“I don’t get it,” said Carrie. She squinted into the big overhead lights. “I mean, they just seemed stiff … and they were fumbling with their equipment a lot. And what’s with the matching outfits? And I hate to say it, but I know everyone else is thinking this, too – their legs in those tights and short skirts are so distracting!”
“Let me explain it to you. The Dum Dum Girls have a shtick, and everything that irked you about this show was all part of that shtick,” said Jonathon. His eyes strayed, following the group of giddy teenage girls in black-framed glasses and short-shorts heading toward the exit, nattering about how “totally awesome” the Dum Dum Girls are.”
Carrie and Jonathon have vastly different musical preferences. She, a former alternative radio junkie, punk rocker, and recovering raver, senselessly seduced of late by the pastoral twangs and drawls of roots music, and he, a steadfast veteran of all things post-punk, punk, surf, country, and metal, increasingly appalled by all things indie-rock. But they manage to get along and educate one another, just short of throwing punches.
After the show, the two friends sat down at Nick’s Famous Coney Island, a block from the Hawthorne Theater, and ordered drinks. “The encore was a cover of 'Don’t Talk to Me' by GG Allin. That alone convinces me that they know what they’re doing,” said Jonathon.
“Who is GG Allin?”
Jonathon rolled his eyes. “Okay, who is the most vulgar rock star you can think of?”
“… Iggy Pop? Marilyn Manson? Um … that’s all I got.”
Ashamed by her utter lack of rock-history knowledge, he shook his head and sighed.
“Well, didn’t Manson eat birds and stuff on stage?”
“No, Carrie, they were fake.”
“Oh.”
Jonathon casually sipped his beer and took a deep breath.
“GG Allin would take laxatives before his shows so he could defecate on stage, roll around in it, and fling it out into the audience. He performed nude, cut himself and smeared blood all over his face, and attacked people in the crowd.”
“Goodness! Why would the Dum Dum Girls cover one of his songs?”
Jonathon, steeped in all his rock-culture trivia, could not answer my question, but understandably so. This was the first time either of us had really listened to the Dum Dum Girls. So, I did some research.
The DDG are fronted by Kristen “Dee Dee” Gundred – former front-lady of San Diego’s Grand Ole Party and all-around musical entrepreneur. She recorded the DDG’s first album, I Will Be, all by herself, recruiting the other three ladies – including former Vivian Girls drummer Frankie Rose (who had a stand-in that night) afterward. Brandon Welchez of the opening band, Crocodiles, is Dee Dee’s husband whose lengthy tour cycles left introverted Dee Dee home alone for most of the year. She, however, used her time wisely and learned to play the guitar, recording and uploading songs onto Myspace and quickly getting picked up by both Mike Sniper from Blank Dogs and Sub Pop Records.
As for the GG Allin homage, I had to cheat. This is Dee Dee in an Inked Magazine interview: “I love the early Stones songs and production, and I love the energy of early GG Allin and that early punk stuff, so they’re both representative of big influences,” Dee Dee says.
Considering their nostalgic lo-fi mélange of harmonized reverb vocals solidified into a carefully polished attitude (easily mistaken as a mere superficial aesthetic), the Dum Dum Girls make sense as a nod to girl groups of the 1960s, keeping in step with the fuzz of Jesus and Mary Chain, the beat poetry of the Velvet Underground, the vintage classiness of the Ronettes, and the poppy spunk of the Bangles, all the while composedly channeling a healthy dose of punk energy and the innocence and perils of adolescence – thankfully choosing legs and short skirts as their onstage visual distraction instead of projectile blood and defecation.
