I'm no music critic, but I know that this CD is lots of fun to listen to. It really gives you the feel of being at a Reno lounge show (although I've never been to one, so what do I know?). The songs are quite good and I find that they get stuck in my head, and that's a good thing.

If you are looking for something different than the c*ap on today's market, buy this! The Small Stars is great fun and very good music. Each song has a different feel and there is not a bad song on the disc. Be careful though, these songs will stick in your brain. For whatever reason they left, Reno's loss is our gain!!!

If you are looking for something different than the c*ap on today's market, buy this! The Small Stars is great fun and very good music. Each song has a different feel and there is not a bad song on the disc. Be careful though, these songs will stick in your brain. For whatever reason they left, Reno's loss is our gain!!!

I must warn those unfamiliar with the Small Stars that their back story hokum is so much smoke and mirrors. The whole "band on the run from Reno" thing is an amusing deceit, but it belies the fact that the Stars are not some "ha ha, we're so clever" psuedo-lounge band, or a tribute band to all things Rat Pack. They are first and foremost a rock 'n' roll band that has brazenly melded lounge shtick and rock opera to (as lead singer Guy Fantasy puts it on "We Love You") "boldly go where no band has gone before." on 8 Stereo 8, the Stars have ripped open the scab of a huge gaping wound on their personal psyches and the collective consciousness of show business. The band revels in every minute of watching the blood flow all over themselves, the audience, and an industry they simultaneously love and hate, and would most likely die for. In the world of Guy Fantasy, Buddy Llamas, et. al., the frustration of middle age is rearing its ugly head, and all the demons collected along the road to stardom are starting to weigh down the bandwagon with the destination nowhere in sight. Fantasy laments "Let me tell you a story; Let me sing you a song about my rotten luck; I've been paying my dues and I've been singing my songs, and no one gives a (saxophone honk)." Though the tone of the CD teeters on the brink of tragicomedy throughout, before it falls into a Beyond the Valley of the Dolls chasm, it manages a reassuring landing on the cynical side of an MGM Musical. Fantasy realizes that though he may never be a big star, there's nothing he loves more than singing his songs, and he's gonna keep on doing what he's doing. For all those artists out there who toil in obscurity, and may always do so, the Small Stars are singing your song. -Levi Mazelstein