2004

	December 29, 2004 Bopping Along By Lisa Kelly

Photo by Katie Hisert

BY EVAN GEORGE

The Ditty Bops, a playfully sincere, Fairfax-area based two-piece, practice at a different altar. In a city of unmerciful hip radar, where “the” bands are a dime a dozen, the Ditty Bops distance themselves from hip-ness with positivity. In a time when irony and sarcasm rule supreme, the Ditty Bops swear they were never told the rules. Theirs is an art form devoted to winning over the affection of every audience with chameleon-like charm. The Ditty Bops practice white magic.

While DeWald sat through her childhood piano lessons in a Shasta County household devoted to classical music, Barrett’s mother was teaching her how to play the dulcimer for her Celtic pagan combo in their Topanga Canyon backyard, or so the storygoes.

Twenty years later, in their neighbor’s garden, Amanda and Abby took lessons in jamming, reconciled their musical backgrounds, and gained their namesake. As their neighbor used to say, “Some people grow orchids, I grow Ditty Bops.” And grow they did.

The duo began showing off their strain of ragtime/folk/ jazz /pop/ musical theatre to small audiences at Canter’s Deli and Molly Malone’s. Soon thereafter, a friend they made while selling organic pasta at the Santa Monica Farmer’s Market brought his brother, a Warner Brothers scout, to a Ditty Bops show. After only eight performances they signed a major label record contract.

“I didn’t feel ready to be like ‘here’s my band,’” says DeWald. “We had just started playing when he brought him in, which was a surprise to me. Their interest was a surprise to me and that whole process happened very fast.”

For many young bands this sort of pace would be a creative jinx, but the Ditty Bops remained unfazed. When they booked studio time with Mitchell Froom (Elvis Costello, Crowded House) only six songs were written. But the two emerged from the studio in January with double the songs and a completed album that they couldn’t be happier with.

The first track finds the Ditty Bops entreating that, “with just one kiss you could change the world,” opening an album that screams “Get out of bed, ride your bike and fall in love!” Each track reaches in a different direction but shows the same trademarks; jangly guitar, saloon piano, mandolin and two voices that truly belong together.

With the album still in post-production purgatory, the duo spent the summer playing cabaret-like performances at the Largo, becoming infamous with audiences for themed shows and their version of rock ‘n’ roll stage antics: puppet shows. A far cry from rolling in broken glass perhaps, but the two harbor a sincere fear that the Ditty Bops are too bizarre for Warner Brothers. Describing this concern over a glass of carrot juice, Barrett and DeWald seem naively unaware of their endearingly un-weird place in the universe.

“ There are more of the label’s people coming to our shows,” says DeWald. “I don’t know if they’re thinking, ‘wow this is too weird, why did we sign them?’ I hope not — but so many people there have been so supportive and I just think that they’re getting it more and more, everyday, by seeing it rather than us trying to explain it to them.”
Warner Brothers released the duo’s self-titled album on October 26, which was not fast enough for some fans who communicate via the band’s website message board. Every week new followers post pleas of how to download songs that they’ve heard on the radio. When one fan asked when the couple would be performing in San Francisco, the chat room exploded with coos of “No, Toledo!” and “Please come to Minnesota.”
These core followers are unimaginably normal for an L.A.-based, self-proclaimed “weird” band. One sentimental posting proclaimed that “The Ditty Bops took my musical virginity,” by being the first group outside of classical music to enter this giddy fan’s collection. And he is not alone. Many of the fans who pop up on the Internet and in the band’s recent dinner lounge performances are jazz aficionados, the sophisticated dinner theatre crowd, and teenagers at home in John Mayer T-shirts.
“ There are some younger kids who are drawn to some of the songs, and you’ve got older guys who like the old covers,” admits Barrett.

The two seem at first uninterested in winning popularity with any exclusive L.A. scene for the same reason they are weary of being marketed. They say they are bored with being cast as two iconic stereotypes, as a yin and yang duo.

“ People totally try to do that with me and Amanda, they’re like ‘Abby’s the artist and Amanda’s the model. Abby does the chord changes, Amanda does the harmonies.’ And dude, that stuff is just totally not true, I’m a model!”

“ A lot of people that don’t know Amanda very well,” she continues, “and don’t know me very well, think that I’m just smart, serious and quiet, and Amanda’s cute and nice. We’re both actually very crass people.”

Andy Dick walks into the bar just as the MC hangs a party piñata. It’s Tuesday night at the Parlor Club, an outlandish Hollywood venue for performance art, and the drinking crowd has gathered around a puppeteer performing a skit about having sex with babies. This is the last place I expect to run into the Ditty Bops.

“ Hey, I’m so glad you could make it. My sketch comedy group ‘The Pretty Things’ is performing tonight,” Barrett squeals as she continues around the room passing out flyers. Obscure records spinning, go-go dancing and laughable celebrities, and suddenly the Ditty Bops, alleged bike-riding poster-children for musical sincerity, are cussing and wearing wigs for a fawning hipster audience. And then the realization comes: it is the songs themselves that are innocent, good, true and indifferent to hype, criticism and trends. Barrett and DeWald are, thankfully, human.

Their graceful melodies and chord progressions hint at Tin Pan Alley, Broadway and Lennon and McCartney, but it's their ability to hopscotch from style to style without taking an overly precious spill that really makes this record tick. They ponder everyday things, like life's endless rush hour to nowhere (the Technicolor two-step "Gentle Sheep"); busted relationships (the gritty country blues "Ooh La La," which asks, "Was it the fighting, was it the fist?/ Was it adventure with a jealous twist?"); and even dirty, sexually ambiguous little secrets ("There's a Girl," the only real foursquare pop song here). It's the kind of record you'd call an acquired taste, but you certainly don't need some hoity palate to enjoy it. An appreciation of something both tuneful and all the hell over the joint will suffice.

 
www.popmatters.com
short takes
THE DITTY BOPS
by Zeth Lundy
October 25,2004

"The Ditty Bops are the brainchild of Amanda Barrett and Abby Dewald, who met by chance or, more enchantingly, perhaps by some twist of divine fate. It's tempting to believe the latter; Barrett and Dewald's vocals harmonize with such nonchalant fluidity you'd think they share the same mouth. The two were discovered by Warner Bros. while performing around L.A., and soon after had a record contract with ex-gonzo producer Mitchell Froom at the album's helm. The Bops' music doesn't fit into the contemporary scheme of things; in other words, it's not the tiresome, excruciatingly pensive singer-songwriter fare commonplace in today's market. The group's self-titled debut is jam-packed with stylistic allusions to Beatlesque pop, old jazz and country, vaudeville, Broadway show tunes, and the Tin Pan Alley tradition. Instead of searching for their identity through a clinical case of multiple personality disorder, the Bops stir up a melting pot of sound that is far more cohesive than one would initially suspect.

The Ditty Bops is seemingly split into two indefinable (yet markedly different) sides, with its first dabbling in styles of old. The album opens with "Walk or Ride", a chugging jaunt that organically incorporates acoustic guitar, mellotron, mandolin, and skeletal percussion behind the instinctually intertwined harmonies of Barrett and Dewald. The song muses on the predicament inherent in a more harmonious or simple life. "You might find the meaning of life in the barrel of a rifle / If it's pointed at a bird or pointed at your head," the two sing in impeccable accord. "Me, I'd rather plant a tree that grows up tall for all to see / Until I need a pencil, then I'll chop it to the ground." The two strive to be idealistic, but ultimately settle for realism. The jazzy stroll of "Wishful Thinking" pines for a love encountered by chance: "When the leaves start fallin' from the trees / When the birds start flirtin' with the bees / When the wind starts blowin' from the east to the west / Maybe you'll be the one that I like best". "Ooh La La" is a gritty specimen of a soured relationship, digging into a Southern blues riff of acoustic guitar and banjo and spiced with homegrown country harmonies. "Was it the fighting, was it the fist? / Was it adventure with a jealous twist?" the Bops wonder aloud in foreboding unison. "Was it desire for another's kiss? / What brought the house down?"

The latter songs on the album keep the Ditty Bops' varied inspirations in the rear-view mirror while forging more contemporary sounds. In the clock ticking urgency of "Gentle Sheep", Barrett and Dewald look forward through dreamlike imagery and the pattering sprinkles of piano and guitar: "Rushing through time to find myself / Asking someone in the future if they'll save me a space". "Four Left Feet", the band's ode to bad dancing, opens with a guitar figure reminiscent of the Beatles' "Piggies" and moves into a patient waltz laced with accordion. "No nonsense makes no sense at all / Forget what you don't know," the two confoundedly beg, adding: "I'll ask you to dance / And if you agree / Me and you / That makes two with four left feet". The album's most intriguing track could be "Short Stacks", which owes more to the moody indie-folk of Cat Power than the 1960's variety. The song is built on an electronic beat, acoustic guitar, spooky keyboards, and includes some noir-ish electric plucks in its shadows. Froom's production here harkens back to his experimental folk hallmarks with Suzanne Vega, and suggests a number of exciting possibilities for future Ditty Bops records.

"I'm feeling quite confused / By the people who refuse to see / A simple way of life that don't make you a loser," Barrett and Dewald sing in The Ditty Bops' opening track, which nicely sums up their quest for good vibrations. It's relatively easy to bah humbug the Ditty Bops' modus operandi and write off their beaming positivity with a wave of a disillusioned, cynical hand. But such a gesture of Grinchian magnitude just feels wrong, and goes against the humble, hearty spell that the record casts so restlessly. Don't so much as give in to the Ditty Bops, embrace them.

Guitarist Abby Dewald and Amanda Barrett (who adds the exotic dulcimer and mandolin fretwork) shine with earthy vocals that reach for ethereal highs.

The music is good, but it's the poetic, bizarre and sometimes taboo lyrics that draw you in. When you have a falling-in-love song such as "Wishful Thinking" that opens with the jarring question, "Why does blood turn brown when it dries?" you know there's more to the band than the name Ditty Bops implies.

My parents were both in a traveling circus before I was born," says Barrett, a sometime model who, in addition to singing and writing songs, learned from her folks how to juggle, mime, and eat fire. The Ditty Bops' vaudevillian aesthetic carries into their live shows, each with its own theme, costumes, and set design. "One of the most important things for us is to make the performance theatrical," says Barrett, who met Dewald six years ago at a late night showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) in New York City's East Village. "We use my dad and some of his circus friends and incorporate mime in the show." The women even design many of their own set dressings. "We definitely take advantage of using props that we make out of cardboard and paint," explains Dewald. "I've always done art since I was a little kid, and I wanted to bring my art into our project."
  With angsty hand-wringing and raging cynicism still the dominant milieus of so much music these days, the Ditty Bops are a sprightly antidote. "It makes you think, Is this possible now? Can people be this free and do their art and have this much fun?" wonders Dewald.

If the Ditty Bops are any indication, the answer it seems, is yes.

The Ditty Bops started writing and playing together a year and a half ago thanks to a lost cat and an old man named Marty. “We were looking for a cat and we hopped over this fence and Amanda went up to the house,” explains the impish DeWald. “She rings the doorbell and she’s like, ‘I’m sorry, I had to come into your backyard,’ and she barged into Marty’s house and saw he had all these guitars all over his house and she was like, ‘Oh, Abby plays guitar,’ and he said, ‘Well, bring her by after you find your cat.’ We went back over to his house a couple of weeks later for dinner __ I don’t know why we just trusted this really old guy but we did and we went over there, hanging out playing songs and he said, ‘You can’ stop doing that.’”

And they didn’t. Their self-titled debut is just out and they’ve been steadily creating a buzz for themselves among Angeleno music lovers with their performance-artist-meets-musician themed shows. Both Barrett and DeWald grew up in environments that encouraged artistic expression. Barrett’s mom’s is a dulcimer player and her father a clown, while DeWald’s upbringing was filled with the sounds of everything from The Everly Brothers and the Kingston Trio to the Talking Heads. “Both my parents have done a lot of bizarre variety entertainment performances through the years,” says Barrett. “So I grew up with that and I wanted to do a combination of music with cabaret burlesque-style performances with costumes.”

Working with Mitchell Froom (Suzanne Vega, Crowded House, Elvis Costello), the girlsrecorded the album in two parts. On songs like “Wake Up”, the Bops piece together old saying such as “the early bird gets the worm” and “mind your manners” to communicate a feeling of repression followed by freedom. Froom guided the girls using a light touch. “Mitchell’s a real stickler for arrangement and making sure we got it the way we really wanted it to be before we brought in the other musicians and started recording,” explains Barrett. “We did about two weeks of prepping and arranging before the musicians came to record and it was really valuable to get a lot of the arrangements changed. We probably ended up finishing it faster because there was no stress. It was pure fun.”

The Ditty Bops are looking forward to starting their tour and showcasing their upbeat creations with the rest of the world. Who would they like to open for? “Lately, we’ve become obsessed with Nellie McKay -- we’d love to open for her!”

“Hey! Wanna see our new trick? Do ya?” Without waiting for a response, svelte and multi-talented siren Amanda Barrett puts down the dinky ukulele she’s been carrying, snatches the satchel from her musical collaborator, Abby DeWald, and produces – to the amusement of everyone seated at this small sidewalk café in Hollywood – three industry-standard juggling pins. The uke already attracted enough curious attention, but juggling pins?

That’s right nods Barrett, as she begins tossing, catching, tossing, catching, before DeWald steps in front for a difficult club-trading twist know among professionals as “stealing.” Her circus clown father – or, according to Barrett, “variety entertainer,” as he likes to be known – taught her the ropes. It seems that the only thing missing from this duo, billed as The Ditty Bops on their eponymous Warner Brothers debut, are the floppy shoes and kooky clowns-keep-a’comin car.

Passersby stop to watch the odd, impromptu street performance, while diners press their noses against the restaurant glass, oohing and aahing over the girls’ nimble agility. And everyone applauds when The Ditty Bops finish – folks knew they had a dinner coming, but theater, too? Such a bargain! Naturally, there’s a good deal of theatrical flair in the usual DeWald/Barrett stage show, which often incorporates themes, scripts, and elaborate props. Recent gigs of theirs have been advertised under themes such as, All Things Hawaiian, Big Top, Underwater Shenanigans, and Celebrity Lookalike. Their tunes, quirky two-part harmonies like “Gentle Sheep,” “Four Left Feet,” and an old-time Armand “A.J.” Piron cover, “I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate,” have the feel of vintage vaudeville, or music from some bygone, scratchy phonograph era when entertainers really had to entertain.

And a stranger pair of pop stars you’ll never find. For the past 10 years, Barrett has worked Europe and New York as a professional model, while longtime chum DeWald put her talents to work on cable access TV. Together, they aired a nutty sketch-comedy show called Pretty Things, before marrying their showmanship to retro-minded songwriting. What is their best show to date?

“We did an Alice in Wonderland theme once, which was just great,” DeWald purrs proudly. “We got to use all these costumes that Santa Monica College had used in their Alice production, which was really cool. And we wrote all these scenes that worked in some of our songs.”

“And we just had a circus show where we were gonna juggle,” adds Barret. “We had this big juggling plan, but it was so crowded in there and so dark, we couldn’t see anything. We both juggle, and Abby’s actually a better juggler than me. She’s the one who taught me how to pass, like we did on the street tonight.”

A nice trick, but Barrett contends that The Ditty Bops are not one-trick ponies just because they can pass those pins with P.T. Barnum aplomb. “We don’t always do this theatrical thing,” she says. “We’re not stuck in that rut. We can actually do just a show with nothing but pure singing, no skits whatsoever.”

Either way, The Ditty Bops are one heckuva carnival ride.

No one disputes that an artist must have talent to achieve success. But luck is far more elusive than talent and it’s just as important. Luck was decidedly on the Ditty Bops’ side when Warner Bros. A&R rep Craig Aaronson had the duo’s demo passed along to him by his brother Spencer. It was as if these artists had found their own golden ticket.
“We worked at the farmers markets in Santa Monica selling pasta and that’s how we met Spencer,” says Amanda Barrett.
 
“He came to a few of our shows — we’d only done a couple at that point, even though we’d both been active separately for years. Then he brought his brother Craig to see us. We hadn’t even thought of a label deal; we didn’t think we were ready. The whole signing thing came as a big surprise.”

Ideally, artists already have management and legal representation in place when it comes to signing time. “We didn’t really have management when we met with Warner Bros.,” says Abby Dewald. “We brought in someone we were working with on a trial basis. A few other people recommended some lawyers to us, as well. That’s how things started. We didn’t know very much about the music business then.”

Their industry naiveté may have worked in the Ditty Bops’ favor. “Once Warner began to take an interest in us, I read up on the business,” Barrett recalls. “But nothing I found in a book mirrored our experience; we’d done many things that the books warned against. I wonder if maybe the rules in the industry change so quickly that by the time you read a book it’s already outdated.”

Moreover, one person’s experience doesn’t necessarily translate into a set of universal guidelines. Yes, read the books, but their edicts need not be adhered to implicitly. All careers don’t follow the same path.

Guitarist DeWald prefers sketching. She designs most of the Ditty Bops’ cut-and-paste-ish artwork and prefers roll-up-your-sleeves work over smooth office sailing. “And my sister taught me how to juggle when I was a kid, so I kinda picked up pins in high school,” she explains. “But I stopped doing it for a while. Then I met Amanda and one of the first times we hung out, we juggled together. She taught me how to pass, and then her dad taught us some new tricks.”

The Ditty Bops’ eponymous debut on Warner Brothers is every bit as oddball. Bouncing along on the Roches-retro harmonies and quirky acoustic strumming, curiosities like “Ooh La La, “ “Walk or Ride,” and a kooky cover of “I Wish I could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate” actually sound like old vaudeville, with a sassy burlesque edge. Yes, the girls confess, juggling is sometimes incorporated into their elaborate stage performances, which involve scripts and usually revolve around a prop-heavy theme like “Hawaiian,” “Celebrity Look-a-Likes,” or their most difficult undertaking, “Underwater Night.” “When we have free reign, we really go all out,” chirps Barrett, sliding her uke around on the café table. “We’re even planning to have a shadow puppet show at one of our gigs. Balinese style, of course.”

Why a musical collaboration? Why not? Shrug DeWald and Barrett, who also punch in at 6:00 AM every weekday, hawking homemade pasta at an L.A. farmer’s market. If they can juggle huge standard-issue pins, juggling careers should be a simple circus act.

The Bops have been together only a year in this incarnation, but their melding of Western swing, ragtime, early jazz and musical theater has garnered them a rabid following and a Warner Bros. debut with producer Mitchell Froom (Suzanne Vega, Elvis Costello). As we gabbed away at the world-famous piss-elegant restaurant the French Market Place in West Hollywood, you would never have known this was their first major interview.

L.A. WEEKLY: You didn’t think I saw you both pull up on those heavy-duty mountain bikes with Apache fringe tassels. Now, DeManda, you’re the hot barracuda femme top, and Abby is the buttery, precious, butch bottom, in this musical relationship . . .

AMANDA: [Surprised.] DeManda was my nickname growing up! I was a very spoiled child.

ABBY: I’ve known Amanda for six years, but we didn’t start playing music till we moved back to Los Angeles from New York. We tried to work together, but we couldn’t figure out how to meld my jazz guitar with her experimental music.

Where did the name Ditty Bops come from?

AMANDA: We lost our familiar, and we finally found it in the back yard of our neighbor Marty, who used to jam with us. He’d always say, “Some people grow orchids, but I grow Ditty Bops.”

I love it! I knew you two were very Bell, Book and Candle. I find your songs very much like incantations or spells.

AMANDA: I grew up in Topanga playing dulcimer and singing with my mom’s Celtic pagan combo. And I like folk music — Joni Mitchell, Kate Bush . . .

ABBY: I’m from Northern California, Shasta County. I didn’t know who Kate Bush and Joni Mitchell were until I met Amanda. I started taking piano lessons at 5, then I quit. Growing up I only heard classical music around the house. As a teenager I was obsessed with ragtime, and bluesy guitar guys like Johnny Winter.

AMANDA: I listened to Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli. Marty introduced us to Dan Hicks and his Hot Licks . . .

ABBY: They are my favorite band.

A lot of the songs on your album are very plaintive and heartfelt. That first song, “Walk or Ride” — what a great way to start the record. The second track, “Wishful Thinking,” has a hilarious line: “Why can’t white people sing love blues?”

ABBY: I didn’t want to put “Wishful Thinking” first, because it’s traditional-sounding. It’s actually the first song that I ever wrote. I brought it to Amanda and we rewrote it.

The more traditional songs will stand out more to a young, modern audience — those sounds will strike them as completely new and exciting.

AMANDA: “Sister Kate” is our only cover.

It’s infused with a very original spirit, though.

ABBY: When I was working at a farmers market in New York, one of the bakers taught me how to play that song on ukulele. It’s the song that sparked my interest in that style of music of the 1920s.

You take that old-style music and filter it through your youthful sensibilities, bridging the generations.

AMANDA: We used to be in a band where we did nothing but ’20s covers. So I’ve always wanted to mix the music and performance, costume changes, cabaret and wigs. Different themes for every show.

Your music conveys a lot of hope. It’s not cynical.

ABBY: I’m glad you hear that. Sometimes when I write a lyric I think it is too preachy, and I want it to be inclusive, not dogmatic.

You have such an authority when you both are singing. It’s beyond star presence, people’s jaws actually drop . . .

AMANDA: The theme of our last stage show was “Gods and Goddesses,” and I invoked the Scandinavian deity Freya. Ever since then I’ve had more fun with the audience, and my performances have improved.

Posted Sun., Jun. 20, 2004, 3:36 PT (Largo, Los Angeles; 150 capacity;$5)
Presented inhouse with KCRW. Reviewed June 17, 2004
Band: Amanda Barrett, Abby Dewald, Greg Rutledge,
John Landon, Ian Walker

Young Los Angeles femme duo the Ditty Bops brought a breezy eccentricity to their Largo appearance Thursday night, adding a puppet show, homemade props and a drag queen to their airy confection of '20s jazz, coffeehouse folk and Beatles-esque pop.

Fronted by the statuesque Amanda Barrett, who with her tasseled dress and short bob could pass for a flapper, and Abby DeWald, whose bluff stage patter, masculine clothes and strong jawline recalls comic Paula Poundstone, the Ditty Bops have a gently comic stage presence that matches well with their jumble of musical styles.

Their close harmonies have a sweet innocence that belies the darker edges that can creep into the jaunty swing of "Wishful Thinking" and the brooding "Short Stacks" (both from their upcoming Warner Bros. debut).

Accompanying themselves on mandolin and guitar, they are ably backed by John Landon's slide guitar and fiddle, Ian Walker's upright bass and Greg Rutledge barrelhouse piano.

What impresses most is the lack of irony. The Ditty Bops avoid the brittle superiority of camp; there is genuine affection in their performance, which allows them to find the wishful emotion at their heart of '20s novelty "I Wish That I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate." It's a balancing act reminiscent of Dan Hicks.

The only time they falter is when Barrett brings out hokey drawings and props during "Dreaming Away." It's not so much that the humor falls flat, but it takes away from the song, a lovely ballad credited to Barrett's father. By contrast, when shadow puppets accompany "On a Boat," not only is the puppeteering clever and well executed, it's perfectly matched to the song's giddy black humor.
The Ditty Bops return to Largo for a residency, performing every Wednesday in August.