thirty-five

[amethysting.livejournal.com]

Caught In One
Dum Dum Girls
Only In Dreams
2011

That little performance by the tra-la-la-la-ing group, Grass Widow, we saw on Sunday actually influenced my post this week.  It got me thinking about girl groups and bands and performers.  Grass Widow kind-of-sort-of irritate me because they (intentionally or not) project this weird womanly image.  Their voices are soft and lyrics muffled (because what they say doesn't actually matter); the music doesn't really go anywhere--it is a balmy beach backdrop; they are "tough", but come off more like emotionless and boring-- like see-through holograms.

So, between listening to The Raincoats this week, I curled up with the Dum Dum Girls.  I loved their first album, I Will Be, and listened to it pretty steadily in 2010.  Dum Dum Girls is an all-girl group from California.  And, like Grass Widow, they have a similiar sound--that steady drumming, the fuzzy guitars (and on the song "Jai La La" they la-la-la with the best of them), BUT there is something different about this group and their music.  Their second album is pretty focused on a theme...the songs seem upbeat, but they all touch on death ("Death is on the telephone/I lie and say she isn't home/If only he would make a move instead/He sleeps in her bed") and dealing with loss.  The transitions in "Caught In One" are lovely...they make this song less straightforward-seeming.  I love the echoes of Chrissie Hynde in Dee Dee's voice. 

I like the sturdiness of this song--it is pretty without being flimsy or nauseating or empty.