Dressy Bessy sweetly hollers and stomps its way through NYC

September 25, 2008 at Arlene’s Grocery

By Eleanor Whitney
Published: September 28th, 2008 | 12:00pm

Colorado-based Dressy Bessy took on the New York City lights with a high-energy set of pure pop-punk enjoyment at Arlene’s Grocery. Playing a guitar decorated with sparkly stickers and a keyboard festooned with a strand of lighted, shimmering stars, the members of the audience may have expected something slightly more twee. However, as the band’s albums Electrified and the recently released Holler and Stomp (Transdreamer) testify, Dressy Bessy has grown up and taken its sound with it. While the tracks on records have a candy coating, the live five-piece packs a rocknroll punch, complete with three guitars that create a Phil Specter–like wall of sound.

Despite the later hour and the unfortunately sparse crowd, Dressy Bessy was on from the moment it hit the stage. On songs like “In Your Headphones,” singer-guitarist Tammy Ealom attacked the vocal mic with a practiced snarl, though the club’s sound system did not enable her distinctive vocals to carry clearly over the strong guitars. As they jumped around stage Ealom threw cutely conspiratorial winks to her bandmates and the audience. It was clear that the members of Dressy Bessy love the music they make and are devoted to playing it well. They did not miss a note, pause, or hooky break, and kept smiling throughout the 13-song set.

It was clear audience members were having fun, too. Some sang along, while others went as far as pushing themselves out of their Thursday night lethargy to dance, but overall were not as quite as engaged as the songs demanded. Several times during the set Ealom tried to entice the audience out of their late-night reticence, at one point invoking Kriss-Kross as she implored them to “Jump around, jump around!”

For the last song of the set the band solicited requests from the audience. “‘California’!” someone shouted hopefully, a song from the band’s 2003 Kindercore release. Ealom turned to him with a knowing look, “You’re one of those,” she said, smiling. Instead, the band finished with the more recent “Simple Girlz,” a track from Holler and Stomp, which couches grown up sentiments in indie-pop fun and crunchy guitar riffs. After the set, half of the audience members enthusiastically approached Ealom to express their appreciation, an affirming testament pure pop enjoyment Dressy Bessy creates.