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Prior to the release of her solo album last year, Cindy Bullens made a living as a backup vocalist for people like Elton John and Bob Dylan. Now she's out on her own, fronting a four-piece band and pushing a new album -- and a new identity. She still has a long way to go.

Bullens' performance last night at the Cellar Door underscored her influences and did little to enhance her own reputation as a musican. Like many rock 'n' roll women (most notably Marshall Chapman), Bullens is heavily indebted to Mick Jagger. Perhaps her pouting and prancing would have been more effective on a larger stage, but last night much of it appeared contrived and studied.

Bullens was nearly halfway through her 11-song set before she salvaged it with some unadorned rock 'n' roll. On "Steal the Night" and "High School History," her husky voice and the spring-loaded rhythms generated by her lean band finally jelled -- and polite applause gave way to calls for an encore.

Earlier, Tom Ogden entertained the audience with an act that capitalized on imaginary card tricks, erotic balloon sculptures and a rubber chicken, which he vainly attempted to balance on his chin. Not a class act but a very funny one nonetheless.

Cindy Bullens, a singer, songwriter, and self-describe "old rock ‘n’ roller" who lives in Portland, Maine, never intended to go very public with her very personal story of loss. Bullens lost her daughter, then 11-year-old Jessie Bullens-Crewe, to cancer on March 23, 1996. Since cancer has touched nearly everyone at some time or another in their lives, her album that tells the story of her family’s pain, titled"Somewhere Between Heaven and Earth," has proved to have a universal appeal and has given Bullens a huge wave of national attention. Bullens performs in concert at the Chapel at the Lawrenceville School on Tuesday, June 20, at 8 p.m. Part of the proceeds will benefit the Jessie Bullens-Crewe Foundation and the Maine Children’s Cancer Program. Space for the concert has been donated, and several Princeton businesses, including Small World Coffee and the Whole Earth Center, are contributing services. Bullens’ album, "Somewhere Between Heaven and Earth," is a collection of songs about losing her daughter. It was the debut release for the ultra-hip independent label Artemis. Joining Bullens on this collection of songs about loss and getting on with life are some of the singer’s high-profile friends. They include Bonnie Raitt, whom she met in Boston many moons ago, when Raitt was honing her skills in coffee houses there, Canadian superstar Bryan Adams, who sang on one of Bullens’ earlier albums, and country singer Rodney Crowell. Even blues and roots-rock singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams, as busy as she’s been the past couple of years, always remembers her friends, and made time to record with Bullens when both were in Los Angeles. Asked if the act of writing and recording the songs was a sort of personal therapy, Bullens says, "I wasn’t even thinking in terms

of my own therapy, I just felt compelled to do it. I didn’t really

plan any of it. When it was about half done, I realized, `I’m doing

a record here.’"

The album was written and recorded in fits and starts over a period

of two years following the death of Jessie in 1996. Bullens is married

to recording engineer Dan Crewe. The couple’s second daughter, Reid,

now 18, also contributes vocals to one of the album’s tracks, "As

Long As You Love (Scarlet Wings)."

The 40-something Bullens, who has lived in the Portland, Maine, region

for the last 10 years, was raised in West Newbury, Massachusetts,

the daughter of a food broker father and a housewife mother, both

of whom are now retired.

"The songs began to flow through me very slowly," she explains.

"I wrote the title track, `Somewhere Between Heaven and Earth,’

about four months after Jessie died. Then I wrote a few more songs

a couple of months after that; so it was the first three songs in

the first year and then seven more the following year," she adds,

recalling that period in her life when — like many bereaved parents

— some days it was difficult just getting out of bed.

Bullens, who recorded three previous albums — one

Grammy nominated — after working as a backup vocalist for Elton

John in the 1970s, stopped working in December, 1995, when young Jessie

was diagnosed with cancer. Waking up in the middle of the night with

cold sweats and vomiting, Jessie died only three months after the

final, yet sadly accurate diagnosis of her illness was made.

"When she died," Bullens explains, "I thought, `I can’t

do anything again as long as I live.’ But once I started writing songs

again, I felt like I couldn’t accept any other work while doing this.

And, I haven’t really done anything but this project for the last

four years."

Bullens released "Somewhere Between Heaven and Earth" on her

own Blue Lobster Records before it came to the attention of the Artemis

label. The album’s song titles, "In Better Hands," "Boxing

With God," and "I Gotta Believe In Something," tell the

listener what kind of album this is. Liner notes by rock critic Dave

Marsh, who also lost a daughter to cancer, and photos of young Jessie,

add an intimate touch to the CD booklet.

"I only intended it to be an album for Jessie’s Foundation, and

I pressed up 1,000 copies for my own label," Bullens explains,

"and that’s as far as I thought it would go. But then I got a

call from Danny Goldberg at Artemis Records, and they began distributing

the record nationally in September, 1999."

The response to the record has been overwhelmingly positive, and Bullens

made television appearances on "The Today Show" and "Late

Night With Conan O’Brien" as well as being featured in major magazines

including People and Rolling Stone.

It is often said that one of the most painful experiences one can

live through is losing a son or daughter before one’s own life is

over, and the loss is more severe when it is sudden, as was the case

with Bullen’s daughter, and as it was with this author’s cousin, Paul

McAllister. Working through the grief is both a personal and a shared

process. My own extended family gathered at my aunt’s house one year

after my cousin’s death to celebrate a life that was cut short at

age 39.

"Once I began playing out last fall, the reaction of the people

I played to gave me a sense of meaning and purpose that was beyond

my own healing and beyond my own situation," she says. The new

music has taken Bullens to many unexpected destinations, including

a benefit concert this year for parents of Columbine High School victims

in Colorado.

"That’s one example of how people have responded to this record,"

she says. "To me, it’s all outside the music business, if you

know what I mean. It’s a kind of grass-roots phenomena where I play

wherever they want me to play. Although I’m quote-unquote `promoting

the record,’ and it’s about my daughter, now it’s also about sharing

the loss.

"The record has touched a chord in people and in our culture,

and I think it’s because it’s uncomfortable for people to talk about

death and talk about grieving and talk about loss. So the music has

given people permission to grieve out loud, to talk about it."

Bullens has received hundreds of letters and E-mails (at CBGuitar@aol.com)

from parents who have lost children. "I’m grateful that these

people share their stories with me," she says, "and I write

back to everybody." Her upcoming concert at the Lawrenceville

School Chapel has been orchestrated, in true grass-roots fashion,

by Allentown residents Liz Hutner Flemer and her husband, who lost

their young son to cancer in 1992.

Bullens, who skipped college in favor of hanging out and performing

on the coffee house scenes in Boston and New York, said she got her

college education in the late 1960s and early ’70s at places like

Club 47 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she got to know and learned

from Bonnie Raitt, Mississippi John Hurt, the late Paul Butterfield,

and other luminaries of the folk-blues scene.

Her own career got a jump start in 1975 when she moved to Los Angeles.

After crashing a Los Angeles studio party hosted by Elton John, John

came up to her and introduced himself. Miraculously, that same night,

she was invited to join John and his band as a back-up singer.

"I was young and impressionable," she recalls, "and I

thought he was just unbelievable. I was a huge fan of his, which is

why I crashed this party. He wondered who I was and came up and introduced

himself, and I thought, well jeez, this is cool, and once he had spoken

to me, a few minutes later a woman walked up to me and asked what

do I do, and I said, `I’m a singer.’ She came back a few minutes later

and said, `What are you doing the next two months, Elton wants to

know if you want to go on the road with him.’"

Two days later, Bullens was rehearsing with John and the eight-piece

band and she subsequently joined the piano player on three of his

gargantuan tours, in 1975 and 1976, when he was at the top of his

commercial fame. She recorded with John on his "Blue Moves"

album and also sang back-up on his big hit with Kiki Dee, "Don’t

Go Breaking My Heart."

"I never went out there to be a back-up singer, I always thought

of myself as a solo artist," she explains, but when a break as

big as this came her way, she took it.

"The learning experience was just incredible and Elton treated

me very very well. I didn’t feel like I was `just’ a back-up singer,

and the fact that I was the only woman on the tour and kind of visible,

I was told that I got the most press of anybody in the band after

Elton," she recalls. "I think it was mostly because I was

young and I was a girl."

After three tours with John, Bullens set out to write again and to

carve out a niche for herself as a solo artist. The result was three

albums: "Desire Wire," in 1979 for United Artists, which spurred

the hit, "Survivor," nominated for a Grammy Award for best

rock vocal performance by a woman; this was followed by "Steal

the Night," for Casablanca Records in 1980. During the 1980s,

she took nine years off, married and had two daughters, before returning

to record her self-titled "Cindy Bullens" album in 1989.

As a songwriter, Bullens says she has been most influenced by Joni

Mitchell, but also by the classic Delta blues artists she met in the

1970s, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee, and John Lee Hooker. Though influenced

also by the folkies, she says she never really considered herself

part of that camp, preferring instead to think of herself as a rock

‘n’ roller.

"All that time spent sitting around in coffee houses in Boston

and New York was a college education," she admits, "but it

was only after I moved to L.A. that I really started the rock thing."

Of the grass-roots success of "Between Heaven and Earth,"

Bullens says the songs flowed through her, and at one point, while

trying to escape her grief for a few weeks at a friend’s house in

Nashville, she heard Jessie speaking to her, telling her to finish

the album. Energized by her daughter’s voice, she wrote the final

three tunes in just a week.

"I don’t feel like I can take credit for much of this," she

says. A serious listen to the album indicates that, at her upcoming

concert at the Lawrenceville School, those who have lost a loved one

prematurely and those who have not may both be moved to tears.

"This will be treated as a very intimate evening," Bullens

explains. "Let’s just say I’ll do at least nine of the songs from

the CD and then I’ll do some newer stuff and older stuff as well.

I don’t mix them up, because I can’t, emotionally." She says she’ll

hang around after the show and talk with everyone for as long as they

want to talk.

"I really feel this music was inspired by my daughter, and I just

totally believe that these songs are a gift from her. And since I’m

an old rock ‘n’ roller and I love to go out and play, I will never,

ever get tired of singing these songs," says Bullens. "It

would be like getting tired of looking at a picture of my daughter."

— Richard J. Skelly

On Friday, October 28, the  me&thee is proud to present a great co-bill with Greg Trooper and Cindy Bullens. Upside-Down Town is the latest release from singer-songwriter Greg Trooper who is described as a songwriter and performer who deserves about 12 times the attention he's received. He knows how to play rock against country and folk and position the pressures of adulthood against the longing for adolescent freedom. Two-time Grammy nominee Cindy Bullens, originally from this area, has been touring the world for many years.  Her latest CD release Howling Trains and Barking Dogs, is a collection of her 90's Nashville collaborations.

Bullens is on the road behind her latest CD, "dream #29," and will appear Wednesday at Off Broadway. It will be a solo acoustic show, but Bullens, described by Emmylou Harris as a female Bruce Springsteen, promises that it will still rock.

The new CD features some help from her old friend Sir Elton ("I just went to his wedding," Bullens says), who plays a killer piano on the title song, as well as blues rocker Delbert McClinton on "This Ain't Love." But the biggest surprise is a contribution by her golf and music buddy -- sorry, Cardinals fans -- Red Sox pitcher Tim Wakefield.

In September 2004, when the Red Sox were in a pennant race and in the middle of a series with the New York Yankees, Bullens invited Wakefield into a recording studio in the shadow of Fenway Park to sing harmony tracks on one of her new songs, "7 Days," which includes a reference to Ted Williams. Wakefield nailed his part; the Red Sox won the World Series; and the CD became one of the best albums of 2005.

Bullens laughs when asked whether she takes any kind of psychic credit for Boston's "Reverse the Curse" victory.

"No, I do not, but it was a very cool thing," says Bullens, who grew up near the ocean in a town north of Boston and, despite living subsequently in Los Angeles and now part time in Nashville, remains a staunch Sox and New England Patriots fan. "You can't not be a Red Sox fan if you were born and raised in New England."

Bullens is riding a career renaissance that grew out of a therapeutic burst of songwriting after her daughter Jessie Bullens-Crewe died, at age 11, of cancer in 1996. Those songs became the 1999 CD "Somewhere Between Heaven and Earth," a collection of raw, moving and inspirational tunes about loss, grief and carrying on with life.

"Somewhere" was followed two years later by "Neverland," a solid rock album that, like its predecessor, showcased Bullens' ability to write joyful rock songs about adult themes. It features "Sensible Shoes," a glorious rocker about not taking life the easy way.

Bullens' first public appearance came in 1968 at the King's Rook Coffee House in Ipswich, Mass., where she recalls performing covers of the Beatles' "Norwegian Wood" and the Animals' "House of the Rising Sun." But in the early '70s, she took off for stardom in Los Angeles, where she met John after crashing a party for singer Neal Sedaka. She sang backup and harmony on three of Sir Elton's tours, on the "Blue Moves" album and on John's 1976 No. 1 hit, "Don't Go Breakin' My Heart." In 1979, she married Dan Crewe and began her solo career with the hit song "Survivor."

She took more than a decade off from recording and performing to take care of their daughters Jessie and Reid, now 23. During this period, Bullens kept up her writing, but it was Jessie's death and the "Somewhere" album that rekindled her life as an artist.

"I believe that record is my legacy," Bullens says. "That is purely from my soul. I didn't write it for anybody else. I didn't care if anybody heard it. I did it for me. It was a gift to me and I believe it was inspired by my daughter. The wonderful thing about it is that it has touched people all over the world."

Today Bullens splits her time between homes in Nashville, where she works and writes, and on the Maine coast ("I need the ocean; I need the salt"). Her touring and recording help fund the Jessie Bullens-Crewe Foundation and the Jessie Fund. The foundation helps children's education in the fields of environment, theater, and arts and sciences. The fund raises money for pediatric cancer research and "to help with the psychological and social needs families have when a child has cancer."

"('Somewhere') really gave me purpose, and I'm very grateful for having done those songs," she says. "They continue to inspire me -- 'I Gotta Believe in Something,' 'Boxing With God,' 'In Better Hands.' Oh yeah, I can do this. Or, I need to do this. Being a bereaved parent is a lifetime ordeal."

Cindy Bullens emerged in 1978 as something of a distaff Springsteen, fronting a rock band specializing in a dramatic, urban street mythos. Her muscular debut Desire Wire was a knockout, but its 1979 follow-up Steal The Night flagged noticeably, and Bullens pulled back to focus on songwriting and session work. She resurfaced with a tepid third solo disc on MCA in ’89, then rebounded with the impressive Why Not? on her own Blue Lobster label in 1994.

On March 23, 1996, Bullens and husband Dan Crewe experienced every parent’s worst nightmare: They lost their 11-year-old daughter Jessie to cancer. Following a period of complete artistic paralysis, Bullens began working through her grief, writing and recording (with the aid of a staggering list of luminaries) a powerful album exploring of the gamut of extreme responses engendered by the death of a loved one.

Perhaps not since Neil Young’s landmark Tonight’s The Night has an artist so successfully married rock’s dynamic power to wide-open emotional substance. With a voice that recalls the unvarnished tone and clarity of Carole King, Bullens delivers her taut, eloquent lyrics over a swirling, majestic rock sound that illuminates the bare expressions of rage, frustration, despair, crises of faith, depression and finally affirmation, miraculously keeping pace with the energy level without overwhelming it.

Lucinda Williams, Bonnie Raitt, Rodney Crowell, Beth Nielsen Chapman, Bill Lloyd, Bryan Adams, and Jessie’s sister Reid Bullens-Crewe all lend their voices to the memorable proceedings. By the time Somewhere Between Heaven And Earth closes with the inspirational, cathartic pledge to be “Better Than I’ve Ever Been”, Bullens has not only created an artistic triumph, but memorialized her child with an important coping tool for all of us.

DAILY NEWS 61 EXTRA ENTERTAI NMENTC 3 ON THE RECORDS HUGH WYATT No. 3 tint HEN SINGER-GUITAR- ist Cindy Bullens recorded VlW her song "Survivor," lecturing the world on how to succeed in this mean, cruel world, she had no idea she'd end up facing the music herself. "I was absolutely devastated," Bullens recalled of the ordeal the other day after an absence of nearly a decade from the music scene. "I had expended so much time and energy, and felt there was no point in going on." Bullens was referring to how, on two separate occasions, she had been a victim of record company mergers. She said that when that happens, all promotion and other activity namely sales come to a halt A case in point was her 1979 song, "Survivor," which was climbing the charts and suddenly fell. "The mergers were compounded by the fact that the industry itself was having economic difficulties," explained Bullens, who used the time off to get married, have two girls and move from Los Angeles to Weston, Conn. Prior to her ordeal, the Boston-born Bullens had successfully performed and recorded as a backup singer, beginning at age 19 with Elton John, Bob Dylan and Rod Stewart, establishing herself as one of the most promising young performers on the contemporary pop music scene. CINDY BULLENS Cindy Bullens (MCA) It's not every day that a performer can get a third shot at the top, especially under the auspices of a major label. But Cindy Bullens proves on this new recording that she is, indeed, a survivor. She has apparently been listening to her own words from Grammy-nominated "Survivor," which go in part: "You're a survi- . vor . . . you'll work it out . . . And you'll carry on." She does exactly that on this new recording, but the listener would never know of her problems by the lyrics because they focus more on love and romance than on the hardships of the world. Even so, the lyrics on this new album's 10 songs carry a certain ' amount of depth, maturity and intelligence, which reflect the singer's musical persona. She wrote the lyrics for all the songs and both the words and music on three of them demonstrating that not only is she a talented songwriter, but remains one of the most compelling singer-guitarists in rock 'n' roll. In the vein of John Mellencamp, Bob Seger and Bruce Springsteen, Bullens performs a down-to-earth style of straightforward rock 'n' roll the kind that many are now calling "classic" rock. She does not jump on today's heavy metal bandwagon, but instead picks up where she left off and enhances it She has also been influenced by some of the so-called "girl singers," like Nancy Wilson of Heart, Joan Jett and Pat Benatar. The album's choicest cut is "Letters of Fire," a thoroughly lovely ballad that could win her some sort of a literary prize it's so llllllSIl: J!?ffC " lillif Wllllllllllllillil: - -sw3- stow '4":J'' it 4 f i ' J SURVIVAL INSTINCTS: Rocker Cindy Bullens is out front once again. grandly constructed. Note the mood swings on this tune and her own brand of scatting, which is one of the highlights of the album. Another favorite is the moderately paced "Breakin' The Chain," a gem of a tune with intriguing chord progressions that immediately bring to mind the urgency and simplicity of Mellencamp's style. Bullens is a belting alto who sings quite comfortably in the middle range, although I'm convinced she could probably climb to the stratosphere if she were so inclined. Bullens is a marvelous singer, and the music on this album is one of the most thrilling things to happen to "classic" rock 'n' roll.  

Anyone who has suffered the loss of a child, spouse, sibling, parent, friend, even a beloved pet, knows how hard it is to get rid of that lump in the throat every time memories start rushing in.

There’s no telling how long that feeling will last. It could be six months, a year, two years, even three. It’s different for everyone. It may never truly go away, but eventually the pain does subside and life goes on, albeit with a hole in the heart.

Maine-based singer-songwriter Cindy Bullens could write a book on the subject. Instead, she has written an eloquent, impassioned album derived from personal tragedy.

“Somewhere Between Heaven and Earth,” the first release on former Mercury head Danny Goldberg’s Artemis Records, is an emotional, uplifting paean to Bullens’ daughter, Jessie, who died of complications from Hodgkins’ disease three weeks shy of her 11th birthday in February 1996.

The album, released Sept. 7, hasn’t eliminated that lump in Bullens’ throat, but it did give her a new sense of purpose.

“I had lunch with a friend today, and she said, ‘You know, your voice sounds stronger. You sound really good. A year ago, you were not like this at all,’ ” Bullens said recently. “These songs are inspired by Jessie and written about her and my loss of her, so there’s a direct connection with Jessie. So it has meaning for me personally, but it also has meaning for me because the reaction I’m getting from people who’ve had losses in their life has been very, very meaningful to me, very touching, almost to the point where it’s very humbling that people have shared their deepest thoughts with me by e-mail, by letters, thanking me for writing these songs and telling me how close the songs are to their own experiences.”

It didn’t come easily for Bullens. For several months after Jessie’s death, she was deeply depressed and directionless. The last thing on her mind was writing a song about the heartache she was enduring.

Then one day, as if prodded by Jessie’s spirit, Bullens instinctively picked up a guitar and let her emotions flow into what became the title track. “I didn’t plan on writing a song when I sat down with my guitar that particular day about four months after Jessie died,” Bullens said. “It just kind of came out and I didn’t resist the actual inspiration to write it as it was coming out, but I couldn’t understand what the hell I was doing. I was sobbing. I couldn’t believe I was writing a song about the death of my own child.

“If you listen to the songs, like ‘I Gotta Believe in Something,’ it was written in the low, low point after Jessie’s death. I really didn’t know at that time how I was going to continue living. I just wanted to die. But I found out something about myself during that time of depression, that I couldn’t just lay down and I couldn’t live as a dead person, if you know what I mean. I wasn’t going to physically kill myself, and therefore, then I couldn’t live as a bitter person or depressed person.”

What kept her motivated was knowing that she had to be there physically and emotionally for her other daughter, 17-year-old Reid.

The most difficult song to write, Bullens says, was “As Long As You Love (Scarlet Wings),” in which she speaks to Jessie through the verses and Jessie responds in the choruses. Reid sings the part of Jessie on the album.

Bullens called on several friends to contribute to the project: Beth Nielsen Chapman, who lost her husband to cancer five years ago, connected her with producer Rodney Crowell; Bryan Adams sang harmony on the title track; Chapman and Bonnie Raitt sang background on “I Gotta Believe in Something”; Crowell sang on “Water On the Moon,” and Lucinda Williams backed “The End of Wishful Thinking.”

The response nationwide has overwhelmed Bullens. She appeared on NBC’s “The Today Show” in August and has received four-star reviews in the Tennessean, New York Post and Billboard, to name a few.

“I had this lunch today with a friend, as I mentioned, and I was trying to explain to her that it was the strangest thing in the world to be getting so much positive attention for something you had done and at the same time, the bottom line is, it’s about the death of my daughter,” Bullens said. “I can’t quite find a word to describe my feelings about it. I am very glad that this is something positive that people are getting from both musically and emotionally. The emotional part of it is, it’s never not going to be about Jessie’s death.

“Whenever I get up to sing these songs, there’s nothing that’s going to be routine about it for me, even if I play the same 10 songs every single night on tour, because every time I open my mouth to sing ‘I had a dream that I was falling and you came to rescue me’ or ‘Somewhere Between Heaven and Earth,’ it is about this child who I don’t see when I get up in the morning anymore, who I can’t hear, who doesn’t come and kiss me good-night. It is difficult, and it’s a little schizophrenic.

“If this album becomes successful, it’s difficult to think that my success is based on the death of my child. Now, it isn’t, really, because it’s based on the songs and what I’ve done with this experience. On the other hand, I must tell you, not to sound esoteric or anything, to me I think it’s about a bigger picture now. This is not all about Cindy Bullens and my music; I’m just following a plan here that I think Jessie has laid out for me. I’m going to get up everyday and keep doing it.”

Does Bullens’ name sound familiar? Fans of the movie “Grease” know her well. She didn’t appear in the 1978 box-office smash, but she sang “Freddy My Love,” “It’s Raining On Prom Night” and “Mooning” for the soundtrack album.

“One of the cool things for me about the renewed popularity of ‘Grease,’ I had not told my kids that I had done it. It never came up,” Bullens said. “Then Reid, about five years ago, went to camp for a couple of weeks. She was 12 years old. She was laying on her bunk and she’s listening to the Walkman with one of her bunkmates and the tape of ‘Grease’ is playing. Well, I hadn’t told her anything. She calls me up on the phone, ‘Mom, I was listening to this tape and I said to myself, ‘Oh, that sounds like my mom.’ ‘ She jumps off the bunk, grabs the cover of the cassette tape and screams ‘It is my mom!’ I love that story.”

A year after “Grease,” Bullens made her solo debut with the United Artists album “Desire Wire,” which featured the minor chart hit “Survivor.” Imagine Bullens’ surprise when, months later, she learned “Survivor” was nominated for a Grammy Award for best female rock performance.

“I can only remember that I was up against my friend Bonnie Raitt,” Bullens said, laughing, “and I know that Donna Summer won that year (for ‘Hot Stuff’) … for rock? Can you believe it? The one time I get nominated, Donna Summer wins. Just my luck.”

BWF (before we forget): Catch Cindy Bullens on the Web @ cindybullensforacauseofwomen.site123.me. … The Cindy Bullens album discography – “Desire Wire” (United Artists, 1979); “Steal the Night” (Casablanca, 1980); “Cindy Bullens” (MCA, 1989); “Why Not?” (Blue Lobster, 1994); “Somewhere Between Heaven and Earth” (Artemis/Blue Lobster, 1999).

The singer debuts on Casablanca after a critically acclaimed LP last year on UA ("Desire Wire") with another set of hard-driving rock 'n' roll, tight instrumentation and bold, energetic vocals characterized  the short punch tunes, which were co-produced by Bullens herself and Mark Doyle, her lead guitarist. A couple of semi-ballads give a bit of variety to the set though the tempo is mostly full-throttle throughout.

Best cuts:

"Steal the Night"

"Holding Me Crazy"

"Trust Me"

"Raincheck on Romance"