Vocally, Chrissie Hynde is the obvious reference point, but Dee Dee's less interested in aping Hynde's sneering, Jagger-like strut than channeling the lush depths of her own voice on tracks like " Bedroom Eyes". In interviews, she's been candid about her stage fright and her gradual acceptance of her role as a frontwoman, and her newfound confidence is pretty thrilling to hear on Only in Dreams. But you didn't get that from I Will Be, which kept it distorted and low in the mix. If you've seen the band live, you know: girl's got pipes. The first thing you notice is Dee Dee's voice. It builds on the momentum of this year's terrific and shimmery He Gets Me High EP, but it's even more of a hi-fi affirmation ("It's cool to record in actual studio and use real mics," Dee Dee said recently) and an introduction of a whole new set of influences ( Mazzy Star, the Pretenders) in the band's sound.
Spurred by the death of Dee Dee's mother and the separation anxiety she felt while she and her husband ( Crocodiles' Brandon Welchez) were touring with their respective bands, it's a statement of thematic maturity and emotional depth we've not yet heard from Dum Dum Girls- nor many of their contemporaries. Only in Dreams is the first record of this wave able to form an answer to that question, and for that it feels admirably bold. Some time around the third Vivian Girls LP, you couldn't help but wonder: Will any of these groups be bold enough to move forward? Will any of them stick around long enough to, well, grow up? And yet, even the highlights of the girl-group garage scene (of which I Will Be is certainly one) still focused pretty narrowly on simple, youthful emotions and didn't seem to care much about aesthetic development. They had fun with irony artifice and winking, revisionist takes on musical history (Kristin Gundred's Ramones-nodding stage name Dee Dee Richard "My Boyfriend's Back" Gottehrer's co-producing credit on both full-lengths) that reminded you of the simple, triumphant facts: these women were all pretty excellent pop songwriters, and this thing they were part of was the most visible all-female front in indie rock since the riot grrrl movement in the early 1990s. Or at least it could have seemed that way if you made the mistake of looking for meaning solely on the surface of the songs.ĭum Dum Girls in particular had a way of reminding you that there was more to it than that. But even the most enduring of the original practitioners carried some decidedly pre-feminist baggage (baby love, wide-eyed devotion, Svengalis), and at times the new stuff didn't feel too much more enlightened. The Dum Dums might have been the baddest girls on the scene, but they certainly weren't the only ones: over the past couple of years Vivian Girls, Best Coast, and Frankie Rose and the Outs have each dusted off the kitschy cultural detritus of 1960s girl-group pop and filtered it through a hefty dose of D.I.Y. It sounded like a girl gang had kicked the authority figures out of the principal's office, barricaded the doors, and taken to blasting their delinquent anthems like " Bhang Bhang, I'm a Burnout" and " Jail La La" over the school's loudspeaker.
Equal parts girl-group gloss and brash punk energy, I Will Be paired the tinny jangle of Psychocandy-coated guitars with lead singer Dee Dee's exquisitely aloof vocals to create a vibe of timelessly cool abandon. Sugar, spice, and overnighters in dank Italian jail cells- these are the things that Dum Dum Girls' first record was made of.
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