Teen-Beat 457. COTTON CANDY. Top-Notch & First-Rate.

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Cotton Candy

Top-Notch & First-Rate

SIDE ONE

The Battle of the Bands
Top-Notch & First-Rate
Carnation Instant Breakfast
That Was Swedish
The Country Continentals
Mark Robinson
Citizens' Bank of Maryland
Imagine That!
Clap On, Clap Off

Whatever Hartford
Al's Sound Center
Star Wars Main Title
Charlie by Revlon
The Windsor Tap Recap
The End of the Beginning

SIDE TWO

A Pleasant Tomorrow
Beef, It's What's for Dinner

Hot Wieners (All the Way)
Ourisman Chevrolet
Ritter Sport
Thompson's Clam Bar
Fanci Pantz
Jhoon Rhee Self Defense
Sincere Pretension
A Brand New Group
Pickwick
This is the End

Vinyl LP (LP) ($19,99)

Transparent "electric blue" vinyl,
full-colour jacket and labels.

Album Cover (BADGE) ($1,23)

A glossy 1½" square pin with the beautiful cover art.

Purchase

COTTON CANDY Fantastic and Spectacular 7 inch vinyl 45

COTTON CANDY Off-the-Hook and Out-of-Control cassette album

BLAST OFF COUNTRY STYLE C'mon and Blast Off Country Style album

COTTON CANDY Top-Notch and First-Rate vinyl LP album b-side

COTTON CANDY
"Top-Notch & First-Rate"
LP jacket
B-side showing through hole

COTTON CANDY Top-Notch and First-Rate vinyl LP album a-side

COTTON CANDY
"Top-Notch & First-Rate"
LP jacket
A-side showing through hole

COTTON CANDY Top-Notch and First-Rate vinyl LP album back

COTTON CANDY
"Top-Notch & First-Rate"
LP jacket, back

DESCRIPTION

The debut album from group Cotton Candy. Features songs written by the band and songs written by others as well.

LINER NOTES

PLAYERS

Evelyn Hurley, vocals

Cardinal Robinson, synthesizer

Mark Robinson, vocals, guitar, bass guitar, synthesizers

GUEST PLAYERS

Lisa Goldstein, narration

Robert Schipul, piano

Juliet Swango, "Mark Robinson" voice

RECORDED, MIXED, PRODUCED BY

Mark Robinson,

on McCann Corner/Teen-Beat 347
Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

and
on Long's Lane, South Chatham, Massachusetts USA

PIANO RECORDED BY

Mark Robinson,

at Schipul Manor, North Scituate, Massachusetts, USA

ACAPELLA SONGS RECORDED BY

Andy Hong,

at Kimchee, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

June 13, 2009

(a radio session for WMBR's Subject to Change program)

PHOTOGRAPHY

Mark Robinson,

and Evelyn Hurley

COVER DESIGN

Mark Robinson, Teen-Beat Graphica

AUDIO/VIDEO COMMERCIAL

STARRING

Evelyn Hurley,

Cardinal Robinson,

Dutch Robinson,

Mark Robinson

DIRECTED BY

Mark Robinson,

on McCann Corner/Teen-Beat 347
Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

ET CETERA

Portions of the album contain audio samples from the 1978 film "Cotton Candy".

The title track was written and recorded as a 15-second song for a Radio Shack commercial entitled "Doodle" which aired on television in the fall of 2009. An expanded fleshed-out two minute version is here on the album.

The jacket has a die-cut hole on the front cover, a window to see the label inside. Half of the copies have the A-side showing and the other the B-side.

Nine additional instrumental "Karaoke" versions of nine tracks, plus the audio commercial for the album were made available on download stores for individual purchase, and were also included on the Teen-Beat Originals compact disc edition.
These songs are:

Top-Notch & First-Rate (Karaoke Version)
That Was Swedish (Karaoke Version)
Imagine That! (Karaoke Version)
Whatever Hartford (Karaoke Version)
The Windsor Tap Recap (Karaoke Version)
Hot Wieners (N.Y. System)
Ritter Sport (Karaoke Version)
Fanci Pantz (Karaoke Version)
Sincere Pretension (Karaoke Version)
Pickwick (Karaoke Version)
Teen-Beat 457 [the audio commercial]

REVIEWS

"Mark Robinson's current band is this deeply odd duo with his wife Evelyn Hurley (who was also in Teenbeat bands Hot Pursuit and Blast Off Country Style). Their debut LP alternates brisk, trebly rock songs - the best is "Hot Weiners (All the Way)," which can only be described as a glam-rock sendup of "Blue Monday" - with faithful covers of vintage advertising jingles for the likes of Citizens' Bank of Maryland and a local Chevy dealer. Then there are the sound collages, the found tape of a radio announcer talking about (somebody else named) Mark Robinson, the halting synthesizer rendition of the theme from Star Wars . . . The download version also includes instrumental versions of the actual songs and a "radio ad" for the album itself."

- Douglas Wolk, eMusic.

"There has always been a Pop-Art quality to the work of MARK ROBINSON, from his label Teenbeat's design sense to his Sammy Davis, Jr. obsession, etc. Cotton Candy, the duo of Robinson and EVELYN HURLEY (from the cheeky Blast Off Country Style), takes that and runs with it, in a bright, fluffy direction. The pace of the album, which veers constantly among pop songs, clips from what seem like 50s radio or TV broadcasts, and the band's renditions of ad jingles, resembles a sugar high from eating too much cotton candy.

The consumerist slant is also nostalgic; if cotton candy itself is the stuff of memories, the band is too. Throughout the album they sing jingles: "Charlie by Revlon", "Beef, It's What's for Dinner", "Clap On, Clap Off". Some work as segues, some become more than that, standing right there with their own songs. There's also the "Star Wars Main Title", not an ad jingle but might as well be. Sometimes it's hard to tell if the track are genuine artifacts from television culture or something similar that the band wrote themselves. Their lyrics in general have the confidence and distance of slogans. Their guitars and synths are played for their infectious qualities.

The whole thing is dreamy and fun. Cotton Candy works their pop-culture collage together with smart, bouncy little pop come-ons like "Top-Notch and First-Rate"; "Imagine That!", which has tuneful guitar, Vegas pizzazz and intimate whispers; and "Fanci Pantz", which boasts the lyric, "I have seen you there / I recognize you from your hair".

The album is pretty, stylish, and at the same time one big joke. The download version ends with an ad for itself, for the LP you're listening to, which is longer than most of the proper songs. Called "Teenbeat 457", it strings together song clips with an announcer saying things like, "From dance music to heavy metal, it's all here", in his best announcer voice."

- Dave Heaton, The Big Takeover.