Filed under: feature, interrupting yr broadcast | Tags: charlotte richardson andrews, dum dum girls, interview
This week marks the UK live debut of SoCal’s Dum Dum Girls, the solo project turned all-girl outfit fronted by Kristin Gundred – or Dee Dee as she’d prefer to be known – and “of course!” she’s excited to be hitting our shores, despite an earlier propensity for crippling stage fright. The moniker, which she adopted from the beginning of the Dum Dum Girls journey, is part of a semi-persona created to protect a rather shy individual from the on-display world of musicianship and ever-peering fandom. Her early online presence was marked by a desire to remain anonymous, and the very few pictures that surfaced made sure to obscure some of her face, a romantic, partial aloofness that gave her dreamy, lo-fi-ish punk a coveted, secretive aura.
Filed under: feature, interrupting yr broadcast | Tags: a badly broken code, charlotte richardson andrews, dessa, interview
If you didn’t catch Dessa’s song ‘Dixon’s Girl’ in our December batch of Free Music Friday giveaways, you are strongly urged to get on the case. Even better, though, would be hunting down a copy of her recently released debut album, A Badly Broken Code [review], which came out in January on independent hip hop label Rhymesayers. It’s a layered, searingly honest debut filled with the kind of poetic wordplay you’d expect to find in works of literature, which is really no surprise since Dessa is both a published author and slam poetry victor. She’s currently on tour in the US with fellow Doomtree crew member P.O.S., but spoke with us in between shows about everything from gender dynamics in hip hop and the growing pains that come with earning touring spurs, to her recent fascination with Brits winner Florence Welch and a desire to perform over here in the UK; an offer we simply shouldn’t refuse.
Filed under: feature, interrupting yr broadcast | Tags: clare byrne, gaggle, i hear flies, interview
As a choir of 22 women dressed in tribalistic coloured robes singing anthemic, assertive, multilayered choral harmonies about love and loss, getting drunk and being a woman in a male-dominated world, Gaggle is certainly not something you see every day. Wears The Trousers sat down with Deborah Coughlin, formerly of 586 and Gaggle’s founder and leader, in the George Tavern in London’s East End (the “spiritual home” and rehearsal space of Gaggle) to ask her what it’s all about. The majority of the other members, flushed with delight after another epic rehearsal, joined us over a few beers and chipped in as we went along.
Filed under: feature, interrupting yr broadcast | Tags: hunting my dress, interview, jesca hoop, lucy brouwer
“Are you from She Wears The Pants?” asks Jesca Hoop when I arrive to interview her at Glasgow’s Nice ‘n’ Sleazy. For an artist who has recently moved from Los Angeles to Manchester, maybe language nuances are something that she’s still getting used to. Despite this initial mix up, her transition has been otherwise smooth and Hoop does not seem to be the fish out of water that I was expecting. Huddling against the draught in a large green faux-fur collared coat in Sleazy’s tiny office cum storeroom, she looks tired but focused. She’s part way through a 21-date tour building on the enviable critical response to her second album, Hunting My Dress, a record that defies simple description and provokes curiosity about her intriguing background.
Filed under: feature, interrupting yr broadcast | Tags: an experiment on a bird in the air pump, charlotte richardson andrews, interview
According to their blog, An Experiment On A Bird In The Air Pump have called it quits after two short years together. Their short-lived run saw the all-girl trio storm the London indie scene, earning rave reviews from underground zines and mainstream rags alike, and, with two EPs and some pretty special singles under their wings, they seemed destined for great things. All things considered, the split comes as rather unexpected news, especially since they recently returned from Chicago with new material for their would-be debut album.
The short, bittersweet statement they have posted doesn’t give much away, though the fact that C-Bird and X-Bird have posted a joint paragraph next to D-Bird’s seems to point somewhat towards possible divisions. And, while the first two are reassessing their situation, D-Bird continues with her recently formed side project Blue On Blue.
To mark their demise, here’s a previously unpublished interview we did with D-Bird and X-Bird just before Christmas.
Filed under: feature, interrupting yr broadcast | Tags: boys, cortney tidwell, interview, mario onnis
The image that graces the sleeve of Nashville-raised singer-songwriter Cortney Tidwell’s second album Boys – a pseudo X-ray of a young child’s head filled with a jumble of overlaid, faded photographs – has a ghostly, unsettling aura about it, and it’s a very similar sense of damaged nostalgia that carries on into the music, creating a fractured and disparate album full of secrets and personal turmoil. Not necessarily something you might imagine coming from the imagination of a happily married schoolteacher and mother of two, but then Cortney has never really fit into any neat preconceptions. Wears The Trousers caught up with Cortney over email a while ago to chat about the new album, about working with her husband, and how the children in her life inspire her music.
Filed under: feature, interrupting yr broadcast | Tags: cassie ramone, charlotte richardson andrews, interview, vivian girls
Though they were pretty busy touring at the time, we managed to get a quick Q&A with Vivian Girls guitarist and lead singer Cassie Ramone a couple of months ago. The all-girl, indie-punk trio, who shot to indie-fame with their 2008 self-titled debut, had lost original founding member Frankie Rose (who went on to enjoy a brief stint with fellow Brooklyn rockers Crystal Stilts and is now working on her own project Frankie Rose & The Outs) and were enjoying the fresh input of current drummer Ali Koehler. Having just released their anticipated second album, Everything Goes Wrong, Cassie filled us in a little on navigating the line-up changes, what life is like as a Vivian Girl on the road, and the inspirations behind the new album. As their year-end poll position attests, it turned out to be one of 2009’s most loved releases.
Filed under: feature, interrupting yr broadcast | Tags: alan pedder, hildur guðnadóttir, interview, múm, without sinking
If you’ve seen Spike Jonze’s eyebrow-raising video for ‘Triumph Of A Heart’ or watched the infamous YouTube clip of Björk drunkenly belting out karaoke 2 Unlimited, you’ll know that plying Ms Gudmundsdóttir with alcohol can have unpredictable consequences. As it turns out, parting Björk from alcohol can also bring about cataclysmic changes in the forces of music. As Wears The Trousers hears it, one evening back in Iceland, roughly 12 or 13 years ago, Björk walked out of a bar leaving an untouched beer on the table (perhaps she didn’t feel like dancing with a giant cat that night, or scraping her face on the pavement), and as she did, the two teenagers – one boy, one girl – who had been sitting either side of her on the couch both jumped at the glass at the same time. The boy was Örvar Þóreyjarson Smárason; the girl, Hildur Guðnadóttir; and together they would go on to share many more beers as they embarked upon a convoluted and ceaseless musical journey.
Filed under: feature, interrupting yr broadcast | Tags: because i was in love, best of 2009, cian traynor, interview, sharon van etten
When Sharon Van Etten hopped into Great Lake Swimmers’ tour van holding a naked drawing of the band, complete with exaggerated private parts, they had no idea who she was. Up until that point their tour had been beset with problems and the last thing they needed was an unexpected stranger in their midst. Yet seeing Sharon open for the band later that night in Berlin, guitarist Eric Arnesen closed his eyes, put his hands together and whispered “Thank you God” with relief. Two weeks later and Great Lake Swimmers were so desperate to avoid parting ways with their “little sister” that Eric planned to stuff the band’s instrument cases with newspaper and trick their tour manager into driving off with a van full of lookalikes.
There’s something about Sharon Van Etten that has this effect on people. You can see it as she ambles down Hackney’s Broadway Market in a petite red dress, denim jacket folded over her arm, with the eyes of coffee drinkers on both sides of the street drawn behind her. You can see it as she almost whispers the stories behind each of the three tattoos on her snow white skin, her eyes glowing as she adds: “I did shower today to meet you. And I wore the one clean outfit I had.” Connecting her charms as a bright-eyed but vulnerable folk figure and the surging momentum of her career might be a tempting conclusion to make. But, as she explains, it was a series of life-altering decisions and serendipitous timing that propelled her out of obscurity.
Filed under: feature, interrupting yr broadcast | Tags: best of 2009, cian traynor, interview, jesy fortino, life on earth, tiny vipers
Jesy Fortino is worried about getting electrocuted. “I think I’m gonna die. I just have that feeling,” she says to an audience of four. It’s a stormy Sunday morning at Ireland’s Electric Picnic festival where, due to a scheduling mix-up, Tiny Vipers’ set has been bumped from a Saturday evening slot without explanation. She’s not impressed. But now the power has cut out mid-song and a pool of water has collected at her feet. Wrapped up and hooded, she pauses to warm her shivering hands and apologises to the dedicated few seeking refuge in her soothing folk. The crowd swells as her voice soars again, but even the sight of First Aid Kit singing along can’t redeem things for a weary Fortino, who clearly mouths the words “shitty show” at its conclusion.
wears the trousers magazine 