Lieb alone

Heidi Lieb, Sit N' Spin's front gal, is on a rock-and-roll mission

by John O'Neill

New Jersey's Sit N' Spin are a band formed the old-fashioned way. So inspired and wigged-out by what they were hearing on the radio, they plunked down some money to buy an instrument and

began strumming. (Lord knows, how many kids took to their parents' garage after hearing the Beatles.) It was the early '90s, and two young deejays at Rutgers University, Heidi Lieb and Sue Stanley, were bitten by their playlist and realized they too needed to start a band to throw their two cents' worth onto the rock-and-roll heap.

"I started with my friend Sue with a show on WRSU, playing obscure idie radio stuff in the late-'80s, early-'90s, when we [got the idea]," says Sit N' Spin's singer/guitarist Lieb, who adds they first started out sitting cross-legged on the floor writing songs. "I was learning how to play guitar and there was a drummer who only played two shows, but he got us motivated. `We're gonna go to a rehearsal space and try to stand up with our guitars!'"

Taking their name from the radio show they hosted at 'RSU ("When the first show came along, we didn't have a name so we used Sit N' Spin and just kept it. It makes more sense for a radio show than a band."), Lieb embarked on a career as rock-and-roll missionary that saw Sit N' Spin go through a handful of line-up changes. At one point, in 1994, Lieb was the only member left to record the band's second single, a Christmas novelty number, for Atlanta's Worrybird Discs.

"It was just me, but I managed to record the Christmas single," with future Swingin' Neckbreaker and current beau Jeff Jefferson, who helped out on bass, and with a couple pals splitting the drum duty. "Sue decided to move to New York and wanted to stay in the band, but she was always really scattered. She was like, `I can't do this, I'm kidding myself . . . plus, I don't want to commute to New Jersey.'"

Undaunted, Lieb recruited a new line-up in 1995 that stayed together for three years, recording a third single and later a full-length Pappys Corn Squeezin', which was followed by a cross-country tour. It was also a period where Lieb, who writes all the band's material, flourished as a songwriter. Taking a solid whack at three-chords and the truth, Sit N' Spin graduated from a garage band to a top-notch pop act. If the Kinks and the Ronettes met for a cookout at Roy Loney's pad, then you might have a starting point to describe their music. Big hooks, two- and three-part harmonies, reverb kicked to 10, and mean surf beats are all smashed together in a head-on accident with three decades' worth of rock and roll. Alternately sticky-sweet and low-down dirty, Sit N' Spin's approach is a super-charged mix of tongue-in-cheek fun and balls-to-the-wall wailin'. "Lupine Valentine" is a love song dedicated to Lieb's werewolf love interest. "Good-bye" is a mid-'60s punker out of the Suzie Quatro/Pleasure Seekers he-done-me-wrong songbook. "Little K-Car" is the fuel-economy answer to "Hot Rod Lincoln," and "I'm Gonna Be Your Girl" is all low-fi tuffness à la Billy Childish. And, like all true great rock-and-roll outfits, the gals take a stab at introducing a new dance step to the masses, complete with instructions, on "Buffalo Jump."

"I would say most of the songs are inspired or ripped-off from the Kinks," says Lieb with a laugh, "and the Who. Okay, the whole British Invasion! The rockabilly side comes from Eddie Cochran and Chuck Berry."

Though Sit N' Spin had a solid (if poorly promoted) album and a little momentum under their belt, the next step would be yet another personnel change. Bassist Meredith Ochs was given the heave-ho in favor of Monica Vincent.

"I would like to say that none of it's been my fault," says Lieb in her defense. "When Meredith got in the band, it was cool. She sang great and had great taste in music. But after three years, we developed personality differences and we couldn't get along. So we gave her her walking papers. She was the first person to ever get thrown out; everyone else left themselves! We just knew we could never tour again with her in the band."

Currently with a new 45 on Dionysus Records, a new full-length deal worked out with Cargo Records, and music from the last album slated to appear in the MGM movie Board Heads (starring the always charming Bronson Pinchot, honest!), the future never looked brighter. A point that's not lost on Lieb, who says, "For a while it was hard as in, `What the fuck are we gonna do?' Now we have a lot of new songs, and the movie [deal] is very exciting. We have a booking agent who got us a few shows, and we've got a week planned in Spain.

"We're in the process of signing a contract [with Cargo], so who knows when the album will come out. But at least we know it will."

Catch Sit N' Spin on September 10 at the Lucky Dog.

Flame Job

The other act to keep an eye on at the Lucky Dog is Hartford's Flames, who also appear September 10. The Flames' Fast, Easy, Cheap (Joetown) is a slice of power-pop that owes as much to Thin Lizzy and Mötley Crüe as it does to Cheap Trick and the Posies. And their live shows feature all the glam Rock Star Action (including exploding smoke pots) you could ask for.

In July, their "I Cheated on You" was featured in CMJ and was included on the mag's CD sampler. Unlike most acts, whose record companies pay up to seven-hundred clams for the honor to appear on a CMJ disc, the editors were so impressed with the Flames they were tossed on for free.