Dum Dum Girls Share Shelved Original Video for “Coming Down”
Lost 2011 Video Returns Thanks in Part to Orange is the New Black
Jul 21, 2015
Dum Dum Girls
Back in 2011 director Sam Macon directed a video for the Dum Dum Girls song “Coming Down,” a single from the band’s second album, Only in Dreams. The black & white video was shot in New York and featured front-woman Dee Dee Penny singing the song directly to the camera in Chinatown. Previous Dum Dum Girls videos had been more obscure and less straightforward. Penny decided she was uncomfortable with the results and requested that the video be shelved, despite the efforts of Macon, her management, and her label Sub Pop to convince her otherwise. “I couldn’t handle starring in such a straight forward, HD role,” Penny says now, in a press release. “It was just too much me. I felt exposed and that made me uncomfortable.”
A new video was shot by future Dum Dum Girls bass player Malia James and released instead. Cut to four years later and interest in “Coming Down” has renewed thanks to it being prominently featured in a recent episode of Orange is the New Black. The radio edit of the song is being re-released digitally, along with its original limited edition 7-inch B-side, “Girls Intuition.” Sub Pop asked Penny how she’d feel about finally releasing the long lost video to help promote the digital re-release and this time she agreed to it.
“I look like a kid in it. I look as young and vulnerable as I actually was at that point in my life,” Penny says now. “It’s probably the most honest visual I’ve done to date, which is probably why I fought it,” she laughs. Penny reached out to Macon about unearthing the video and his simple reply was, “I’ve been waiting for this text for four years.”
Check out it out below and purchase the single via iTunes or Sub Pop. Dum Dum Girls’ third album, Too True, was released last year. Read our 2014 interview with Penny on the album.
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