excerpted from The Dispatch /Rock Island Argus, April 30, 1995

You can call him Al (Rose)

Chicago singer brings caffeinated madness to Theo's Java Club

by Michael McCarty, correspondent

What more appropriate place to see the "caffeinated madness" of Chicago singer/songwriter Al Rose is there than a coffeehouse?

Rose, a veteran of the coffeehouse scene, even helped run a coffeehouse called Miles From Nowhere when he attended the University of Illinois.

"Coffeehouses are a ripe venue for songwriters," Rose stated. "I got started playing in one in high school because when you're underage you can't go to bars. I would go there on weekends - it was the place of other songwriters."

His songwriting ambitions paid off. He recently released the CD "Information Overload" on Whitehouse Records. Like a caffeine buzz, this disc is humming with energy. The songs are a diverse mix of anything and everything from rock, pop, folk, and country to gospel.

The title track is about more than technology. "'Information Overload' is a metaphor for life itself," Rose said. "Sometimes you feel overwhelmed, sometimes you feel underwhelmed. So let's get overwhelmed and pile it on."

Another standout track is "River and Sky." "The time and signature of this song is like a river where the arteries fly and the sky is wide open and flowing without limits," Rose said.

Rose started his musical career playing the flute in grammar school when he was 10-years-old. "When I got midway through high school I kind of overdosed on the flute," he said with a laugh.

Things changed when he found a guitar in the attic at his house.

"I started banging on the guitar," Rose recalls. "I wanted to be like Bob Dylan, a songwriter. So I started writing my own songs, even though I didn't even know how to play the guitar and it only had three strings."

From such humble beginnings such stars are born.

[...]