2011 started off with a heavy heart and nothing to do but work through it. Holed up in Los Angeles for an eternal summer, we spent January rehearsing and then recording Only In Dreams. It was surreal and enjoyable to really take DDG out of the bedroom and my head and into a small but perfect studio. Pink Duck seemed made for us. The Elvis and Kylie Minogue posters that had inspired our rehearsals gave way to leopard print and so much vintage equipment it felt more like a museum — Josh Homme‘s museum. He stopped by once, via leather jacket and motorcycle.
We finished 13 songs in a week and I vaguely remember celebrating with a lot of champagne. The girls stayed in LA and I shipped off to NYC to start mixing. The same small suitcase filled with “cupcake blood” clothing accompanied me and I immediately found myself with ruined boots and no coat. Unable to stave off the deadly cold, I borrowed things and assembled a sort of goth-cum-outdoorsmen look. It was dreadful and amusing.
Sune Rose Wagner and I put finishing touches on some of the songs and of course ended up starting an entirely separate recording session, the songs and sonics of which made clear the left brain to Only In Dreams‘ right. I was fully trapped in my head at the time, suffering from insomnia and a general morose. I listened almost exclusively to Felt and Disintegration-era Cure. ——More on that later.
Our timeline was slightly skewed. I found myself consumed with the new record but the He Gets Me High EP hadn’t even been released yet. I had to scale back my story. As a band, we buckled down and set a serious intention to step up our live performance. Our regular video collaborator Christin Turner created a gorgeous, hazy projection for us, and we added EP songs as well as future LP songs to the set.
Everything that followed is a BLUR. We toured the states and the UK and Europe, back and forth, back and forth. Highlights were taking Dirty Beaches across America, becoming friends with The Vaselines, selling out NYC and a lot of other big cities, making a proper HI FI kaldeiscopic music video with Sam Macon, and more recently, touring with Crocodiles. (Doesn’t anyone else appreciate a fully-curated evening anymore?)
When Only In Dreams finally was released, it was cathartic and exciting. I knew we had a made a record that was about 180 degrees from my early stuff. The EP may have served as a stepping stone into this new territory, but it still didn’t insure a fucking thing. I am driven to make music though, not be liked.
The nature of the record was intense and extremely personal. It was all-consuming and impossible to not write about. It was all the steps of grieving wrapped up in the noisy pop form. Anytime someone tells me they can relate, it means the world to me. So did recording it with the band. We had become such a gang; they had held me up when I was very clearly falling down. To capture on record was unbelievable.
Like all good things, though, there was an end in sight. Bambi‘s recent departure was indeed the end of an era. An era that started in a shitty rehearsal space before CMJ 2010, carried over into drunken tattoo sessions and world exploration, and ended in paradise: Auckland, New Zealand. WE LOVE & MISS HER DEARLY.
But hurry in the next era. New songs, new attitudes, and a new bass player. FRESH BLOOD in the form of Malia James. Come meet her and sway with us.
Dee Dee
XOXOX
UPCOMING US TOUR DATES:
February 7th Music Hall of Williamsburg Brooklyn NY
February 8th Paradise Boston, MA
February 9th The Space Hamden, CT
February 10th Voyeur Philladelphia, PA
February 11th Maxwell’s Hoboken, NJ
February 12th Blackcat Washington, DC
March 11th Denton 35 Denton, TX
Sneak Peek —
