Cowtown's s Small Town

Ben Rose is so far the only musician in Cowtown to get arrested for selling his own CD. The CD happens to be called "Cowtown" and does feature some strong opinions about our home and native city. It has lines like "Who needs a culture when you've got a culture war" and "in Cowtown it's hard to to tell a hooker from a nice girl waiting for a ride" but if you listen closely it becomes clear that he loves the city like a messed up son loves his alcoholic father.

"Cowtown" was supposed to get released last fall but the tickets which led to court dates which led to his eventual arrest put the promotion on hold. Ben says "To be honest I made this to get it out of my system so I could move on to making an album of perfect love songs for the ages. If it weren't for the reactions of people I've never met who heard it on the radio and sought me out to tell me how it spoke to them I'd have moved on by now."

Instead he's ordering a second thousand copies and giving it a proper CD release in August to be followed by a tour of the country in the fall. "I always thought it would be good to release a "Cowtown" album before trying to get a following outside of Alberta but when I played these songs in Toronto everyone laughed in all the right places. Maybe I can do for Alberta what Bruce did for New Jersey. Write a few songs about it and then move to California.