Who’s gonna listen anyway? It’s sometimes a question worth not asking. In a ten-second sound bite universe, the question seems cynical at best. However, maybe the question is more of a challenge. Maybe it says that there is a lot of shit going on right now and things are hard to hear. Maybe you can’t grasp the details so why bother to get them. Maybe it’s impossible to grasp all the details. Maybe it’s a swipe at an industry based on profit lines and cookie cutters. Then again, maybe it is purely cynical. Ted McCloskey’s third release “who’s gonna listen anyway” may be his own ten-second sound bite with the minor exception that it lasts 45 minutes. It’s a ragged man on the street saturated in rhythm guitars, rotating leslies, and political overtones. Each track reading like a vignette and sounding like a late night soundtrack to a daydream. One song running into the next like a night of channel surfing with a purpose. There is a purpose here. Its purpose is to be heard. In addition to “who’s gonna listen anyway”, McCloskey received a 2005 mid-atlantic emmy award honor for his soundtrack to the PBS documentary “the grange fair; an american tradition”. Following that, he scored the extremely successful film, ”window to the sea”. This PBS documentary aired nationally in December 2005. He keeps an insane playing schedule working nearly 300 nights a year. His previous two albums (“one man misery parade” and “sixty cycle hum”) have been successes both critically and commercially, and he has done opening slots for the likes of Ryan Adams and Sarah Harmer. He’s probably singing somewhere tonight, but “who’s gonna listen anyway?”