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Holy underwater Motown magic fireworks. The Dashing Suns. I'll be damned. This seductively sunny little intersection of every band the '60s and '70s ever loved is really making my morning with its scratchy guitars, ooh-ahh Caramello vocals and vintage head cold production value. Monkees, Modern Lovers and Troggs! Definitely sounds more like something you'd discover in your mom's leftover Creedence records than on the Internet.

The Dashing Suns are a four-piece out of Oakland, California, and they certainly deliver on all that West Coast promise laid out by The Beach Boys, The Mamas & Papas and so on and so forth. Jangly and irresistible, their fuzzy pop fantasies reek of post-prom oceanside campfires. A fact which, in combination with their recent run at SXSW, all but guarantees that they won't go unsigned much longer.

For more on The Dashing Suns at SXSW, keep an eye on Jansport -- the classic backpack company is using The Dashing Suns' "Future Thunder" to promote their insanely cool new Heritage Series. As part of the promotion, they followed the band on a road-trip/mini-tour from Oakland to Austin, filming concerts, car drama and everything in between. When that goes live, we'll be sure to share it with you here. I'm expecting plenty of solar flare and sepia tone. Definitely something to look forward to!

Listen to The Dashing Suns here. "I Wanna Run" is getting all the attention, but I'm a pretty big fan of "When I First Met Ya" and "Future Thunder." Highly recommended for fans of The Black Lips, The Strokes and summertime.

Tags Jonathan Richman And The Modern Lovers, The Beach Boys, The Black Lips, The Dashing Suns, The Mamas And Papas, The Monkees, The Strokes, The Troggs

If a smoky-eyed, bed-headed, Brigitte Bardot-inspired Duffy in her new "Stepping Stone" video (not to be confused with the classic 1966 Monkees hit, "(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone)" reminds you a lil of Gwen Stefani luxuriating gorgeously yet pensively in bed in her "4 in the Morning" video, it's because Sophie Muller (Gwen's go-to director) lensed Duffy's latest clip too.

Watch the throaty, soulful songbird rue her wrong turns and wash them down with a wholesome glass of milk -- precisely why she's the anti-Winehouse, because you KNOW Amy'd chase her bad-day blues away with a couple of eight balls and a case and a half of Alize. It's only sad because it's true.

PS: That graffed-up tunnel Duffy's walking through that says "Scary" in big, huge letters? It's in the Shoreditch section of London, and it's by artist Eine. Definitely check it out if you go. It's unreal.

Tags Amy Winehouse, Duffy, Gwen Stefani, Sophie Muller, The Monkees