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"Music In My Mailbox! And How Odd Things Happen To Good People"

Day before yesterday an oversized but NORMAL (unpadded) envelope showed up in my mail. It turned out it had a CD in it by a group called Moe's Haven -- or Moes Haven, which according to English grammatical rules means that it's a haven for multipe moes, as opposed to a Haven belonging to Moe.

...Okay, this is interesting. The insert says they are sending out free CDs to people they think are interesting... Wow, I'm impressed. Moi? Interesting? Ah.. probably the movie thing ... or maybe it's just because you can find my mailing address online, I don't know. But okay, whatever. I AM pretty interesting, but possibly not in the way Moe would like.

I am thrilled to be chosen. Even though they misspelled my first name (guys, when it says "Chriss" it MEANS Chriss, okay? Not "Chris" ...but no matter) I thought, 'well, this is genius!' My happiness at getting free stuff will not color my review, however: My credibility is ALL I have going for me ...So I gave it a listen...

I was surprised by the quality of the music here. A person needs to give it a few tracks: The opening tin-sounding piano on track 1 "Well-Rehearsed Serenade" is a bit off-putting, but once you get past that it just gets better and better.

The sample albumn provides a pleasant mix of soft folk-pop such as Broken Hearted Is A Nice Way To be (track 2), the funny (Papaphobia) and inspired alt-pop ("Moppin Concrete In Early May," "1984").

The music is a little hard for me to categorize. It's alternative music with a folk bent: Think of Cake back when they were really good mating with Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan in a sleazy three way.... the offspring of this unholy union is Moes Haven.

The mysteriously short "Arizona's Flat" is one of my favorites from this collection. It's like abstract expressionist folk pop, with just enough beat to fool you into thinking it's going somewhere it doesn't really go.

The band's web site is Moe's Haven and I suggest you drop in for a visit. These guys are WAY better than many bands making big bucks. I suspect that when you don't fit neatly into a Clear Channel music category and your songs aren't exactly 2 minutes and 55 seconds long, you can't get anywhere in the music business. But maybe some exposure in this subversive non-corporate way will help some.

I hope so.