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Thanks, again, Tim!
Back in the dim dawn of time -- say, 1985 -- it took a lot of resources to produce a vinyl album for an unsigned artist to distribute their music. Now, thanks to computers, the same technology that changed book and magazine publishing can be used to make your own commercial-quality CD with significantly less of an investment than pressing 1,000 albums. Herein are a few CDs that you can probably only get directly from smaller publisher; beer has microbreweries, CDs have micropublishers. I'll try to stick to ones you can actually get online. Also note that several CDs I've already reviewed fall into this category.
Tonic Sol-Fa is trying to be N'Sync or Backstreet Boys, and to my ears they're significantly better, closer to The Nylons. On the other hand, I'm not a teen girl, so I may not be their target audience. I love their a cappella vocals and doo-wop arrangements; they approach the intricate harmonies of Manhattan Transfer with the enthusiasm of Sha Na Na. I saw them live at the Minnesota State Fair (it's a great place for music) and I picked up a CD, in this instance Style. (Go to their web site and click on Tonic Store; the site relies too much on Flash for my tastes. They should have put some of this effort into the album, which lists the songs in the wrong order.) While the original songs are good and the CD starts off with the pyrotechnic boy-band song Na, Na, Na, the cuts that blow me away are their gorgeous cover of Eleanor Rigby (one of my fave Beatles songs) and a live doo-wop version of Man of Constant Sorry. It's the nature of Shockwave that the song I play the most is Scooby Doo, Where are You? Someday, I might try slipping Tonic Sol-Fa's psychedelic a cappella version of Land of 1,000 Dances into Patti Smith's Land instead of her's. I hope they come back to the Fair so I can pick up their other CDs.
Sandy Andina is a sliced-crosswise-only-on-Minicon friend of mine, and it's with great pleasure that I recommend her "vanity album", Ghosts and Angels. While I like most of the songs on the CD, my favorites are Fog, cool jazz about the city of Chicago and Ink and Pen, about collecting pens (and featuring Corky Seigel on harmonica. If Pigs Could Fly is a "kid's song for grownups" ("if pigs could fly... we would never need a root canal...") and Ghosts and Angels is about her past singing in a coffee house. What elevates Sandy over other worthy folksingers is her experience as a performer, command of her lovely voice, excellent arrangements, strong backing musicians and the wide range of subject matter. She's great live, too.
I also saw Bur at the Minnesota State Fair a couple of years ago, since he was listed as a celtic performer. And indeed he was, on stage with the Acoustic and Electric Celtic World Orchestra. Lots of rock, lots of bagpipes. Fun to watch, and the CD I picked up is interesting too. The epynomous CD Bur has the celtic folk/rock of the concert, and even contains his cover of The Beatles Come Together (more good Beatles covers, yea!), though my favorite cut is the rock/squaredance mandolin/whistle instrumental The Other Side of Mr. Gloomsbury. Oddly, the one album listed on his micropublishing site isn't that one, but Strange Kind of Light as "Australian artist Bur explores his Scottishheritage". The album I have can be had here, unless they're out.
I got Cab City Combo's CD Pork Side of the Moon in the mail, out of the blue, about the same time as the anthrax threat was looming. I was careful, and thank heaven I didn't get hurt. These guys are fearless and strange. Not every comedy song works, but a lot of them do. 25 cuts of diabetes and Buster Keaton and deconstructing Christmas and entropy and other stuff. My favorites (so far!) are Louis, Louis, a clearly spoken rendition of Louie Louie, the ballad of Jesus Jr., "the country-western Christ" and the snack-food chant Indiancorn. Sulu's Day is a long conceptual piece about the routine on the Enterprise while Kirk and Spock are having an adventure on the planet; I'm glad this cut exists, but you don't really need to hear it more than once. Cab City Combo inhabits that wide gulf between your average sophomoric college comedy troup and the sophisticated unabashed humor of the Bonzo Dog Band: nicely done music from unexpected vectors. Not for everyone, but my suspicion is that if you like them a little, you'll end up liking them a lot.
Dave Romm is a conceptual artist with a radio show and a web site and a very weird CD collection. He reviews things at random for obscure web sites. You can read all his music recommendations from Bartcop-E here.
Thanks (again), Dave!
