I Just Woke Up At This Strange Show

Dum Dum Girls @ Mercury Lounge 2/21/2010

Hey Sis / Catholicked / I Will Be / Don’t Talk To Me / Yours Alone / Brite Futures / Play With Fire / Bhang Bhang, I’m A Burnout / Jail La La / Rest Of Our Lives

Dum Dum Girls “Jail La La”

I didn’t expect to love the Dum Dum Girls’ debut album as much as I do, but quite simply, their songs are very difficult to resist. In aesthetic terms, they are working in well-mined territory, but Dee Dee’s songwriting is a cut above and the production has this ideal balance of lo-fi grit and professional sparkle. They’re going for a classic sound, but unlike many artists who attempt to ape a reverb-heavy style, the material goes beyond recreating a surface. The best of these songs have an evergreen quality, and would be just as good if recorded in a variety of styles.

In concert, the band is sharp and focused, but not overly rehearsed. There is a bit of awkwardness to their set, particularly as Dee Dee pauses to tune her guitar between every song, and her band mates mostly stand around in silence. Near the end, she explained that she thought we’d rather hear the songs in tune than very quickly, and while that is true, they may want to figure out a way to work around this in the future. (Maybe they can get successful enough to have their own guitar tech!) The set was also a bit too brief. I understand the notion of “leave ’em wanting more,” but the band have at least another five absolutely amazing songs on their album that they did not perform, and they could have easily played another ten minutes or so. While it’s true that I now just want to go see them again in the hopes that those selections will become part of their regular set, I am a bit confused why they’d opt not to play songs as excellent as “It Only Takes One Night” and “Everybody’s Out.” At least they played “Rest of Our Lives”, though — that’s the one that melts my heart, and it was lovely in concert.

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Happy Birthday “Girls FM”

I have not heard any of Happy Birthday’s studio recordings besides “Girls FM”, so I was a bit surprised by their live performance last night opening up for Dum Dum Girls. This recording suggests a cleaner sound owing more to latter day Sub Pop acts, but their show is more early Sub Pop, with obvious roots in early ’90s indie rock and grunge. At their best, they came across like a bubblegum version of Royal Trux, or a K Records take on Dinosaur Jr. I’m curious now to hear how this album came out. Did all the grunge elements get cleaned up? Are they more indie-pop and less rockin’ in the studio? They’ve certainly got some charm and hooks; we’ll see where this goes.

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