Officially an acoustic trio, Yard Sale has added some studio horsepower, including a harp, to give their second CD a full band sound.  All three – Melanie DiGiovanni (guitar), Denise Funari (rhythm guitar), and Jill Olson (bass) – write, sing, and put their own style into the songs and they cover three tunes.  One might expect a mish-mash with all this going on, but fast or slow, light or heavy, the songs play well with one another.

The CD is rich in its variety of inputs, yet remarkably seamless.  They skimmed the cream off their abundant material, invited a few pals into the studio (trusty Wally’s Sound), and developed a country and pop flavor that is special to Yard Sale.  They are as country as they want to be on Tom T. Hall’s classic “That’s How I Got to Memphis” or their own “Talkin’ Whiskey,” but they can also be the envy of the Shirelles on that girl group’s hit “Baby It’s You,” or with their own girl group remix of the Rolling Stones’ “Out of Time.”

Catch them at one of their potluck Sundays at SF’s Rite Spot, or at a CD party near you, or hear them now on YardSpace.

Dilks & Alpert?

swing four-piece, are revving up for their CD release in May…  Johnny Dilks is coming out of hibernation with a new band, JD & the Barroom Roses. This time around he’s planning a horn section and looking to develop a Herb Alpert meets “Ring of Fire” sound…   The Rockin’ Cabbie checked in with a fool-proof random plan that anyone can use to name a band, title a CD and select a CD cover photo.  First, click on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random and use whatever Wikipedia returns as the band’s name.  Wikipedia named HWS News’ imaginary band Regular Verb. Second, click on http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3 and use the last few words of the last quotation on the page for the CD’s title.  Quotations Page gave HWS News F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, “In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o’clock in the morning, day after day.”

Faux CDs, Cheap!

Next, pick one of the nine pictures at http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting /7days for the CD’s cover.  Put them together using the drawing tools in MS Word or some other word and picture crunching software.  For an added touch, revisit Wikipedia for the name of the label.  This faux CD will be released on the 4177 Kohman pseudo-label, named after an asteroid found in 1987.  Send your CD cover, using the subject line “15-seconds of fame” to HWS News to get your entry into the next newsletter.