blond on blonde

Got paid this week and went on a CD-buying spree. Picked up two of them. The first - these kids pictured on the top of this post are 'Duke Spirit' an "Indie" band from Engalund that I saw recently on one of the late-night talk shows. The blonde girl lead-singer is Liela Moss. She bangs a mean tamborine and does some very spirited dancing. I can hardly wait to see them when they inevitably play the Rivoli during the next North-by-Northwest music week.

You can find a video of them on the YouTube. I highly recommend the hit, entitled 'The Step and the Walk.' There's both a professionally done video and an acoustic version of the song filmed in someone's living room - which surprisingly builds into something just as powerful as the other one. Like I said, this chick knows her way around a tamborine.

'The Step and the Walk' is easily their best song. Think of The Cult in their 'She Sells Sanctuary' days, but with Debbie Harry instead of Morrison doing the lead vocals. Like all the 'new' music I listen to that's being produced by the young people these days, the main reason I like it is because it's so retro-sounding. Not only to the Cult (who were retro themselves,) but to Blondie circa their first LP, the one with 'Sex Offender' on it - easily their best song, and ironically the one you never heard on the radio. And of course at the time, 1976, Blondie appealed to me because of its retro sound of all those girl bands from a decade earlier.

... now, as for the second blonde up there, that's Jennifer Nettles from 'Sugarland.' At work I am forced to watch Country Music Televison every morning from six a.m. until I leave two hours later. If you happen to watch CMT, or occassionally land on it whilst flipping the channels, you will undoubtably know Sugarland from the continuous airplay of their current hit, the annoying/but not so annoying that I bought it anyway "All I Want to Do." Now that I think of it, I did the same thing a year ago when I bought a Gwen Stephanie CD just for 'The Sweet Escape' - it's a song similarly infectiously annoying as 'All I Want to Do' only with a 'Whoo-hoo' instead of a 'Do-ooo-oou-ooo-oo-oo' chorus. And after playing the shit out of it the first week, it has sat untouched and unplayed for almost a year. We never learn do we?

I'll admit it right now. It was Lust that made me buy 'Sugarland.' And when a DVD collection of the band's hits come out, it will be Lust that makes me buy that too.

C'mon, take a look at her. Seek out the video on the YouTube. And then try to tell me that she's not the cutest thing in the world. And I mean even cuter than Shania.

This isn't the first time I've bought music simply because of music-video induced infatuation. But the last time it happened was when I bought a Joan Jett record all because of 'I Love Rock and Roll.' I was surprised, because I was no stranger to Joan Jett. I owned The Runaways LP the year it came out which was at least a decade or 15 years earlier. Who would have thought anyone from that band would have gone on to better things. Let alone coming to London thirty years later?

So I was right on the money with The Runaways. And I predict similar moderate success for The Duke Spirit and Liela Moss. As for Sugarland, my guess is that the next single will be the serious balland 'Joey' followed by the more fun 'It Happens.'

As for the rest of the New Country blondes, what's all the big fuss about newcomer/crossover artist Jessica Simpson going country and being booed off the stage? I'd swear - every third video on CMT is yet another blonde Barbie doing some lame-ass piece of shit that belongs on EZ-106.

Except for Miranda Lambert. I like her. She don't kick butt, she kicks ass.