Radio Racer Away From California CD

Review of "Who's Chuck Fimp?"By Walter Kolosky - allaboutjazz Who's Chuck Fimp? is one of those rare CDs that delivers both on monster chops and popular appeal. As a general rule, I don't often get the opportunity to listen to music that I think should be registering on the pop charts. But this is one of the happy exceptions. The album is full of jazz-fusion, blues, jam band energy, engaging lyrics and absorbing hooks. Some tunes on this album should be receiving widespread radio airplay.

If anything, since we don't hear it all that often in modern music, the trio's dominant sound is the organ. Because of this, at times BC is very much a modern jam band version of early Grand Funk. Orenstein's singing even sounds like a 'cooler version of Mark Farner.

' If that wasn't weird enough, Registrato's vocals sound like Yes' Jon Anderson, without the reverb! In fact, you would have been hard-pressed to convince me that he is not Jon Anderson on the opening 'Whimsical Fantasy.

'The third member of the band, Vaylor Trucks, does no lead vocalizing, but he kills on guitar. Whether playing a laidback acoustic or burning like an electric mother a la Tommy Bolin, Trucks is a driving force throughout.

How long have I been writing and singing music?For as long as I can remember. I started writing poetry when I was nine or ten and that quickly morphed into writing songs. It was a fairly easy transition for me and I've worked on my style over the years. I love the process of taking my thoughts and moulding them into a song. It's cathartic! I grew up with a lot of music in the house. My dad used to play tunes all the time, so I would hear Percy Sledge, Otis Redding, Al Green, Prince, Sam Cooke, K.C. and the Sunshine Band, Kool and the Gang and many more great artists cranking out of his stereo. Around the same time, I started singing, and would immitate what I heard. I would sing for hours on end and loved the feeling of holding my 'mike' and pretending that I was singing to a packed house! I usually did this in front of the bathroom mirror.

When was THE moment when I knew I wanted to be a singer?It was when I performed in my high school holiday showcase. I lip synced Madonna's 'Crazy For You' (I was a huge Madonna fan, and still am.

) and the feeling was incredible. At the end of the song, everyone applauded and I knew right there and then that this was it for me, I had to sing.

HOLD UP, TIME OUT...university time, everything on hold, music on the backburner. You know the deal, I had all these aspirations musically, but I took the practical route and went to university to get a degree. And you know what Kanye says about those degrees man... Then I took it a step further, I got married a few years after university, worked for the man a little, music still on the backburner. Had a European adventure with my hubby (highly recommended), and became pregnant with my first child. I desperately wanted to get going with my music, but I decided to enjoy my time with my young daughter. TIME OUT OVER...now back to the questions.

How did the album Free become a reality?While I was home with my daughter, I wrote a bunch of songs. The timing finally felt right, so I decided to look into recording them and make an album. I did a lot of reasearch on how to record an indendent album, hired a producer, some musicians, rented some studio time and recorded the songs. My album was finally a reality.

How did I promote Free?I started putting the songs on various Internet sites. This was in the pre MySpace, YouTube, and Facebook era. There wasn't a lot of choice at the time. However, mp3 was the biggest independent music site at that time so I put all of my songs on there. The song 'Free' did really well and was a featured song on a sister site of mp3 called The Women of mp3 . Shortly after, the track Free cracked the the top 100 song chart on mp3 and rose steadily. I also put the album up for sale here on cdbaby . But, I really didn't do much to promote that earlier demo version of Free.