(181.4 Degrees from the Norm), no doubt slightly addled by the Midwestern zephyrs, had this to say:
This disc came across my desk and I was drawn to the layout of the artwork and the story of the disc. Normally, I hate compilations because they are very hard to grasp, and they cannot orient the listener to the vibe of the disc. D.B.A., however, has only five artists (Bluecowboys, Rob Schimmer Trio, Pawnshop, Raw Kinder, and Mark Stewart). The disc itself is named after the bar where all five artists play, which is a great idea. CBGB's did one a while back that was not as strong or interesting.Bluecowboys, a band similar to Eve's Plum, start the disc off with a jazzy tune called "Skin" and end their three song stint on the disc with a tune called "Wolf"... a rocker that really turned me on.
The next band is the Rob Schwimmer Trio, no relation to David Schimmer from Friends fame... thank god. The band is essentially a John Coltrane-esque group of hip-cats jamming in a very traditional jazz form. "Loose Change" is a great musician spotlight that truly illustrated the beauty of jazz.
Pawnshop is a very typical alternative band that sounds like a combination of The Violent Femmes, Morrissey, and The Psycadelic Furs. This was my least favorite band on the disc, but they were not bad. "Trip" was probably their best track. The feel of the band is that they would be awesome live, but on the disc they are a bit stifled, and it hurts them in the long run.
RAW Kinder is a female version of Jello Biafra... now I am not sure if this is a good thing, but it was interesting at the very least. All the tunes are very long at about a 6:30 average and reek of bad song writing. "Strange Bird," the live track on this disc, was by far their worst effort, spanning the globe with a poor groove and lyrics that make nails on a chalkboard sound like music. Yuck!
The last track on the disc was from a musician called Mark Stewart, an acoustic guitarist whose mastery of the arppeggio would make Nuno Bentencourt stop and stare. While the song itself is pretty boring, the musicianship is very cool.
All in all D.B.A. is a very diverse disc with five very distinct sounds that are bound to please, no matter what your taste in music. However, it is bound to annoy you that the rest of the disc is nothing you would ever want to own.