CD Review: Bears "Greater Lakes"!

You can't imagine how excited I was to see a new album by one of my favorite bands of all time show up in the mail.  After all, the Ohio band featuring guitarist/vocalist Rob Fetters, drummer/vocalist Chris Arduser, bassist Bob Nyswonger, and guitar legend Adrian Belew (Talking Heads, Zappa, Bowie, NIN) had carved out a hard-earned place in my heart with four stellar studio albums.

On their last album, 2007's Eureka, Belew and the boys did the impossible by managing to actually match, if not surpass, the greatness of their self-titled debut effort, which included such nuggets as "Honey Bee", "Figure It Out" and "Fear Is Never Boring".

So you can imagine my surprise upon realizing that a band comprised of one dude from Chicago (!) and another dude from Ohio could be so bold as to call themselves Bears.

All of this begs the question:  Did these two characters, during the crucial search for a band name, not do a simple Google search to make sure no other band (or Super Bowl shufflin' sports team) had already used (or was still using) the name, or did they simply not care?

Either way, it really makes you wonder what kind of world we're living in where willful ignorance and disregard for copyright ownership are continually tossed out the window by new bands.

Sadly, my own nephew, whom I love like family, is the drummer in a Denver-based hardcore band called Catholic Girls.  If that name sounds familiar to you already, it is because that's also the name of an all-female rock band that recorded their debut album for MCA in 1982.  

Now, if that band hadn't used the name since then, I could see a young band figuring that it was okay to use the name (in which case it would still be prudent to do some legal legwork before pressing up a bunch of CD's), but the original band is STILL ACTIVE, for crying out loud.  When I informed my nephew that there was already been a band by that name, he informed me that the leader of the band was well aware of this, but had determined in his own mind that "they suck".

Based on that criteria, I am proud to announce that I have formed a new band called Justin Timberlake.

all kidding aside, if you like top-shelf "cookie core", there's nobody doing it better than Denver's soon-to-be-renamed(?) Catholic Girls, whose single "Distant" can be heard/purchased HERE.  You should pick it up before they become known as NAME REMOVED BY OWNER OF TRADEMARK and it becomes a collector's item.