Gentlemen Prefer Concrete Blondes

I finally found a DVD of Concrete Blonde videos last week. Concrete Blonde was one of my favorite groups of the 1990s and I wasn't aware that they made that many videos, let alone released them on DVD. Yet they did -- on a little disc entitled Still in Hollywood: The Videos.

Unfortunately it doesn't have every single video they ever made and indeed, the most frustrating aspect of the DVD is the number of videos -- the one from “Bloodletting (The Vampire Song),” for example -- that are not available on this DVD. (Indeed, the only place you can see that video is on the youtube.com site.)

Moreover, most of the videos aren't exactly visually inspired. Just multiple shots of the band playing with an occasional extra to break the monotony. But the songs are still good. “Caroline” is still as haunting as it was when I first heard it back in 1990 though why they set the video for it in a strip joint is something I never quite figured out. “Someday” is good, too, and “Ghost of a Texas Ladies' Man” gives lead singer Johnette Napolitano a chance to dress up in period costume.

I still would have liked to have seen a DVD release of the black-and-white video for “Bloodletting (The Vampire Song).” Or even the video for “Tomorrow, Wendy,” a song Concrete Blonde covered for Andrew Prieboy. (Unfortunately, the one video available on youtube.com is the Prieboy version, but Johnette sings backup on that one as well.)

Oh,well. I guess you can't have everything...