| CD REVIEW TSM/SLW Promotion Special #3 – October 2009: Days Before Tomorrow - Franky Dee - Man The Destroyer - Sentry - Andi Starr |
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TSM/SLW Promotion Special #3 – October 2009:Okay, so firstly, I promise the next TSM/SLW Promotion specials will be coming your way quite a lot faster. What with all the Summer activities (and the debut paleological dig which I did in late September – you wouldn’t believe the amount of preparation one puts in such a first outing), Concrete Web related activities on my part took a bit of backlash in time…but I’m catching up, I really am! Out of the stuff TSM/SLW Promotion linked bands sent us during August (ehm…in all honesty, sóme promo packages were sent to us by the agency itself), 5 were classifiable as being of a more recent release date, so I put those together…reviews for which now follow!!! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hard to believe when you look at my almost perfect rating for this album, but at a first listening session I was thrown off to the point of dislike due to the somewhat heady and high-pitch vocals of DBT’s lead singer Eric Scott Klein! However, as I always do when I come across such bands, I gave the and a second chance, and started listening to their music with headphones. Now a little more than a fourthnight further on (my appology for that lapse in time given in the intro above) I cannot believe I even had the faintest dislike for this act (well, the only excuse being that that first session was done while downloading the CD on my mp3-player – for headphone listening, you know – and my PC at that time not yet connected to an external sound system…or, how one learns by mistakes!!!)!!! DBT hail from Wayne, New Jersey, where Klein (who’s not only performed in front of over 100,000 people at the 1992 World Cup, but also did over 2400 shows wit regional act UUU between 1993 and 2000, and recorded with the likes of LiQuid A and Space Junk Planet, among others) had met guitarist/ backing singer Scott Kahn (who went on to record CDs with several bands in California and New Jersey, produced for others, and became the editor-in-chief of renowned online magazine MusicPlayers.com, popular with serious musicians) at Day Camp while still in elementary school…in fact, Kahn’s sister Audra apparently became life-long friends with Klein. But life being as it is, the friends grew apart through circumstances, and were reminded of each other’s existence only by pure chance in the new millenium. Brought together again and finding common musical interests in Progressive Rock, the two started working in a Wayne-based basement studio, and eventually self-released their self-tiled debut EP in 2006. Besides getting favourable reviews for the EP, the song “Can’t Do Anything” received an honorable mention in Billboard Magazine’s 14th Annual Songwriting Contest. More honours of that kind came in August 2008, when a demo recording of the track “Sleepwalking” (off this album) was mentioned in the 15th ASC! Meanwhile the band’s line-up had already evolved, at first with the addition of guitarist Derek Davodovich (a Berklee graduate and veteran of the Nashville scene, he’s toured and recorded for film, television, and more. Today he’s also an editor at MusicPlayers.com) in 2007, then with Prog Rock act Eternity X’s bassist/ backing singer Robert “Zeek” Makiekien Jr joining the band (he also played with the widely known NY-based Rush tribute band Hemispheres). Eventually (it took a year’s worth of auditions) the line-up was solidified with the addition of drummer Jason Gianni (a Prog Rock drum teacher at NYC’s famous Drummers Collective school, he is also a popular session musician, having recorded with several acts, among which Magellan – on their “Impossible Figures” album – and some TV shows – including Hannah Montana and the theme song of Spongebob Squarepants). In 2008, the band secured the services of Grammy Award winning mixing and recording engineer Earl Cohen (whom previously sold his services to the likes of Christina Aguilera, Usher, Will Smith, and Tina Turner, to name but a few) for the recording of a song as a contribution to the compilation CD Hair Apparent : The Main Man records Tribute To Hair Bands, and he was apparently impressed enough with the band’s professionalism to engage himself in the mixing process of the band’s full-length album as well! Equally impressedabout that track was the project’s co-producer Kim Mulligan, whom thanked the band in a letter with the words “Just wanted to thank you for this track. It’s spectacular and exactly what the compilation needed. Thanks for hitting one out of the park.”! Another impressed person was producer Ron Nevison (known from stuff released by Led Zeppelin, The Who, Heart, Jefferson Starship, Europe, Kiss, Damn Yankees, and some others), whom came out of a long-time period of inactivity to help the band out! Keyboards on the album were for the most part played by one Jason Buchwald, with additional helping out by Kahn (several tracks), Gianni (piano on one) and Huub Douma (on another track). In the Summer of 2008, the band got itself a full-time keyboardist in one Damon Fibraio (apparently an veteran of the NY/NJ scene, which they found playing in a Dream Theater and Queensrÿche cover band. One more guest musician on the album : professional singer (and long-time friend of Klein’s) Kelli McCloud lent her voice to two tracks. Since the recordings, she has occasionally made time from her many other singing engagements to sing and perform with DBT! And thus the band now considers itself a 7-piece act. Right, time to talk music…and when we’re talking Prog Rock the younger generation will automatically think of such interesting acts as Porcupine Tree, Marillion, and Dream Theater, for instance. Older music fans will rather think of Yes, Styx, Rush, Pink Floyd, Kansas, Jefferson Starship, Genesis…and with Days Before Tomorrow the truth is that you will find their music nestled comfortly in between! Ach…one more citation, just to indicate what kind of greatness we’re in the presence of here…this one coming from Los Angeles Music Awards organizer Al Bowman, who wrote : “DBT represents the most cutting edge and unique style I have ever heard from an independent band. In nearly two decades of producing award shows, I have never received an album like what they put together. Magnificent work!”! By the way, DBT have been nominated for “Record Of The Year” in this fall’s edition of the LAMA! Personally, I cannot shake the impression that The Sky Is Falling (which also contains tracks from that 2006 demo) is really a somewhat conceptual album. You see, some lyrical themes return, and the band even closes the album with a “reprise” (in actually a short edit) of their album opening track “Lighters”. Running through the album is the story of a guy whom gets disappointed in some releation, and his getting through different emotions about it! Anyway…check out some of the album’s songs at myspace.com/daysbeforetomorrow, and become equally fascinated with this band like so many before having gotten in contact with DBT did! Why on earth does this band not have a recording deal yet?! In addition to a posible award at LAMA, I’m already putting The Sky Is Falling into my personal “Best (Prog Rock) Albums Of 2009” list! And to think that at first listen… 98/100 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This Hard Rockin’ singer-songwriter is a New York native, whom spent some time in Florida, and then went to settle in LA, from whence he already brought an earlier demo-CD titled I Like To Rock featuring 8 original songs, which he produced himself. Stylistically, Dee describes his music to go “…from straight-ahead Hard Rock to upbeat Rock Blues/ Funk, to commercial Rock ballads…”. Along the way, the singer hooked up with artist development guru Johnny Uhrig whom, on a minimum budget, found the correct people to co-produce this new promo album! Now when you’ll hear Dee’s frail nasal voice for the first time, you’ll have no trouble finding a remeniscence to Journey in their Steve Perry days…in fact Dee probably brings several Journey songs live, has a Journey medley posted at myspace.com/frankydee, and even covers “Anyway You Want It” on this very album! My personal opinion about that, is that Dee does a fair job, but somehow fails to capture Perry’s strength! The thing is, Dee also covers Queen’s “Tie Your Mother Down”, and obviously fails to live up to the original singer. But though Dee fails to do justice to the irreplaceable Freddie Mercury, he does his homonym at least sóme justice! Next cover on the 11-track album is the vocally calmer “Spirit In The Sky”, an international hit song in 1969-1970 for one Norman Greenbaum…and here Dee actually gets away with his version quite nicely. Hum…how do yoù feel about a fellow whom needs to profile himself as a part-time covers singer? Well, let’s check out another side of Dee, namely his hard Rock tunes. Album opener “If I Had A Fortune”, the ensuing “Sexy Dancer” [featuring Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst (who’s apparently taken a shining of Dee, goin’ as far as to posting the following comment on his band’s website in 2006: “Franky Dee, King Of LA” – well, everybody’s entitled to his own opinion) in a short Rap duet passage], “Why Don’t You Dance With Me”, and the album closing “Don’t Say What You Don’t Mean” have regrettably all one thing in common: they are, both lyrically and musically, of a simplicity which might’ve interested me in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s…in those days when bands had to struggle to get their albums out on regular record labels, in days when the sound carrier CD didn’t even exist, and all music was issued on vinyl…but which is of a style compleetely out of date today! Hum…they can’t all be winners, I guess! The strength of Franky Dee definitely lays in his ballads, and obviously that’s something which Uhrig also understood, because he co-wrote two of the four ballads on the album. Not surprisingly, these two are also the ones getting the nicest instrumentations, giving the listener something interestingly elaborate enough to listen to! End conclusion : maybe this guy should take some additional lessons in songwriting in order to incorporate some tensions into his straight-ahead tracks, you know, to make ‘em more interesting. Alternatively, he might hook up with a good (lead) guitarist, let him incorporate some of his ideas into the music? Also, let him refrain from doing more covers on his album (or at least not in that quantity), because they give a wrong profile of a person! Lastly, perhaps Dee ought to concentrate some more on his ballads? The fact that there’s a 2007 copyright on the promo CD is further proof of the fact that the music bizz (whom are into the thing to make money, remember) do not see any cash flow from a merger with Dee…at least not States-wize, so maybe that’s why he’s now trying to catch the attention of European audiences? Gee, you may be in for a big disappointment, Dee! Rating below is for the effort! Feel like forming your own, possibly different, opinion? Check out the songs posted at Dee’s MySpace page, or at his own website frankydee.com (this latter adds the Journey cover, ballad “When You Find Someone” –co-written with Uhrig, and 3 songs of Dee’s first promo-CD). 80/100 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Okay, without too many fringes : Man The Destroyer was originally formed when Canadian singer/ rhythm guitarist P.J. Bahramian was attending LA’s Music Institute. One of their tasks was to form a band and go out and get gigs, and he’d picked on lead guitarist Don Pena (an American) because his style struck him. Vice versa, Pena got intrigued by P.J.’s ideas (put together on a tape). So, the two enlisted a bassist and drummer, and MTD ended up playing some of Los Angeles’ more renowned clubs. But when they graduated, P.J.’s visa had also expired, and he had to return home to Toronto! That might’ve been the end, but Pena simply decided to relocate, and with the addition of Australian imigrant Matt Maclean (bass) and Mick Casmi (drums…I guess he’s the Italian imigrant then), and before not too long MTD was playing the more respected clubs in the Toronto area…aided in this by the release of their debut demo-EP Days Of Grey in 2007 and a video for the EP’s track “The Blame”…and by getting awards from Toronto based Exclusive Magazine in the categories “Best Rock Song” (for “The Blame”), “Best Rock Group”, “Best Rock Male Group”, and “Artists Of The Year” in October 2007!!! The band claims to be inspired musically by anything from the live grit of Guns ‘n’ Roses to Metallica, from Dream Theater to Static X…and have been compared to the likes of Godsmack, and other major label favourites. Vocally, P.J. uses a lot of normal styled singing, and with his specific vocal signature frequently adds a touch of darkness to the whole. Although not a socio-political band as such, the band doés take its name from the individuals in the band having recognized the fact that Man as a species is a being in a (self-)destructive mode, and the band does not shy away from speaking out against some of the things that they see happening around them! After all, that’s one of the freedoms which being in a band gives one, right? The band have now recorded 11 tracks for their full-length debut (released by the band during May of last) with the aid of producer/ recording engineer Vikas Kohli at Toronto’s Fatlab Studio. Curious what it all sounds like? Check out myspace.com/manthedestroyer (hum…disturbing news came in late September that the band is looking for a new guitarist!), where you can find 3 songs off the album posted! 88/100 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I have no trouble imagining how Sentry (currently still a sister/brother band) possibly came into life as a curiousity at a family’s gathering (in this case the Toombs family), with sister Ruthie singing to brother Jesse’s programmed drum and keyboard machine and live played guitar! And I’m almost certain some dope idiot in that family uttered the (possibly entoxicated) encouraging words that it was all very nice, that the duo should actually dó something with their music! Together with sister Annie, they got about writing more lyrics to put to Jesse’s tinkerings and fondling of the instruments (respectively of drum machine and keyboards, and of the guitar), and eventually ventured into the Temple Recording Studio of their hometown Fort Wayne in Indiana to record the 10 songs they had so passionately written and composed! Hum…possibly even sponsored in this endeavour by that same silly uncle/ sugar auntie which applauded the duo at the family gathering (I’m sure that guy, or whomever financed the recordings, has since bitten his/her tongue a couple of times). Okay, you may feel I’m being a bit harsh here…but my assessment of this album does not come from a fleeting listening session, not indeed (in fact, with at least some 6-7 sessions, I believe I can say I gave the material – and the lady’s vocal “capacities” – enough chances)…and I’m certain that after listening to the tracks posted at myspace.com/ we will be of equal minds that this project needs quite a bit of professional help (vocal lessons for sister-dear, composition for brother…and possibly even some other kind of professional help for the “uncle” – or other family member - who might’ve financed this) if they wanna develop into something worthy to listen to outside the strict family circle, possibly attract some attention from the music business! 70/100 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Portland, Oregon native Andi Starr is quite the different kind of singer! Here’s a singer-songwriter which combines life’s heartfelt miseries with etherical music, and a clear, beautiful, whispered nimphlike voice that is to die for! She started her career with the 2002 self-release of full-length American Doll, and followed that up with full-length Me Beautiful (2004) and 5-track EP Supergirl (2005). The title song of the latter was picked for a national video in tribute to Cindy Sheenan (mother of a marine killed in Iraq), but the promissed release of it was indefinitely postponed due to Hurricane Katrina, and eventually the video wàs released on YouTube. In 2006 Starr decided to drop her daytime job to become a full-time musician. Obviously, this career move left her time to move about and promote her new album Leaving The White Line through the many regional and national concerts she started doing. The response was almost immediate and positive, coming in the form of a front page feature article of The Oregonian’s “Living” section (Jan. 2007) and the artist being invited twice on Portland’s radio show Local Music Spotlight (KINK radio station). She was also invited to feature on two Seattle based radio stations’ shows (one of ‘em even picking a track off the album for their New Music Sampler, distributed on a 10,000 copy rotation). Starr undertook successful national college and Triple-A radio campaigns, got her album reviewed positively in recognized national publications, saw Leaving The White Line become a top-selling album on CDBaby, and became a sell-out artist at Portland’s best venues. Closer to home, she also saw two songs of hers used in the documentary Climb For Life, which relates the adventures of a group of men and women living with HIV/Aids during their trip up Mount Kilimanjaro. To her that was perhaps the biggest accomplishment, as she had worked very closely with the gay population in her capacity of therapist during her dayjob times. In early 2008 Starr shoved all her belongings (among which her partner and a cat) in a van, and moved to Southern California. There, she spent most of the year writing, composing, and recording her new album almost entirely in the garage of her new home. Most of the instruments (acoustic guitar, present in most tracks, but also electric guitar, mandolin, keyboards, organ, harpsichord, vibraphone, tongue drum & frog) she played herself, but she also invited several other musicians to contribute to some of the songs [contributions on drums (either classic or ethnic, done by two separate musicians) being nececitated most as well as bass (contributed again by two musicians)…there’s also a contribution on sax, another on cello, yet another on piano…and even two musicians playing additional guitars, either acoustic or electric (for a complete list of the collaborators, check out the MySpace blog posted on July 6]. According to what’s posted on the artist’s own website andistarr.com, the new album reflects some of the sunny disposition of her new homestead, is more personal in nature, and herein is the voice of a mature woman in a different place, a new warm world, truly in her element. Okay, so when listening to the songs posted at myspace.com/andistarr (personally, I would advice you to stay on andistarr.com, because there’s móre posted there, like the complete new album, for instance), you definitely might find that, although the singing has always been hauntingly beautiful & the music etherically enchanting and melodic, there is indeed a warmth in the new compositions which elevates the new material to a new level. You might ask me, “Why haven’t I heard about this wonderful nymph of yours before? Why ain’t she on some major label yet?” and I simply couldn’t give you an answer to that! I have long since stopped trying to get what’s in the manager-type CEO’s minds of ttodays records labels, who’re geared only towards bands that are most in taste with the public at the moment, rather than into the development of musicians that could become some of the Greater Artists of this world! At any rate, here’s one that gets MY full support! If you’re into the hauntingly beautiful, check out Andi Starr, because her quality is simply of stellar grandeur! In the course of her career, Andi Starr has had comparisons to such established artists as Tori Amos, early Jewel, or Azure Ray, and I truly hope she may find herself on that same level in the music business some day! 98/100 Tony.
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