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(Aug 9, 2004)
(Unsigned)
The Cherry Bomb page
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Cherry Bomb is an L.A. area band who asked us to review the untitled demo CD you see pictured here. The CD contains 5 tracks, all covers. Without knowing more about them, one might conclude that they are ... that's right, a cover band. Well, I must confess a slight prejudice against acts that play only cover music. There certainly is a place for cover bands - for example, weddings, bar mitzvahs, and funerals - but the place isn't usually on my CD player. That's OK: I vowed to have an open mind and hear them out.
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Cherry Bomb consists of lead singer Andrea Becker and her three male companions on guitar, bass, and drums. If that sounds like a funny way of describing them it's because that's how the music presents them, for the most part. It's clearly a vehicle for Ms. Becker's very fine singing voice. She belts out The Beatles' "Oh Darling" on the opening track, and it made me wonder how she would sound singing it as a duet with Paul McCartney. The other songs - "I Saw Her Standing There," "Ring of Fire," "Walking the Dog," and "I'm the Only One" (this last one being a Melissa Etheridge song with which I was heretofore unfamiliar) round out a very workmanlike and reasonably enjoyable set of musical performances.
But, Cherry Bomb, what is one to do with a demo CD of 5 cover songs, even impeccably performed ones? Buy it? I don't think that's going to happen with any regularity that I can foresee. Andrea Becker might have the potential to get some recognition in a band that writes its own material, breaks some new ground, makes some waves. If Cherry Bomb is her only vehicle I think she needs to trade it in on a new model, and soon, because rust never sleeps.
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