The Cleavers

Take the melodic sophistication of latter-day Beatles, add the instrumentation of Steely Dan, and mix it up with the pop sensibilities of Squeeze and Crowded House, and you'll come up with Television Mind, the debut CD by The Cleavers. But that's only half the story. Combining meaningful lyrics with humor and a little punch of satire, The Cleavers have produced a collection of sonic portraits that are truly "Picture Perfect."

Listen to each song and a drama - or a sitcom - plays inside your "Television Mind." The opening cut, "A Little Success," cautions all who are trying to hit the big time. "William Blake," a Harry Chapin-like song, tells how a college kid uses the poet to get the girl (yes, the story has a feel-good ending!). The last cut, "Jungle of Love," no doubt could be the theme song for the movie version of "Sex in the City."

This is classic American songwriting - literate pop for the masses! - written by Dick Eastman, a former staff songwriter for MCA Music. With pop icon, Bobby Hart, Dick has co-written and co-produced songs for the New Edition, The Monkees and Robbie Nevil. Dick has also worked with artists such as Sugarloaf and Jim Peterik of The Ides of March.

Now fronting The Cleavers, Dick has been able to draw on the great strengths of some of the finest musicians in Chicago - Bobby Diamond on lead guitar, Dave Leeds on bass, Mike Kroell on keyboards and drums and Ron Kaplan on drums - to produce these "mini-movies" of pop music. Television Mind, released in May 2004, has already been sold throughout the United States, and in England, Australia, Japan and even Iceland! "Jungle of Love" is in rotation on www.aiiradio.net, based in England, and has reached #2 on its charts and "A Little Success" was played on Chicago's WXRT's Local Anesthetic Show.

Leave it to The Cleavers to get you to spend more time inside your television mind ...