Sounding the Greens: The Audio Cuke-O-Rama

Total Vegetility is the newest chunk in The Cucumbers' catalog, a hearty solid bursting-with-vitamins album featuring 13 new visits to their ever-changing states of mind. From gentle to jangly and sweet to raucous, it had our reviewer from Yeah Yeah Yeah magazine marveling at all these tracks that don't all sound the same. We say, that's how it ought to be.

Just a Twist in my Technology: Below are links to the best and best-known mp3 sites on the Net, newly nattily arrayed with their garnish of Cucumbers tunes -- click ahead and listen, and along the way you can post ratings, comments and reviews. These are direct links, which will take you to The Cukes and their music with no fuss and no muss. PLEASE READ THE TIP BELOW before visiting the whoopsy Rolling Stone site -- it will save some confusion and aggravation in the long run. Coming soon: streaming RealAudio files, for your instant gratification moments (click and listen with no download)!

• MP3.com: The world's foremost mp3 site, and for good reason. Simple and attractive, with easy access to most features (including lots of mp3 software). The site is very tolerant of old browsers and slow connections. Our fave.
• Riffage: A bold newcomer, flashy and useful. Fast access to calendar dates, and ratings are posted on the first page, which is a plus. It's JavaScript all over, and your older machines may not like it much. Recommended: set up a "My Riffage" account -- handy and fun! Add The Cukes to your band list.
• Rolling Stone: Rolling Stone doesn't ease up for indie musicians even with their mp3 section -- we're in the same charts as REM and Tori Amos and all. JavaScript here produces lots of errors (none fatal to new machines). Tip: to get to the sound files, click on "Download This" right under the Cucumbers photo, which loads a new page that looks exactly like the one you started on. (What's that about?) Now there's a new link on the bottom. Scroll down and click. Took us a while to figure this one out.

Want the full splendid splendor of CD sound? Of course you do. Total Vegetility is available here in the Home Office Records online store and at all the usual vast online purveyors of music, including CDNow, CDWorld, Amazon.com, CDUniverse, Tower Records Online, etc. In the Real World it is available for purchase nationwide -- you might have to order it, which we heartily encourage -- at discerning independent music stores and at the larger chains, including Tower Records and the Virgin Megastores. The difference between us and them? They take credit cards. We're cheaper! Do the math ... and if you can't find The Cucumbers in stores where you are (in the U.S.A. only, sorry!), please drop us a line and we'll see if we can't glorify the situation.