Big Bus Dream: Not for the Deaf of Heart

WINCHESTER, VA, March 29, 2012 (Press-News.org) U.S. independent label Wampus Multimedia announces the release of 'Big Dream Baby,' the new album from urban-organic rock duo Big Bus Dream. Singer-songwriter Mike Shannon and guitarist-songwriter Chick Tsikouras mint a literate brand of social comment in the tradition of Lou Reed, John Lennon, and Mark Oliver Everett (Eels). Blending acoustic roots with muscular, electrified arrangements, the album evokes nothing more than Reed's 'Transformer.'

On 'Big Dream Baby,' the Charlotte, North Carolina-based Shannon (former leader of 4th Ward) and Tsikouras (Pat Metheny, Mamas and Papas) have recorded a voyage of emotional disintegration and redemption. The story is not unfamiliar, but the telling of it is original and universal. In Shannon's eyes, we are trying and failing at life, at dreams, and finding a sort of unimagined grace in the wisdom it brings us. As he sings in "C'mon & Run," the album's anthemic closer, "you better have a big dream, baby / 'cause dreamers built this place / never think you're it and the others are not / 'cause hatred has an ugly face." The big dream, to Shannon, is a sort of battered salvation.

From "Wonderland," a plain-spoken account of a family torn apart, to "Fried," a tuneful lament of time's march, to "Mary's Spoken," the acceptance of an inevitable end, Big Bus Dream perseveres in the face of disappointment. We are not defined by our setbacks, Shannon says, but they are always there. The big dream fuels and sustains us.

Big Bus Dream is about the distinctiveness of the song, the arrangement, the colors. Says Shannon, "People say when they hear our tunes they immediately know it's us. That's what original music should be about: sounding like no one else."

Produced by Shannon and recorded with Jamie Hoover, 'Big Dream Baby' includes cameos from Jeff Kephart, Brian Bayne, Julianne Allen, Andrew Shannon, Ben Huber, Ray Henderson, and Shoe String Symphony.

'Big Dream Baby' joins a Wampus Multimedia roster that includes recent and imminent releases from Arms of Kismet, The Crowd Scene, Waterslide, tvfordogs, the matthew show, The May Bees, Johnny J Blair, and Kowtow Popof, as well as popular tributes to Jonathan Richman, Lou Reed, and Warren Zevon.

Wampus Multimedia is an independent media label run by artists, for artists. Its credo is simple: to introduce the world to bold content rendered by unique artists. It is home to a growing roster from a variety of genres, including pop, AAA, Americana, alternative, ambient, blues, and folk.

'Big Dream Baby' is available at Amazon, CD Baby, iTunes, and many other outlets.

Wampus Multimedia
http://wampus.com

Big Bus Dream
http://bigbusdream.com

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