A bunch of chauvinistic misogynist rubbish disguised as high-level rock music comment

It's been interesting to read a few blogs recently that have been inspired, directly or less so, by conversations I've been part of on Twunter. This may be the first one inspired by a conversation which I wasn't. The thought occurred when shooting the shit with various Tweeps over the past few days that I don't go for movie chicks. Never have. Ask me who's my fave hottie actress - as per the topic du jour at the time - and other than trotting out a bunch of off-the-shelf predictables - yer Scarlett Johanssons, yer Nic Kidmans back in the day et al - it's Blank Looks Au Go Go from this little black duck.

Thing is, I don't watch a lot of fillums. (Not that sort anyway.) Aside from Hollywood last having an original idea in about 1973, I lack the attention span for your common or garden variety three hour modern blockbuster. I don't have a lot of answers. Unless you're asking who's my fave hottie French actress of the last ten to fifteen years, f'rinstance, in which case I can probably name you a First XI. SBS began broadcasting into my locality in the mid-'90s, and Your Correspondent was quick to discover it wasn't just the legendary goalscoring strikeforce of Les Murray and Johnny Warren that made for quality viewing; the willingness with which France's finest actrines tossed their undergarments in the skip before sashaying on set probably added significant value there, truth be told.

That French First XI, in no particular order:

1 Emmanuelle Beart
2 Sophie Marceau
3 Isabelle Adjani
4 Anne Parillaud
5 Irene Jacob
6 Julie Delpy
7 The batshit insane one from Betty Blue
8 Audrey Tautou*
9 Juliette Binoche
10 Eva Green
11 Laetitia Casta

* slightly loopy but gets an 'assist' for my first date with the FDMDY, which was going to see Amelie at the Indro Hoyts Multimegahyperplex

Admittedly Binoche should lose big points for The English Patient being so fucking awful and Casta couldn't act her way out of a wet copy of Le Figaro but that's still a handy French representative side. Probably less lumpen and woody than anything one of Raymond 'Woody Allen' Domenech's apoplectically rubbish French sides have amounted to since choke-vomiting their way through the penalty shootout in the 2006 World Cup final on the back of Zizou Zidane's sending-off for nutting Materazzi.

Aforementioned haughty Continental contingent aside, actresses don't do it for me. Let's face it, they sit around, look pretty, and read a bunch of lines that someone else wrote for them. Newsreaders deserve as much credit. (But that's another story altogether - the perennial battle for the Sandra Sully Perpetual Trophy.) Your Correspondent used to know a bunch of proto-actrines from the uni dramatic and theatrical society and that's precisely what they were - dramatic and theatrical. Lovely girls, but Jesus suffering fuck were they high maintenance and hard work. No, deep down, I've always preferred a much more grounded, more centred group of girls. Calm, rational, and reasonable. The sort you can bring home to meet your mother.

Rock chicks.

Fucken A. Rock chicks are where it's at. Not your Bassingthwaites, Valances and Good Reams of the soapie starlet pop world; not the deliberately alternate types like Shirley Manson, Meg White (sex tape not withstanding), Karen O from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs or that fucking annoying bint from the Ting Tings; and definitely NOT the nasty skank stylings of Amy Winehouse, Peaches or Courtney Hole.

I can trace it back to where it began: two women, sometime in 1990/91. Suze de Marchi from the Baby Animals, and Michelle, the hot brunette lead singer from our high school rock band. Suze was all black leather, pouting snarl, husky vocals and shiny black Gibson Les Paul out front of the Baby Animals, and had every adolescent male's unmentionables in her grasp by the time their self-titled debut came out. Her attitude dripped with the unmistakable premise of 'Don't fuck with me, boy.' Of course that was precisely what we would have liked to do, had we not been spotty pubescents half her age and instead been, oh I don't know, that ponce Nuno Bettencourt from Extreme.

Michelle was marginally more in our ballpark, by which I mean she went to the same school. Granted we had as much chance of winning on with her as we had achieving cold fusion in the rotary pencil sharpener in the library, but it didn't prevent us enjoying her tenure with the rock band. It seemed all they really knew how to play was the Screaming Jets' Better - which Does Not Work with a female vocalist pitched an octave or three above yer man Dave Gleeson - but Michelle's charms (often, so ran persistent rumour, unrestrained by the fascist paternalistic emblem of paternalistic fascism that was the D-cup bra) made up for such minor technicalities. She was, not to put too fine a point on it, hot as be-damned. The only thing she didn't do was rock the fuckin' stack herself with a sweat-streaked axe slung over her shoulder, largely as the school rock band's virtuoso-in-residence of that era could do Eddie Van Halen tapping solos and went on to be a Bloody Good Professional Guitarist, notwithstanding several years spent slumming it in a covers band with regular WoB appearee AJ.

So that was it for me. Rock chicks who play guitar >>>>>>> pretty much anything else you can stack thereagainst. I humbly sumbit for your consideration, in no particular order other than chronological:

Veruca Salt. Post-grunge mid-90s grrrrll band who shot to prominence with the single Seether and followed it up with the epic 8 Arms To Hold You album, produced by Bob Rock and beladen with riffs heavier and hairier than God's own dick. Up front were Louise Post, who Dave Grohl was fucking at the time, and Nina Gordon, who much to Dave Grohl's eternal discredit, Dave Grohl wasn't fucking at the time. Louise wrote the better songs but Nina was the better singer. And was hot as balls. Stupidly the pair of them fell out, probably over dick, and Nina went off to forge an ill-advised career as a milquetoast singer-songstress, while Louise took what was left of the Salts deep into Courtney Love territory from where they have not been heard from since. Still, 8 Arms fucking rocked and I may have personally burnt a groove in the UQ uni bar's laser jukebox vid of Volcano Girls.


Sarah McLeod from the Superjesus. Your archetypal spunky little Aussie rock chick. Could have drunk you under the table straight after blowing better credentialled acts off the stage at Livid or Homebake. Had a marginally hotter sister with a relatively forgettable TV career. Much like her own solo career after the Jebus (thanks v. much Moff c. Livid 2001) broke up a few years back, but that's to forget the massive impact of Sumo and Jet Age when they hit the market in the late Nineties and early Noughties. Largely on the basis of Sarah McLeod's awesomeness. Put it this way: she's from Adelaide, and you still would.


Lash. OK, they were invented by producers - well, unearthed from a school band comp in Perth and polished to buggery by producers - and their stuff was produced to within an inch of its fucking life. And they never should have been played on Triple J. Or invited to play live at Homebake. And they couldn't actually play live, let alone at Homebake. But Take Me Away was catchy enough... and, most importantly of all, even if the rest of them were a bit munty (may be a WA thing), the blonde guitarist was a fucking babe.


Sahara Hotnights. Daaaaaaamn. Four thermally-conductive rock chicks from Sweden playing dirty garage punk like it was going out of fashion (which, ironically, was the complete opposite of the case in the early Noughties.) Saw them live supporting the Datsuns at the Metro in April 2003, as mentioned in previous media commitments. Figuring out the answer to the Swedish equivalent of Ben Elton's 'Australian question' (in this case which of the Sahara Hotnights you'd bang first) was harder than four unit maths but after comparing notes with fellow attendee Dr Craigos (who like me wasn't brave/stupid enough to do 4U Maths) the conclusion was drawn that lead singer-guitarist Maria Andersson (yeah I had to look it up in the album liner notes) would have edged it very marginally.


The Donnas. Gold standard for all-girl rock bands. World's Best Practice at writing songs about drinking far too much and having vast amounts of cheap and nasty casual sex (to wit, tracks entitled Skintight, 40 Boys in 40 Nights, Take It Off, It's So Hard, Take Me To The Backseat etc etc etc.) Most importantly, they fucking wail. And, as is THE LAW for all-girl rock bands, the hottest one is the guitarist, and the guitarist is the hottest one. Not even going to bother pointing out which one is the guitarist. It's the hottest one. IT'S THE LAW.


In conclusion, nothing on Earth is hotter than a hot chick who plays guitar. Nothing.

Well, maybe a hot French movie actress who plays guitar.

The Doctor is OUT.