Armand Schaubroeck Steals

To describe Armand Schaubroeck as over the top hardly does him justice. This incredible independent-recording oddball began his musical career in the mid-'60s, after a prison stay (he was convicted of grand larceny). Although his subsequent livelihood has resulted from a well-known music store he owns and operates in upstate New York, he has found time to make a large oeuvre of albums and singles that spring from his bitterness and cynicism. Yet Schaubroeck is no raving looney — his records are intense but they're sane, and ambitiously conceived and executed. And while his musical and songwriting skills have grown by leaps and bounds over the years, he has never mellowed — his fifth album is more intense and gritty than any of his others, save the first.