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Thursday, December 13, 2007

Flash GordonIt's Nina Gordon!

Don't worry, a month ago I'd never heard of her either. Have a guess how old she is...

Yes, that's right, she's 39. Or she was when that photo was taken. Lisa's only 38 at the moment, so she won't look like that until next year.

Anyhoo, Nina Gordon is, as you'll find out if you click on that link, an American singer-songwriter. Unless you visit her MySpace page, in which case she's listed under death metal. It's just one of those light-hearted, gently ironic jokes which are completely wasted on death metal fans.

I actually discovered her by accident during one of my regular monthly pilgrimages to Amazon (the website, not the basin), a deeply religious experience which involves me typing the words "Michelle Branch" into the little search box, hitting 'Enter', and spending the next five minutes cursing the gods of rock for the fact that she still hasn't released a new album. I've been doing that since about 2003.

When I visited last month, however, Amazon informed me that a lot of people who, like myself, think Michelle should get her priorities right and make a record instead of sitting at home with her new baby, had consoled themselves by listening to music by Nina Gordon. Well, what it actually said was "Customers who bought this item also bought..." but it amounts to the same thing. So after listening to a few snippets, I followed their example and handed over my debit card details in return for Nina's two albums. And...

They're very good. She's like Aimee Mann, only foxier. Obviously her physical appearance has nothing to do with my love for her music. Not at all. Well maybe slightly. But even if she looked like Bella Emberg or, God forbid, Letitia Dean, I'd still think she was one of the finest songwriters I've ever heard.

In an outrage of epic proportions, Nina's just had a baby too, so she won't be releasing any more records for a while, but the two albums by her former band Veruca Salt are on my Christmas list, and while I wait for those, I thought I'd look up the music to some of her songs, and rock out in my living room with an acoustic guitar. Unfortunately a hundred million websites on the internet yielded the chords to approximately three Nina Gordon songs, so...

Quicker than you can say 'gap in the market', I'm unleashing another website on the world. Brace yourself, it's...

Nina-Gordon.net

It's just your average 28-page website knocked up in about twelve days. Unfortunately, having spent the past fortnight working out the music to twenty-seven songs, whilst covering major world events on this blog, working as a film critic for The Kemptown Rag and an art critic for The Argus (I think I'll put that on my CV), not to mention writing my Christmas cards and queueing for the toilets at the Hammersmith Apollo, I haven't actually had time to apply for any jobs.

I'm due at the Jobcentre this morning, so I think I'll take my guitar and try to pass it off as voluntary work.

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