Kevin Bronson on November 13th, 2009

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In her persona as Dee Dee, guitar-slinging frontwoman of SoCal garage-rockers Dum Dum Girls, Kristin Gundred has gotten in touch with that little girl who used to sing along to pop classics. “I’ve always been a fan of more straightforward pop music, and of all the oldies,” she says. “I probably know all the songs on oldies radio.”

The singing served her well as drummer-vocalist of Grand Ole Party, the soul-rock trio that busted out of San Diego in 2007 and released their debut “Humanimals” in 2008. But with the demise of GOP – “There’s no future; it doesn’t exist,” Gundred says when asked about the trio’s status – Dee Dee returned to her guitar-playing roots and started writing and recording catchy, low-fi songs that remind you of the fuzzy candy dispensed by the likes of the Raveonettes, the Ronettes and Vivian Girls.

“It’s a completely new and separate thing for me – there’s no context in other things I’ve done,” she says, explaining why she undertook the project as Dee Dee and released a couple of EPs and a single as something of a mystery woman. “Essentially, it’s a new start for me.”

Sub Pop signed her this summer – an album is planned for late March or early April – and a handful appearances on the East Coast (including CMJ) have stoked the buzz. Upcoming West Coast dates include a set Saturday at Hollywood Brew Fest.

The Dum Dum Girls music finds Gundred putting aside her sticks in favor of guitar picks. “I tried to learn guitar in the 7th grade – my dad gave me a co-worker’s nylon-stringed guitar,” she says. “I learned ‘The Man Who Sold the World,” a couple Smashing Pumpkins songs, a Beatles song, then I kind of let it sit for 10 years. I managed not to do anything with it for a long time.

“It’s been baby steps. But once I knew my chords, I thought, ‘I can write these songs.’ … I’m not trying to rewrite the past, but I definitely like the old songwriting tricks from the ’60s. I’m obsessed with the big chrous – I want everything to sound like a single.”

||| Download: “Catholicked” (via RCRDLBL.com) and “Jail La La” (via Sound Bites)

||| Live: Dum Dum Girls perform at Hollywood Brew Fest on Saturday at the Fonda Theatre and Nov. 28 at Spaceland.

Photo by Lauren Dukoff