Brent Spiner & Maude Maggart - Dreamland

Brent Spiner - Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone Brent Spiner and Maude Maggart 1 comment Discography [1991] Ol' Yellow Eyes Is Back [2008] Dreamland Read More Star Trek http://weheartmus... It's good news (depending on who you ask), is that Spiner released an album, Ol' Yellow Eyes Is ... Trivia Maude Maggart is the sister of Fiona Apple.

Brent Spiner - Toot, Toot, Tootsie Maude Maggart - Night and Day 1 comment My DVDs 15 comments

If you've ever seen my DVD collection, you'll know that I am a pretty big fan of Star Trek. I have previously mentioned how much I love Data from Star Trek and was glad to see that the actor, Brent Spiner, had recorded Ol' Yellow Eyes Is Back. The 1940's pop and showtunes standard album have been out of print for a while, and fans and collectors have paid a lot of money to own an original copy. I would recommend getting a copy of his new, just-released, album, Dreamland before it goes out of print or you'll regret it later.

Dreamland is an old fashion radio musical with already established jazz singer, Maude Maggart. We've previously used her cover of Cole Porter's "Night and Day". It is important that I mention the Porter tune, because Brent Spiner heard her Porter cover of "Looking at You" and fell in love with her voice.

The other star appearing on this CD is Mark Hamill (Star Wars). He plays the villainous boyfriend and the Spanish waiter, and I believe other character voices too. I'm not familiar with the other voice actor Pat Richardson, but I think she is a pretty famous TV actress.

This album was meant to be listened to from start to finish, like an hour radio program. I was surprise to see that you can download it as per song ($1.50), but to me, this doesn't make much sense because you're only getting 1/16th of the story.

I didn't realize that the story is actually a dream (if you think I'm spoiling the story, I'm not, the explanation is written on the liner notes), so at one point in the story I was pretty confused when Spiner woke up with (what I imagined based on the voice acting) a horrific and older lady. The story is a great idea and it keeps you listening to find out what will happen next.

As for the songs, if you love old big band/swing Frank Sinatra tunes ("In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning", "Nice 'n' Easy"), you'll love these new recording from Spiner and Maggart. The songs that are excellent are the duets, especially on the last track "To Know You is to Love You".

For some reason, when I was listening to this album, the one song that I kept going back to was "Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone". There's a sense of humor in the song ("What do you call a singer who breaks up with his girlfriend?" answer: "Homeless!") and some improvisation and it made me think of a live 1930 setting.

Check out this video "behind the scene" of Dreamland, it really shows off what a great fun time they all had while recording this album (and it translate to the album too).

Dreamland is available on amazon and iTunes, but I would recommend getting it directly from therealbrentspiner.com because you can get it personalized and autographed.

What's in store for Brent in the future? It looks like he's going to be filming a documentary? From reading his blog, it would seem that he's going to be traveling around and will personally make stops to people's homes.

Bonus: Let's not forget other Star Trek actors have recordings. Here are some songs that we've previously used:

Leonard Nimoy - Highly Illogical 5 comments

William Shatner - Mr. Tambourine Man 1 comment

Nichelle Nichols - Rock the World 1 comment

William Shatner/Joe Jackson - Common People 9 comments

Leonard Nimoy - Piece Of Hope 2 comments

Links: therealbrentspiner.com myspace.com/realbrentspiner maudemaggart.com myspace.com/maude...