The original...

I've got a weekly column in Connect Statesboro (no link yet, the Web guys are working on the site). Last week, I was sure I had a winner - I think I've mentioned Steve Davenport before.

Steve bothered me a good bit a while back, wanting the Herald to buy a copy of his CD for a review. After checking out his on-line sample songs and putting up with multiple phone calls, I finally ended up telling him that I wouldn't have a review on our entertainment page since there was nothing positive I could say about it.

I thought the matter was settled. Lo and behold, a CD comes in the mail last week addressed to "Carla Connect." Strictly speaking, Carla, our advice columnist, doesn't really exist.

So we opened it. It was Steve's CD, with a hand-scrawled note on really nice cotton paper telling Carla that the CD was available on CDBaby.com.

Not a bad site. It's where Vanilla Ice hawks his new disc.

After listening to the disc, I hit upon a column idea, and found out a bit more about Steve when some of us in the office gave it a listen.

Steve used to work at the Herald, as it turns out. He's living out in Oklahoma now, but some of his former coworkers (he was before my time) recalled him as being a bit odd.

Quite odd, as a matter of fact. The word "unstable" was used.

Eddie, God bless 'im, listened to the CD and gave me some sage advice in an e-mail. Hope you don't mind me quoting you, dude:

This is my personal opinion and advice: Do NOT write a column about this guy's CD. Don't even ever mention him anywhere in any publication. Not because the CD is so far beyond horrible that it's not even a real CD, but after listening to it, I honestly believe the guy may be dangerous.

I'm not trying to be funny; I'm dead serious. We know the guy has mental issues, but he's also obviously VERY delusional, and that makes for a bad combination. This guy is DISTURBED!

I know you're an intelligent young man, but I'm an intelligent OLD man, and I've seen a hell of a lot more than you, and I think this guy is on a downward spiral in a very bad direction.

Just my opinion.

Now I'm gonna go listen to six hours of Britney Spears just to cleanse my palate.

When Eddie talks, I listen (hey, he's one of those wise men we all have in our lives). I retooled my column, taking out everything but an oblique reference to Steve.

But heck, Chris has been writing a lot, and I know that all of you are clamoring for the unedited Jake.

Here's the original version of the column.

Technology is wonderful. Just a few years ago, the notion of putting out your own CD and having it distributed to the world at large seemed ludicrous. On top of the sheer logistics of letting the world at large know that you had an album out, there was the cost of studios, reproducing CDs and hiring a public relations firm.

The world of music is much more democratic now. Thanks to advances in digital recording technology, anyone can market an album.

And I mean anyone. Take Steve Davenport, for example.

Steve's a former Statesboro resident, now in Oklahoma, who's been after me for a while to do a review of his CD "Electric Rodeo."

I told him I wouldn't, simply because there's not much positive I could say about the record. Hence, no review.

The CD's bad. Really bad. "Oh my Lord" bad. Though I don't doubt that Steve was painfully earnest in putting it together, the "painfully" part far outshines all else.

That's kind of the point, though. The music is awful, and Steve's songwriting skills leave a lot to be desired. There's not a record company, independent or otherwise, that would touch him with a 10 foot pole.

But he's got an album out, slickly packaged. And those CDs invariably can be purchased on-line.

That's where the revolution is coming from, but also the problems. CD replication services like Disc Makers will take anybody's home-produced material and put it on professional-looking discs with custom-designed sleeves and inserts. Even if the music inside is, well, crap, it will be very beautiful crap.

That kind of thing kind fool you, like the time I bought that Christina Aguilera CD.

On the distribution end, online services like CDbaby.com will sell artists' CDs over the Web, take a relatively miniscule cut of the money (especially compared to the usurious rates charged by record companies), and handle all of the paperwork.

Ten years ago, you'd either have to pay out of the keister to go to a recording studio for your album, or spend a load of cash to have a decently-equipped home studio. Now, for a couple grand you can have a computer, software, and all the accessories you need to make home recordings that don't sound a bit like they were made on the cheap.

CD replication services have been around for a long time, but the problem always was how to sell them if you don't have any kind of distribution channels. There were always live gigs, cause if you were independent that was the most likely way people would get to hear your stuff.

Now anybody can slap up a Web site that'll let the entire world hear their tunes. In fact, that was how I had advance warning of one of the CDs we received recently at Connect. Promotion is as simple as spending a few hours at a computer hyping your music on message boards.

The problem becomes how to separate the wheat from the chaff. With so much music out there, it's possible to find some real diamonds in the rough, but there's tons more dirt to sort through. Steve's on CDBaby, but so is Vanilla Ice's new disc.

My advice? Listen to word of mouth, but also click randomly every once in a while and don't get discouraged. There's good stuff out there, from people who are doing it for the love of playing - not because they have to pay back a $5 million advance from a record company.

If you hear something you like, drop us a line! We'd love to find out what you want to hear and read about.