Tchotchke Return With Beach Boys Inspired New Single "Poor Girl"
- Josh Kitchen
- Jul 2
- 3 min read
Updated: 7 days ago
By: Josh Kitchen / July 2, 2025
Doe-eyed Dolly has her parents fooled, Cryin’ Crissy is crying because the salon made her Marilyn instead of Bardot, and Suzie Slicker’s got a penchant for acrylics and thievery. These are the characters that New York-based retro power-pop rock trio Tchotchke inhabit on their latest single, "Poor Girl," from their just-announced sophomore album, Playin' Dumb- out September 5. Made up of Anastacia Sanchez on drums and vocals, Eva Chambers on bass and vocals, and Emily Tooraen on guitar and vocals, Playin' Dumb comes three years after Tchotchke's excellent self-titled debut, the new album is once again produced by fellow 1960's devotees and all-things-shiny-and-classic rock icons The Lemon Twigs. Fans of the Brothers D’Addario who aren't already Tchotchke lovers will undoubtedly be tapping their toes and humming along to “Poor Girl” for days to come.
The song begins immediately with the band singing the chorus—“poor girl”—drenched in glorious ooooh and ahhhhhh harmonies, set to a beat reminiscent of "California Girls" by the Beach Boys. Wilson, who passed away just two weeks before "Poor Girl" was released gets a shout out from the band in their post announcing the single - "We <3 you Brian Wilson." For "Poor Girl," the band created three "poor girls" to sing from the perspectives of. The girls in “Poor Girl” are, of course, not poor in a monetary sense, but privileged and villainous. Tooraen explains,
“We confined ourselves to creating the personas of three ungrateful and out-of-touch girls with complete stories in the span of four lines each.”
Tooraen tells me, “It was a very fun process writing that song. And we really didn't intend to write anything about ourselves. It was really just trying to find characters that we thought fit this mold of a ‘poor girl.’”
The music video directed by Kaila Chambers and Hilla Eden, is a technicolor mixed media triumph. The band plays each of the poor girls - each getting their own vignette with paper cut-out figures animated against colorful and collage set pieces. Tooraen told me, "we realized, oh, we could each fit into these characters pretty well, and then we're like, oh,
"you know, we should play these girls."
Doe-eyed Dolly, played by Chambers, is sticking needles in voodoo dolls of her parents. Cryin’ Crissy played by Tooraen terrorizes the salon after they messed up her haircut. And Sanchez is Suzie Slicker, whose stealing streak eventually must come to its end. One of the breakout stars of the video is the poor girl who lives on Sanchez’s drum head—a raggedy Ann-style doll face with Pippi Longstocking pigtails comically extended and “levitating” with the help of some B-movie string work. Chambers tells me, "the song and the video were some of the hardest things to film and write, because to do a story with a beginning, middle, and end — in three short verses lines, and then get it to translate with animation - was very difficult." Watching the video, you can see how much hard work and effort went into it - it's impressive and a joy to watch - much like how the song itself is like sensory candy.
"Poor Girl" is a great example of what makes Tchotchke such an exciting band—there is enough here musically to excite anyone with two ears and a heart, while also showcasing the band’s great sense of humor and storytelling abilities. Sanchez crushes it taking double duty on drums and lead vocals, along with a bassline from Chambers that would make Brian Wilson proud, and some serious shredding from Tooraen. Accompanied with production from The Lemon Twigs that’s warm and reminiscent of Brian Wilson’s work on mid-’60s Beach Boys records, “Poor Girl” is a serious contender for song of the summer.
And Brian Wilson is of course on Tchotchke's mind since his passing on June 11 - Tooraen telling me:
“I’ve been listening to a lot of Beach Boys, and I’ve been listening to that song "Shortnin’ Bread" - a lot.”
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