I ran across an issue of Sacramento Spotlight Magazine, (SSM) which I had never seen before. Looks kind of like an arts/media-focused rendition of Sacramento Magazine. NB: this is not a compliment! Many of the articles seem to be puff pieces, written by the subjects themselves, or are at least highly flattering, a la Sacramento magazine (minus points). I hadn’t heard of most of the artists profiled in this issue (vol. 3 iss. 4), which is a “plus” to me. I decided to check out two of the artists–an author and a musician.
The author is Ron Montana. I looked for his work in the Sacramento Public Library and on Amazon.com. The library was a complete bust. Amazon was a little better–they had 4 of his books in stock, but the prices were outrageous. ($22.99 for a paperback?!?) I decided to buy one of the used copies of Ride a White Zebra. It should arrive in a week or three. I’ll post a review in the blog and on Amazon as soon as I read it.
The musician is Mike Comfort, former lead singer and songwriter for the band “Thirst”. Thirst is gone now, but Mike is still playing. He’s got four tracks from his album available on his website. “In my Eyes” sounds particularly good. His CD isn’t available on Amazon, but I was able to buy it directly from his website. He uses PayPal (boo!), but at least you aren’t required to have a PP account. (Good thing, too. It would have cost him my business!) I expect to receive the CD reasonably quickly, assuming that shipping time will only be a few days tops. Again, reviews will be posted on the blog and Amazon as soon as I’ve had a chance to listen to the CD.
I’ll see how these two artists stack up, and that’ll pretty much be my review of SSM. If the artists are reasonably good, I’ll overlook the gushing tone of the articles. If they suck, I’ll be out $20 and spend much time and effort talking smack about SSM.
