Last month I caught up with my phriends Tchotchke, whose 2022 self-titled debut LP proved to be the best sunshine punk record since I came up with designation to describe the sonic aesthetic of Beach Day (whose Kimmy Drake credited me with creating a genre). However, the sounds of Tchotchke’s sophomore LP, Playin’ Dumb (out this Friday, September 5th) has the NYC band — comprised of Anastasia Sanchez (vocals, drums), Eva Chambers (bass, keys, vocals), and Emily Tooraen (guitar, vocals) — characterizing themselves as a “diva rock trio.”
During our half-hour Zoom chat, I ask what diva rock means to them, and Anastasia muses, “I think, for diva rock, it’s collectively a group of strong women who… We’re very much trying to deliver the experience of…” before conceding, “I’m being a diva,” with a laugh. But Eva quickly picks up the ball, explaining, “We just needed to make up a genre, we had to like type up genres, and it was just a joke, but we’re like, ‘I guess that encapsulates Tchotchke: diva rock.’”
However, the trio admit that they definitely think “sunshine punk” works for LP #1. “That feels accurate to me!” says Eva, with Emily explaining, “I feel like the way that the first album was recorded was definitely more like a punk operation, compared to this one. It seemed a little more haphazard,” before Eva goes on to say, “It was a lot of, ‘Let’s see what happens,’ sporadic, and in the moment, a lot of improvisation… I think the first record, with most people, kind of helps gives you a clear vision of what you want for the second one.”
Playin’ Dumb – taking inspiration from intellectual pop of the ‘60s and ‘70s, classic girl groups, and early iterations of punk rock – represents something a little more focused. “I think that the first record was very much a breadth of work, so it was a bunch of songs that we kind of had floating around and, on the spot, worked out. This album is very carefully thought out and definitely has a more concentrated feeling to it,” explains Anastasia, with Eva even admitting, “It really doesn’t feel like our second album. It truly feels like our first, because there were some missed opportunities with the last one, like a lot of the group vocals and us playing on all of the recordings. This album fully sounds like us and how we sound at the live show.”
Production duties on both LPs were handled by longtime friends of the trio Brian and Michael D’Addario, AKA The Lemon Twigs, for whom Tchotchke opened Underground Arts in 2022 for their first appearance in the City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection. “It’s great working with them because I think we all have a pretty mutual, unspoken understanding of what sound we’re going for,” Eva says of the D’Addario brothers, before Anastasia adds, “And they’re not afraid to vocalize their opinions.” Emily also notes the wealth of experience they bring to the table, after more than a decade of doing this: “I feel like they have very on-the-fly good ideas and they aren’t afraid to try things out and just see how something sounds and experiment. They both have a wellspring of ideas to try out, which is really inspiring to be around and work with.”
Following their Spring 2022 jaunt with The Lemon Twigs, Tchotchke spent the next two-and-a-half years providing support for a number of additional indie rock heavy-hitters, including a trio of dates at Johnny Brenda’s: July of 2022 with BRONCHO (with whom Anastasia and Eva previously toured as Pinky Pinky, the Joy Division to Tchotchke’s New Order… or something like that), March of 2023 with King Tuff (the last time I caught up with the girls), and July of 2024 with The Make-Up.
Along with making new friends and giving the group the opportunity to exchange their namesakes with said friends (“We’ve been giving away tchotchkes with the merch for a while. That’s kind of been part of our merch experience, giving away little, tiny trinkets,” says Emily, who notes a little glass deer given to the band in Liverpool and a particularly meaningful wind-up dog gifted by an older male fan.), Tchotchke’s touring also gave them the chance to hone their sound for the second record. “I feel like we got to try out some of the songs that are on the new album, so that was really great to test those out,” Emily tells me, with Eva adding, “It was great practice for the long put-off recording of the new album. We were very well rehearsed and ready to go.”
Tchotchke have already released four singles from Playin’ Dumb: “Did You Hear?” “Poor Girl,” “Now I Love You,” and, most recently, the title track and closing number, which dropped last month. The song – which would seem to have a number of sonic references to Phil Spector – has an accompanying music video directed by Ambar Navarro (who also directed the videos for “Wish You Were a Girl” and “Come on, Sean,” off of the debut) that the band tells me was inspired by Jim Henson’s 1965 short Time Piece, a collection of short vignettes of random things. For their adaptation, we see the Tchotchke girls flying a kite in a storm, doing a blow-dry in a bathtub, and playing chess with a dog, advancing the concept of the song and album.
The trio have also recently put out videos – both directed by Eva’s sister Kaila Chambers and Hilla Eden (Eden also co-directed, with the band, Tchotchke’s Rocky-inspired first-ever video, “Dizzy.”) — for “Poor Girl” and “Now I Love You,” which Emily tells me enabled the group to lean into their personas for the new album: “That was a cool new setting for us, because we had never really done a nature video, so it was really cool to play some new characters and also kind of play into the girliness of the flowers and the hearts and stuff. It felt really true to the song and the band.”
In addition to the music videos Tchotchke are utilizing to help build a world of Playin’ Dumb, the vinyl release is accompanied by an original board game designed by Eva, described in recent press releases as, “a colorful tabletop trip of girlspeak, gossip and truth or dare prompts….” “The board game idea came when the song ‘The Game’ was written, which was the first song. But that was actually kind of shelved for the whole album process, because doing a whole album based off of a board game concept sounded difficult,” Eva tells me, laughing, but says that the idea was quickly revisited: “As the songs were written, we kind of saw, ‘Oh, great! This can totally work into this theme, and then we just totally went with it!” Emily admits that she thinks the game successfully ties everything together.
“I think it really just fit with all the songs. We were following this thread of gossip and really committing to our femininity and making it playful in a game… I feel like the songs and the game kind of seamlessly work together. Also, the board game gives life to a lot of the visuals. Eva drew all the images on the board game and designed it, so I feel like it’s added a whole other dimension to the songs, being able to have a playable game. It creates an immersive experience for the listener. So, we hope that when people buy the vinyl, they’ll be able to really enjoy it on a whole other level!”
Surprisingly, despite the level of dedication to their own creation, the band tells me that they haven’t spent much time actually playing board games themselves… before remembering one particular session of Scrabble with The Lemon Twigs, of which there is apparently a photo floating around somewhere. However, they do admit that their own board game definitely takes inspiration from activities that they regularly partake in: “We are fans of playing games with each other… I mean, dumb made-up ones, but like making dares or just gossiping about stuff, telling secrets. So, all of those kinds of prompts are included in the game.”
As a collection of music nerds, our chat inevitably drifts to a discussion of the best sophomore albums of music history, and each of the girls seems to have one particular favorite. “I love Fiona Apple’s When the Pawn…,” says Anastasia; “I love With the Beatles. All the early Beatles stuff I really love, but I think that’s a very strong sophomore album,” Eva chimes in; while Emily tells me, “I think my favorite sophomore album is Jimi Hendrix’s Axis: Bold as Love, which was so formative for me.” Although, after the girls share their official superlatives, Anastasia admits that there is another sophomore LP that had a particularly significant influence on her, whose creator is someone Tchotchke are about to become very familiar with.
“Street Punk came out in 2013. I remember when that came out and just loving that record. All the California bands around that time — a lot of it was Burger Records bands — were all those people. And Punx was always just the fucking coolest and had the best visuals and the best sound. They just don’t give a fuck, so it was always so rad! When we heard they were going on the road, immediately we were like, ‘If we don’t tour with them… That’s not an option, we have to tour with them!’ So, that it happened was just like, ‘Thank you, Jesus!’”
Next week, just four days after Playin’ Dumb drops, Tchotchke will hit the road as direct support for Hunx and His Punx, which will have the two artists at First Unitarian Church next Friday, September 12th. It’s been about a year since Tchotchke’s done any real touring, and they tell me that returning fans can expect new songs, new instruments, and also a few deep cuts that the band haven’t revisited until recently, that they think are sounding better than ever. After these six dates supporting Hunx and His Punx, Tchotchke have a Halloween show at Knockdown Center in Queens, where they’ll be performing a cover set as The Four Seasons (Our longtime phriend Shilpa Ray will be performing as The Fugs and our new buddy Grace Bergere will be playing as Laurie Anderson!), but nothing else official is on the books. Although Anastasia tells me the plan is to spend a lot more time playing on the road.
“I hope we tour a lot. We don’t have a label, we’re doing everything ourselves, just like you, Izzy! We’re independent women! So, everything is so in the air. We have to figure out and fully realize what we’re gonna do and how we’re gonna do it. Right now, that’s exactly what we’re doing with the live show and different renditions of the songs. And I think we’re on the right path, we just need to start booking!”
*Get your tickets here.
