Raising your expectations, am I? Raised expectations are a bitch, but what am I to do? I want to get people to hear this song.

I've had little exposure before this year to Chris Gates. It's not like he put in an add request; he just was someone with a main profile pic I saw in some other list of friends. Then I started listening....

To listen to "Being The Man Of My Dreams" go to his myspace profile www.myspace.com/bigchrisgates ... a widget set to random shuffle -- NOT the myspace standard music player -- will start playing the 36 songs loaded onto the widget automatically. Scroll down to track 14 and click for "Being..." to play.

It's part of a great set of "acoustic demo"s played just by strumming a good acoustic guitar, with Gates singing in a Texas croak. Damn near impossibly, the man croaks beautifully, especially on the best of the demo songs "The Same," "Matches and Gasoline," and "Being The Man of My Dreams."

You can imagine my response to seeing that song title... when I stumbled on Chris, somehow, because I was at some band's profile (forget which) that had The Big Boys as one of their top friends, and Big Boys was one of those bands that Pedro Serrano played, so I was curious/had never before followed up and listened to them myself, and figured This Big Chris Gates looks kinda cute in his little profile pic (You'll see.), and he seems to be one of the band's leaders; may as well take a look/listen"...

You can imagine what I was thinking, given my penchant to try to unearth underexposed Gay musicians, when "Being The Man Of My Dreams" came into view.

I've never been more pleased to be wrong.

Because it's not a Gay thing; he's not Gay.

But the song! The song....

And the guitar playing is so clean, yet natural. And that Texas drawl laden growl of a voice.

(When you're done with that one, if you want to, let the other tracks play -- or, my suggestion , click to listen to the rest of the acoustic demo tracks first. Then, after you've gained a surer understanding of what Gates is capable of, you can let the rockers-with-band play.)

I've just about used any excuse to write to folks and bring this guy to folks' attention. I just don't understand how he's not garnering more attention from the music biz and the mainstream.

At minimum I hope it introduces you to one more musician you'll enjoy.

Be well,
Bill