Further Adventures In Reviewing

As most people who know me will attest, I do have some interesting habits when it comes to reviewing. My mother used to say "You can't judge a book by its cover". well mother that is a load of crap! You can indeed learn a great deal from the cover, and that is not limited to books, CD's and DVD's are equally good candidates for the cover test.

Yesterday I was looking for something to review, I have no shortage of stuff, just a shortage of stuff that passes my cover test.

Pretty much experience has told me that if the cover art contains Skulls, Dead People, Blood, or depictions of Hell the music genre is likely to be Death Metal. Equally telling is if the Bands name or the CD title contains words like Atrocity or Malevolent. Any CD or DVD that hits this early quality control test immediately go to the bottom of the pile. Actually to be accurate, they go in the bottom box of the pile of boxes!

So there I was diligently going through recent arrivals when I stumbled upon Passing Train by Joel Harrison. It looked harmless, so I took it out for a whirl. I really liked it, great little CD. So I stuck up a quick review.

The problem though, was where the hell did it come from? I know the 'calling cards' of most of the publicists I work with, but this CD was different. The press release was not one that I recognized, there was no contact info! Now I was really confused. It had to have come from somewhere, and my shipping address while not a state secret, is not something I have posted anywhere.

I searched the cavern that is my email repository and could find no reference to either the singer or the album. Well someone wants to know that the review is up, but who the hell is it?

Well I decided that if nothing else, I could at least tell the srtist Joel Harrison that it was live. It was pretty easy to track down an email addy, so I sent him an email explaining that I had no idea where it came from, but I liked it, and the review was running.

A couple of hours later Joel got back to me:

ummm, that was me, I sent it. A publicist I know gave me a few addresses, so I sent the copy.

Problem solved! Oh and I do like the CD, so I hope lots of people rush out and order it. Give Joel a chance, oh and tell him I sent you! I have not heard back from him yet, but I am hoping to do an interview with him.