Tune In, Turn On & Drop Out With CRACKER!

Without any doubt, without any hesitation and without reservation, I join the minimal (and still growing) legion of fans who consider Cracker to be the best universally undiscovered band out of the USA in the past 20 years. Let me go a step further by saying that Cracker are so damn good, the Rolling Stones should get some refining lessons from this band. In fact, the music Cracker is making is just what the Stones should have been doing the past 20 years.

Cracker (yes with a 'C' not a 'K') have a brand new album out - Sunrise In The Land Of Milk And Honey! Just released in the past week, it's a winner for those who enjoyed earlier albums such as Kerosene Hat, The Golden Age, Gentleman's Blues or the more recent Forever, and you will relish and enjoy every moment with the new album.

There are some obvious stand out songs, ranking up there with past classics, including the up tempo rockers "Yalla Yalla (Let's Go)", "Show Me How This Thing Works", "Time Machine" and the infectious Camper-ish "Hand Me My Inhaler". Songs such as "Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out With Me", "I Could Be Wrong I Could Be Right" are every bit as good as previous fan favorites such as "Low" "Eurotrash Girl" or "Guarded By Monkeys". My overall favorite from the album has to be "Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out With Me".

There is even some cool guest appearances from the likes of John Doe (X), Patterson Hood and Adam Duritz (Counting Crows).

For me, the bias is like an undercoating. I had the good fortune to work with band when they came to Toronto a few times during their years on Virgin Records (yeah, I know the label is still something of a sore spot for the band). Fortunately, despite being a employee of Virgin, David Lowery and Johnny Hickman were great guys to hang out with. This just makes listening to their music that much more pleasurable. (Maybe they remember the time we were driving in a van back from a retail conference gig up North in cottage country and we almost crashed the van trying to avoid the 100 pound porcupine in the middle of the road!)

Look, if you like the Stones, you will like Cracker. You may even grow to love them as much as us die-hard Cracker fans. See them on tour as well. They just announced a bunch of North American dates (sadly, only one in Canada but luckily in Toronto June 23 - Woo Hoo!)

You can see a list of dates at this website - http://www.crackersoul.com/