny on main. If the 20th century was the century of the hoax, the 21st is doing its best impression.Even if the Dare is here to say something you might have heard before, that doesn’t make it untrue—it’s a good fake. All of Welles’ characters in F for Fake are having a good time. They’re entertaining themselves, while a consuming public watches a meticulously choreographed trainwreck. And in the end, Smith is “in the club while you’re online.” Who are you to judge?
What’s Wrong With New York? was released by Polydor and Republic on September 6.
