Dum Dum Girls
Los Angeles, CA
Mazzy Star, Chrissie Hynde, Blondie
It’s hard not to crush on the Dum Dum Girls. Besides fulfilling the super cool, all-girl-rock-band fantasy, their songs manage to be both sweet and emotionally stirring at the same time. In the three years that they have been making music together, the Dum Dums have released two EPs (Yours Alone, 2008 and He Gets Me High, 2011) and two full length albums (I Will Be, 2010 and Only In Dreams, 2011). Only In Dreams stylistically is a step forward for lead singer Dee Dee Penny whose voice now unabashedly leads her band where as before her vocals were mixed down into a fuzzy melodic haze.
Dum Dums Girls make mostly what sounds at first like moody pop songs about sweet love and longing. But a deeper listen to songs like “Hold Your Hand” and “Coming Down,” reveals Dee Dee mourning over her mom who she lost to cancer months before the release of Only In Dreams. She sings straight from the heart with a vulnerability that will make you want to get even closer to Dee Dee and her band of cool girls.
Dum Dum Girls signed to Sub Pop in July of 2009. The following March, they released their first album I Will Be which was produced by Dee Dee Penny and iconic 1960s songwriter Richard Gottehrer. As a former member of the production team the Strangeloves, Gottehrer co-wrote a number of hits in the ‘60s including “My Boyfriend’s Back” and “I Want Candy” before going on to produce debut albums for Blondie and The Go-Go’s.
In August of 2010, Dum Dum Girls were invited to tour North America with Vampire Weekend. After returning home, the Girls went back into the studio and recorded their follow-up album Only In Dreams which they released in September of this year. The album has earned rave reviews for the band and has lead to profiles in Rolling Stone, Spin and The New York Times who praised the band’s growth writing, “Dum Dum Girls are finally demonstrating an interest in being something more than a project of its time; this is the girl-group revival growing up, standing up taller, insisting on living in the now.”
Dum Dum Girls are currently on tour in the U.S. Next month they will take their show overseas to Europe until November 18th when Dee Dee will travel to Italy to meet up with her husband Brandon Welchez of the Crocodiles for their joint Fire of Love Tour.
