The last few years have been a rollercoaster ride towards the top of the indie heap for Kristen Gundred, better known around certain circles as Dee Dee – the singer, guitarist, and main creative force behind Los Angeles-based rockers Dum Dum Girls.
Shortly after the abrupt dissolution of her previous band Grand Ole Party, the steely-eyed songstress went from self-recording fuzzed-out pop nuggets in her bedroom to seizing a deal with Sub Pop and touring with Vampire Weekend, all in the matter of months.
The ride didn’t stop there. Less than a year removed from plastering an old photograph of her mother on the cover of the acclaimed debut that was 2010’s ‘I Will Be‘, Gundred saw her mom succumb to a swift and sudden bout of brain cancer at that same time that her alter-ego Dee Dee was supposed to be stretching out into the sun of her newfound success. The untimely death cast an obvious shroud over what should have been a shining moment, and in the end served as the catalyst for the cold, cathartic core of this year’s fleshed-out follow-up ‘Only In Dreams‘.
The Troubadour in West Hollywood served as another stepping stone of sorts, one that Dee Dee and the rest of her economically named bandmates (Jules, Bambi, Sandy) climbed with ease, rewarding the hometown crowd with a spirited set that seemed to solidify the strange and somber trip that each of Gundred’s identities had taken to get there.
The set opened in the same fashion as the new record, with the pounding drums and surfed-out seediness of ‘Always Looking‘ leading the way before breaking in with ‘Bhang Bhang, I’m A Burnout‘, a singsong pysch-ditty from the first record that was as kitschy as it was catchy. The cleverly titled ‘Catholicked’, with its reverb-drenched deploring of divine guilt, served as a reminder of the group’s apparent punk rock roots, while all the oohs and aahs and I’ll-be-your-girls within ‘I Will Be’ were a clear nod to such sixties sirens as the Shangri-Las and the Chantels.
Whereas their earlier efforts were defined by layers of lo-fi compression and a deliberately distorted mix, the newer material is a leap in the opposite direction. Not only are the guitar and drum sounds presented with more polish, but Dee Dee’s once buried-in-background vocals have been pushed to forefront, and with the good reason. The girl can really sing when she wants to, and she clearly wanted to during the mid-set run through of their latest work, summoning up a full-bodied Chrissie Hynde-like bellow on recent single ‘Bedroom Eyes‘, and offering up a never-before-seen depth and vulnerability for the melodramatic new wave of ‘Hold Your Hand‘.
On the surface, the Dum Dum Girls’ sound and style is straightforward and simple, almost to a fault. The Ronettes-by-way-of-the Ramones shtick has become well-worn in the recent years of retro revivalism, and the whole blank-stared, bad-ass girl group gig in this day and age isn’t exactly breaking any boundaries. The combination of the two could easily be seen as gimmicky, except that in this case the gimmick actually works. Immaculately clad head-to-toe in all black and carrying on with the just right mix of willful sincerity and disaffected cool, these four females can captivate an audience just by staring out into it.
Luckily for them, they don’t have to. After closing out with a cover of The Smiths‘ ‘There Is A Light That Never Goes Out‘, they came back for a one-off encore of ‘Coming Down‘, a stark and unsettling song off the new album that sprawled out unlike anything they’ve ever done.
Amidst a drifting, almost narcotic haze of guitar, and a spare breakdown in which Dee Dee single-handedly sucked the air out of the room with just her voice, one thing became painstakingly clear – this ride isn’t over yet.
(Beau De Lang)
