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How I Review Albums
I review for the submitting group first and for RARB's general readership second. My goal is to advance recorded a cappella as a legitimate art form distinct from live performance. To this end, I try to provide feedback that will help submitting groups to improve over time and all groups to avoid common mistakes. After the review is published, I will share my personal review notes at a group's request.
Like most a cappella peeps, I am a music nerd. Throughout high school, I sang bass and baritone in the typical choirs and was admitted to small and large ensemble Chamber groups and musicals. I also played trumpet for eight years in marching band, jazz band, etc.
At St. Mary's College of Maryland, I focused on singing. I was accepted into the school's large and small choral ensembles and performed through two concert tours of Austria, Italy, and Germany.
During freshman auditions for the school's Chamber Singer ensemble, I was peer pressured into auditioning for the men's a cappella group, which didn't yet have a name. The SMC Men sang the usual collegiate fare. I was volunteered into becoming Prez my junior year and I happily took over Music Director responsibilities the next year. I hold the auspicious honor of being the first "C Man" to sing with the group through all four years of college. I was also St. Mary's first club president to petition SGA for a green Dodge Astrovan (the first of many "sticker shock and awe" distractionary tactics from legit requests for uniforms, stereos, software, duplication fees, et.). I was one of the group's two principal arrangers for two years, spending countless late nights learning to arrange. I arranged a dozen songs that I later donated to CASA's soon-to-be-illegal arrangement library.
After college, I co-founded The Humbuckers, a semi-pro, five-man vocal band based in Washington, DC. I was The Humbuckers' music director and one of the group's two principal arrangers. In three years, The Humbuckers performed at over 80 of the biggest events in the Washington-Baltimore metro region including music festivals, community events, corporate and private parties, college events, and at area bars and clubs. In July, 2001, the group released its self-produced debut album, Never Said Thanks. The group recorded three of ten tracks in my basement laundry room, and it was my responsibility to assemble and run a low budget, PC-based home recording studio ("Dirty Laundry Studios"). The album of alt-rock covers and originals was well-reviewed by RARB and, to our pleasant shock and flattery, named as a Top Pick of 2001. Just after achieving some commercial success, the group broke up amicably in June, 2002.
Days later, I was accepted as a RARB reviewer. In 2003, I spent six months running rehearsal and live performance sound for Cartoon Johnny, a DC-based vocal band. Then I up and moved to Boulder, Colorado.
I started a new group, Chatterbox. Co-ed and mostly twentysomething, the group was comprised of former collegiate and semipro singers who wanted back into the aca-rock scene. The group had a great time arranging songs and rehearsing them. Chatterbox sang four gigs and a few house parties over two years then split up amicably in March, 2006.
During the day, I'm having fun promoting cycling and triathlon books for VeloPress, a unit of a publishing company that brings the world such fine magazines as VeloNews and Inside Triathlon. During the weekends, my wife Erin and I are having a great time hiking, backpacking, running, biking, and skiing in Colorado.
Dave Trendler103 total reviews
