Rocking the ‘Ville, Part 3: “Better Than Saint Louis”
Dressy Bessy's Tammy Ealom. Media Credit: Casey Millburg.
Tammy Ealom stomps the stage in front of the mic with her black lace-up boots, the Dressy Bessy frontwoman reigning over the crowd of frantically dancing bodies beneath her. She’s throatily cooing out the chorus to “Electrified,” smiles lighting across her face as the twisting crowd shouts back, “Evolve!”
It’s past eleven and after two high-energy shows by The Poison Control Center and The Melismatics the crowd is still going strong. Heads, hands, arms, legs, everything that can be moved is moving, fatigue be damned. It’s hard not to shake something when the band playing in front of you is Dressy Bessy, anyways: the Denver-based band’s powerpop/rock stylings are blissfully addictive, doomed to stay in your head for days on end the minute their catchy beat starts you tapping your toes.
Dressy Bessy's John Hill. Media Credit: Casey Millburg.
One of my favorite descriptions of the group’s music was written by Sean Moeller of Daytrotter magazine, who sums up Dressy Bessy’s sound as follows:
“A Dressy Bessy song isn’t one without three very important components. First, it must actively enable or invite rump shaking, Ealom is about many more things fashion, a good smoke and exclamation points. Second, it must rely on straight-up, fuck ‘em all moxie that you get studying the bad guys in old-time Westerns or watching Kate Hepburn own her leading men. Thirdly, they absolutely must give off a glow of older climes. It must feel transported from the cream-colored pages of old Life magazines or Saturday Evening Posts. She’s of a vintage blueprint and when she brings guitarist John Hill (also of The Apples In Stereo), drummer Craig Gilbert and bassist Rob Greene into the folds, they make a sound that’s aged and cured, but sweaty so you know it’s alive.”
That must be what makes the music so good: how alive you feel when you listen to it, the swaggering rhythms, the easy way it taps into your inner groove box. Dressy Bessy’s the beat you walk to with your head held high, the soundtrack to some of your best friendships, and the guilt-free feeling of finally reaching the point where you decide that you’re only going to worry about doing what you want to do. Seeing them live is a free pass to release of all those pent up urges you’ve ever had to go completely off the wall but have been too responsible to give into.
The crowd dances to the music at Wrong Daddy's. Media Credit: Casey Millburg.
Up on the stage, Ealom channels a sort of rock’n’roll Holly Golightly vibe, infused with a dash of that mod sixties sensibility. Lest you think that she’s all bubbles and perk, however, I suggest you pick up a copy of Dressy Bessy’s newest album. The Denver-based band, at the time of the Kirksville show, was fresh off the release of a 13-track LP written exclusively by Ealom entitled Holler and Stomp, which sees the group gravitating noticeably towards that “fuck ‘em all” sound Moeller wrote about. It’s got a savvy, streetwise edge that pervades the entire album, belying the seeming nonchalance of the group’s trademark funky pop. Even “Simple Girlz,” the catchiest tune on the album, simmers with Ealom’s words about love: “Outstanding/It must be obvious/ I cannot be yours/You want a simple type of girl/A simply happy girl/You love the simple kinds of girls.”
The song ends and Ealom gives a little laugh into the microphone before saying,
Media Credit: Casey Millburg.
“You guys are better than Saint Louis!”
They’ve just played a show there recently, and hearing this makes the group of people on the floor ecstatic. It’s a theme that I keep hearing brought up throughout the night, not just from the bands but from people who attended the show, the idea that nobody had to go back to STL to get an experience that was, in every respect, amazing. There were the two guys at the bar who were, in between every swig of whiskey, using the
Dressy Bessy on the Wrong Daddy's stage. Media Credit: Casey Millburg.
word “awesome” as many times as they seemed capable of while gesturing madly towards the stage; the girl who, mid-twirl mid-song on the dance floor, threw up the Metallica hand and shouted out, “This fucking rules!”; and a friend who explained to me afterwards how excited she was that she didn’t have to drive home on a weekend “just to see something good.”
“Good” doesn’t even begin to describe the show that Saturday. There was the perfect lineup of artists, lined up in the perfect playing order (which is so important for a multi-artist show, it really is), with a perfect playlist in a perfect setting: five minutes from anywhere in town. The crowds were big enough to make it fun, the venue small enough to keep it intimate and the music good enough to keep people dancing all night long.
By the end of the night people emerged from the experience exhausted, content and thoroughly rollicked. The guy who I had seen shaking an orange upwards towards Dressy Bessy had beads of sweat rolling down his forehead and an absolutely blissful look plastered across his face as he made his way out of the club; I saw him later on that week in passing, sans fruit, and asked him what he had thought of the show.
He just smiled, which told me everything I needed to know.
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