Are you watching American Idol? Be sure to vote for Rudy Cardenas from the group M-Pact and Blake Lewis who comes from Kickshaw. An unfortunate goodbye to Thomas Lowe formerly of the Harvard-Radcliffe Veritones. It turns out that good a cappella chops make for good competition chops on thi show. Anyone surprised? I didn't think so.

This time on The Acapodcast, I've got some recent award winners, plus a new CD release track. There's also a few groups that I've had on the show before, and if you weren't familiar with them before, you are now!

Here's the lineup for Episode #23:

• Cluster - Cement
• Ball In The House - Trust Me
• Da Vinci's Notebook - Traffic Jam
• Ledyard HS Chamber Choir - MLK
• Spiralmouth - No Career
• Cluster - DuckTales Theme Song

Cluster is a recent CARA nominee, and Cement is in the Contemporary Pop/Rock Original category. Their album, also called Cement, is in the Jazz Album category. DVN is the winner of this year's A Cappella Comunity Award for Favorite Comedy Group. LHS Chamber Choir will be on the 2007 BOHSA Album with this arrangementof MLK, originally from the genius that is The King's Singers (this arrangement, that is; the original song is U2). Trust Me, by Ball In The House, comes from their brand new release, Granite Ave. If you are in the Boston, MA area, you can go to the release party at the Brattle Theater in Cambridge, this Saturday evening.

Listen to Episode #23!

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Another few weeks, another few ICCA Quarterfinals down. Go check out the Results Page to see who is moving up in the competition! Go find out when the next rounds of competition are taking place, and make a litle time in your schedule to go see an a cappella throwdown!

I also talk a bit in this show about the CARA nominees, and the ACA Winners. If you're unfamiliar with who is hot in the a cappella world right now, these two lists read like a Who's Who, and will definitely give you some names to check out!

And check out who is on the show this time:

• Hyannis Sound - 1000 Miles
• Invisible Men - Pink
• UPenn Dischord - Breathe (2 A.M.)
• Firedrill! - Lie On Lie
• Slapdash Graduate - Rain
• Hyannis Sound - Don't Cry

I promised a link to BYU Vocal Point performing Thriller on YouTube in the show, but I'm sad to report that the video has been taken down. So here's a link to them performing Spiderman! and thanks to John pointing out a fresh link, here it is:

Edit: Warren rightly points out that there is a strong connection in this episode: Firedrill! and Slapdash Graduate can both trace their roots to Hyannis Sound. Not only do four of the six songs share that element, and the fact that some of the members show up on multiple tracks, but both Hyannis Sound albums and the Invisible Men EP were produced by John Clark, and Samrat Chakrabarti (a man I've had the inestimable pleasure of meeting on more than one occasion) was the arranger for "Pink, "1000 Miles", and "Lie On Lie" (No surprise if you know Samrat's amanzing arranging abilitis, especially for all male voices). That means there are a _lot_ of links across the songs in this episode. How cool is that?

Now go Listen to Show #22!

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