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|||||[ Reviews and Mail ]||||| Here you'll find a mix of
reviews and interesting email that we receive... March 1, 2000 This review is a comparison between "Sex Without Bodies" (the team's previous release) and "Unauthorized". I think the instrumentals are better on "Unauthorized". Horns seem to be used more prominently, especially to good effect on the first cut: "Dear Miss Lucy" (which reminds me a little of "Ned has a Big Dutch Wife" from "Sex without Bodies"). My favorite cut is "Won Gon Ju" which has the most humorous lyrics of any song on "Unauthorized". I enjoyed the up tempo cuts the best, including: the two already mentioned, plus "Lily 110-140", "Baby Who Are You?", "Voletta's", and "Kathmandu".All the other songs are of a slower tempo, and while interesting (especially the bizarre "Florida Time") they are not as entertaining as the up tempo tunes, to me. Kelly Flint's voice is made for these songs, and her singing is at least the equal of that in "Sex Without Bodies", perhaps better, maybe more polished. I think in general the lyrics were more clever and "hip" in "Sex without Bodies" but maybe I will apreciate them more after repeated listenings. The melodies, harmonies, and rhythms of the up tempo songs on "Unauthorized" are likewise equal to or better than those on the up tempo songs from "Sex without Bodies". I just wish there had been fewer slow songs or "ballads" on the new album. The recording itself is a wonder, suuperior to "Sex Without Bodies". Both recordings were made in St. Peter's Episcopal Church in New York, and the "hall" ambience is captured well on both albums. The overtones of the brass and woodwinds seem to be more realisticaly recorded on "Unauthorized". Chesky Records has another audiophile quality recording on its hands with "Unauthroized". While I will listen to "Sex Without Bodies" primarily for the Kelly Flint treatment of clever lyrics, I will listen to "Unauthorized" for the instrumental performances as well. And I might just skip over the slower tempo songs. Five Stars for the faster paced material and instrumentals, three stars for the slow stuff. I'll buy the next Dave's True Story CD sight unseen (or unheard). Their music is very enjoyable, entertaining, fun to listen to--when it is fast enough. February 24, 2000 As expected, Dave and Kelly offer up smoky, sexy vocals and quirky songs about love's more bizarre side, dark lust, and stiletto heels. I felt like I should be wearing something black and slightly kinky and have a Pink Belt martini in one hand and and a cigar in the other while listening to this cd. Everyone loves "Lucy" and her strange artistry and Dave's whisky-voiced rendition of "Chicks..." Kudos to DTS and a big boo-hiss to Chesky Records for giving this cool hipster duo such a hard time about releasing this fun-n-flirty, sensual and sarcastic ride! From Richard Hey, PS: What about your latest record? What does it mean "Unauthorized". Are you disapointed of this material or is this only a marketing trick? From Billy Dear David & Kelly,
2/2/1999: UPI Arts & Entertainment
Dave's True Story is a New York duo whose members are songwriter-guitarist Dave Cantor and singer Kelly Flint. They've been together musically since 1992, offering music containing jazz licks and short story lyrics about fallen innocence, life's possibilities and choices.
"We're not trying to compete with
classic jazz. That is not who we are. There is something else going on that hasn't been
done before, even if it takes its essence from all kinds of places," says Flint, who
is blessed with a smoky, soothing voice that fits Cantor's words like hand-in-glove. In 1993, they released an album called
"Dave's True Story" on their own BePop Records label. Working small gigs and an
occasional music festival from coast to coast, they sold 10,000 copies of the
recording-mostly at performances. In 1998, the Chesky label released a second
recording by the duo, supported by a revolving cast of 14 jazz players. That session,
"Sex Without Bodies," is driven more by fictional characters its predecessor. "It has a little less swing and more of
a beatnik edge, a definite East Village sound," Cantor says. "I'm getting out of
the torchy things. Some of the songs come out of the air, but some come out of a real life
experience, and I crank them up somewhat." Sometimes, hearing a strange phrase in casual
conversation triggers his imagination. When an acquaintance once told him, "Ned has a
big Dutch wife," he used the phrase to develop a salty tale about "Ned's Big
Dutch Wife," a woman with a secret brothel business on the side. The title track, "Sex Without
Bodies," is a commentary on phone sex. "Spasm" is about quickies and
short-term relationships. "Rue de Lappe" is based on Cantor's experience of
watching French kids swing dance on that Parisian street. "I'll Never Read Trollope
Again" builds a café romance around literary references and clever rhymes, including
"wallop" and "dollop." Inspiration for Cantor's wordplay surfaces in
the most unlikely places. One song, not yet recorded, grew out of an overnight stay at the
home of a friend who had a cat named Misery. As they went out that evening, the woman
said: "Oh by the way, be sure to leave a light on for Misery." "Leave a Light on for Misery"
became both inspiration and title. "Sometimes life actually hands you more than a
lemon," Cantor says. He credits Tom Waits, Lyle Lovett and Steely
Dan's Donald Fagen as his big influences as a writer. As Cantor learned more about jazz
chords and harmonies, he began to write songs in their style. He says Fagen's Flint says she grew up listening to folk
singers Rickie Lee Jones and Joni Mitchell, never to the jazz standard bearers like Ella
Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan and Anita O'Day. After a mutual friend
introduced her to Cantor in 1992, she asked him to teach her one of her songs. It was her
first exposure to singing a jazz melody. "I was flabbergasted and thought it was
the greatest thing," she said. They did the tune, "China Tour," at an
upstate New York folk festival several weeks later, where people clamored for more. The past six years have been filled with a
succession of low-key gigs, most notably at CB's Gallery, the Bottom Line, the Fez and the
Living Room in New York. In 1995, Dave's True Story won the Kerrville, Texas, Folk
Festival's New Music Award, joining the elite company of Lovett, Suzanne Vega and Michelle
Shocked. This week, Dave's True Story flew to
California for a two-week West Coast tour that includes jazz, pop and folk clubs and
numerous music store showcase appearances. A loyal fan financed the tour in hopes of
further expanding their audience. "Based on the response, we keep
going," Flint says. "If we thought we were beating our chests against the wind
and nobody cared, we would have quit a long time ago. The audience, the people, won't let
us. They are so intense, desperately listening to every lyric. "And we believe in ourselves.
We've got a strong groove going on. I've got a good sense of pitch and Dave has great
songs. If we could get exposure, we could end up not having to suffer for this. At this
point, we're still willing to do it." 10/15/98: INK Kelly's Pink Belt Martinis flowed free like the Ganges when Dave's True Story, an excruciatingly brilliant jazz/lounge/pop band played the Fez club in New York City. A creation of Kelly Flint, the band's lovely vocalist, The Pink Belt Martini tastes like pink lighter fluid, but so what? They were free, and Dave's True Story are super cool, Daddio. Lounge music is a raging fad and I'm generally one to dismiss fads sight unseen, or sound unheard, but something in the way Dave's True Story mix humor, spot-on lyrical cleverness, and transcendent musical instruments like xylophone, accordion, stand-up bass, and the big bad beat of the bongos gets me all loose and languid. Does anybody have a spoon? Just give me the saxophone solo of "Once Had a Woman" or the smoldering sexuality of "Spasm" and I'm good to go. Sex Without Bodies is the new record. I invite you to swing your partner round and round to this masterpiece. Chesky Records, P.O. Box 1268, Radio City Station, New York, NY 10101 Gail Worley
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