Have you ever heard of Blimp before? You tell me “yeah, I’ve heard of that, it’s an airship!”. Oh, my God’s pretty daughter! (P.S.: This is my own saying, it has the same meaning as “Oh, my God!”). We are not talking about an airship, we are talking about music!

So if you think Blimp is an airship, you are wrong! If you think Blimp is a band, you are still wrong! If you think it is a man, you are still partly wrong! Okay, let me tell you what on earth it is.

I received an email from Dave today, saying their new album Vertical Hold has been released. Just like you guys, I never heard of Blimp and their album Vertical Hold before, so I asked Dave if he could tell me more about that, then he sent me another letter which contained information about Blimp and their new album. Let’s take a look:

Who is Blimp? Where do they come from? What do they sound like? Why should I care? Well, these are all good questions with generally respectable answers.

Who: Blimp is simply the name that Dave Girtsman uses for his musical project. Did you know that the term “blimp” is the sound the airship makes when one taps the balloon with a finger? This Blimp is practically the same. There really isn’t a “they” in Blimp; it’s mostly just a “he.” That being said, Dave does enjoy the occasional musical collaboration from some very talented friends.

Where: Dave hails from the lovely seaside town of Ventura, California. Now, the coast is too windy for a blimp, but Dave has been writing and performing music there for as long as blimps have been around. Actually, that’s not true. Anyway, this is where Blimp has settled down.

What: The music of Blimp has been described as sounding somewhere in between Tom Waits, Nino Rota and Vic Chesnutt. A big fan of such artists as Elvis Costello and XTC, you’ll likely hear their influence on Blimp, though Dave would never have the
audacity to compare himself to such musical greats.

Why: Well, if you enjoy the cleverly crafted, semi-quirky, extremely catchy tune, then there’s more than a chance that you will be aurally pleased by the music of Blimp! We highly suggest that you lend your ears to the helium-filled music project in the sky!

Additional tidbits: Dave has played in many local bands in the Ventura area and has worked as a supporting musician for such notables as Susanna Hoffs and the Primitive Radio Gods. He is a semi-regular contributor to the XM Radio show “Musician’s Radio” and as of late has been composing music for animated short films.

So now you’ve got a picture about Blimp, let’s talk about their new album Vertical Hold.

Actually, Vertical Hold was released on March 13, 2009. Since Dave recommended it to me, I listened the songs, and I feel they are fresh, I mean, I heard the fresh sound from them, that’s very cool. I like them. So let’s take a look at these songs.

Blimp – Vertical Hold (2009)

1. Sweetheart
2. Tiny Tiny
3. Jack & Bonneville
4. Taco Taco (or Taco X 2)
5. The Saint
6. In Front of Me
7. Don’t Tell Me

Yeah, there are only 7 songs in this new album. Dave also sent me some information about this album, let’s take a look:

“Verical Hold” is seven songs that I wrote, produced, performed and recorded myself. A few friends were kind enough to play on a few of the songs:

“Tiny Tiny” has Tim Lauterio (Primitive Radio Gods) on drums

“Jack & Bonneville” has Brent Harding (Social Distortion) on Stand up bass, and Matt Muldoon on pedal steel, banjo and fiddle. Matt lives in Germany, so I’d send him a rough mix, he’d record his tracks and send back as seperate files and then I’d mix it all together. It was great fun.

“In front of me” has Stan Gonzales ‘Whiskey Chimp” on mandolin and electric kazoo. We did the same file swap thing on this as I did with Matt on “Jack & Bonneville”

“Don’t tell me” has the great songwriter Dave Bassett on lap steel

otherwise, it’s pretty much all me. The album is only available as digital download.

As described above, this songs are sung by unofficial musicians, so may I call these songs unofficial songs? Of course I can, who cares, we just care whether they are good or not. Yeah, I believe you guys will love these songs, what do you say?

Now you can get this album from: Amazon, esong and iTunes.

Still wanna learn more about Blimp? Okay, you can find them at: Myspace, Facebook, Last.fm. Of course, we shouldn’t ignore their official website BlimpMusic.com. Unfortunately, they are not on Twitter, if they were their, we can follow them. Don’t worry, I will suggest Dave to register a Twitter account later.

So what do you think about Blimp and their new album Vertical Hold?