the travel channel, home of the current WPT season, has agreed to air the new Professional Poker Tour (PPT). looks like both sides finally got over themselves and their pending litigation and agreed that they would both make an obscene amount of money if they set their minds to it.
i'm actually not opposed to another poker show. i can only watch reruns of the same WSOP and WPT tourneys so many times before i start quoting the players along with the telecast... which kind of takes most, if not all, of the fun out of watching poker on tv. maybe i should play more live games instead of living vicariously through the players on tv... hmmm.
here are some excerpts from the press release:
After finalizing the deal, both organizations issued the following statement: “WPT Enterprises
and The Travel Channel are pleased to announce that they have resolved their differences
amicably and terminated the litigation between them. Both parties look forward to continuing their mutually prosperous relationship.”
“This deal allows Travel Channel to feature 44 weeks of premiere episodes of WPT and PPT
programming each year, which is great for poker fans who have asked for additional premieres, and really bolsters our ‘Wednesday Night is Poker Night on the Travel Channel’ platform,” said Pat Younge, an executive vice president and general manager of Travel Channel.
“The WORLD POKER TOUR created the televised poker boom, and the PPT is the perfect extension of that franchise to bolster our position in the marketplace,” said Steve Lipscomb, President, CEO and founder of WPT Enterprises, Inc. “The WPT is the first legitimate televised sports league in history that lets the viewer at home come play with sports greats. And now, when you play in WORLD POKER TOUR events you don’t just have a shot at life changing money and instant television stardom. Win a WORLD POKER TOUR event and you immediately get a three year ‘tour card,’ allowing you to compete in PROFESSIONAL POKER TOUR events. With the PPT, you get a shot at living the professional poker player lifestyle.”
The PPT pits the top 200 poker players in the world against each other week after week. Like the PGA, you have to qualify for a tour card on the PPT – through success on the WORLD POKER TOUR, the World Series of Poker main event or other distinctions including membership in the Poker Hall of Fame. With $2.5 million dollars on the line each season and the pride of every poker great on the line, this show will help define the future of the sport. The new series features high production values, detailed story-telling and expert analysis from two-time World Series bracelet winner Mark Seif, and actor/poker enthusiast Matt Corboy. And, the all-new PPT format transports the viewer into the seat for every step of each PPT tournament. The format provides an unprecedented look into the art of tournament poker – played by the best in the business with nothing between them but chips and felt.
The five tournaments for Season One of the PPT were filmed at some of America’s true palaces of poker, including: Foxwoods Resort Casino (Mashantucket, CT); Commerce Casino (Los Angeles); Bay 101 ( San Jose, CA); Bellagio (Las Vegas); and The Mirage (Las Vegas).
text of the official press release from the WPT: PDF version
::beans::
1.31.2006
just when you though there was nothing good on television...
1.30.2006
when at last the animals need feeding...
so if you have been reading this for the last year or so (that might apply only to my wife and mother...), then you might remember the "emo geek revelation" that i kept building up to and never revealed.... kind of like musical blue balls (sorry mom).
well, now is that time...especially with my newly found dedication to frequent and often updates.
chris simpson is not a name that will immediately jump out at you as someone you have heard of in connection with the best lyrics ever written or some of the best music ever recorded. i could probably even mention his newest effort, zookeepers world, and there would still be no more of a flame of recognition than before. but if you like the kind of music that i do, then you have heard and probably adored some of his earlier work. when i start to mention names like mineral and the gloria record, that glimmer of understanding begins to get stronger and stronger as you remember songs like parking lot and grain towers and telephone poles...
zookeepers world is a continuation of this legacy of thoughtful, provoking, and beautiful songwriting. following his ever deconstructing sound (from mineral's churning guitars to tgr's layered atmospheric orchestrations), the songs that can be found so far are of the stripped down singer/songwriter style with the occasional accompaniment by piano and drums. the one constant throughout all of his work has been his distinctive, emotive vocals and they are ever present in these songs and still carry every ounce of emotion that they always have...
i never got to see mineral live, but i did see tgr in athens, ga (caledonia) and in atlanta (the earl)....and i will wait patiently for him to come to atlanta again, or just catch a ride with someone to austin, tx where he plays almost weekly....(anyone going?)
the "about me" section on the myspace page reads:
Zookeeper is the name Chris Simpson has chosen for whatever new musical endeavors he is undertaking. Chris Simpson used to be that guy in Mineral and The Gloria Record. Chris Simpson might have considered using his own name for his new music, but there is already a pretty amazing Christian R&B guy using the moniker. Chris Simpson, the Christian R&B guy's records can be found at pretty much any internet music site. Zookeeper currently doesn't have any records, but please enjoy these works in progress. Thank you for your time.
::songs::
like i said there are only a few songs to be found, and they exist in stream only versions on the zookeepers world myspace page.
if you live in austin, tx then go and see him play at any of these upcoming show dates.
::beans::
1.27.2006
between jacks and a hard place...
"that's poker" was the mantra that accompanied my catastrophic demise at the weekly poker game and the phrase that every player, be it amateur or professional, has uttered or heard countless times when faced with the improbable "suck out". however, i feel that my battle with this particular card in the deck is more than just some fatalistic occurrence, but something more along the lines of a cosmically ordained punishment, my own personal level of hell occupied by the scourge of playing card royalty, the jacks. what to do with jacks? this is my quandary. yes, they are considered "paint", but the weakest version. if i find two of them in my hand pre-flop, i try to bet high and push out anyone who might be able to catch a better hand on the flop. if they turn up in my opponents hand, i lose all of my money... all of it, and this is the truth, no exaggerations here.
last week, after a run of bad cards, i ended up with all of my chips in with Ah-9h against, wait for it...pocket jacks, and i lost all of my money, all of it, see?
fast forward to this week and my cards, my playing, and my chip stack were much better. i had a dominant stack 5 handed and was patiently biding my time and getting into and out of hands with no great expenditures on my part. the blinds were at 150-300 and i'm sitting in the big blind. i look down at 8h-9d and watch as UTG folds, second to act calls, then a fold, small blind calls, and with a relatively weak hand, i check. the flop comes rainbow Q-10-J.... yahtzee, i've flopped a made straight. at this point, i'm pretty sure there are no A-K hands out there as i would normally expect a pre-flop raise with that kind of hand, so i decide to slow play and check my straight after the small blind checks. fourth to act then raises, small blind folds, and i take a look at my opponents stack and raise enough to put him all in, $1550 in total. he thinks about this for a while, during which i put him on maybe top or middle pair, he hit the Q or J. eventually, he calls...i turn over my straight and he holds onto his cards which is fine with me because i can see the despair in his eyes. the turn comes J which does not cause me any great concern because a set does not touch me. then the river, another J hits.... at this point i need to see my opponents cards, especially with a full house possibility out there. he turn over Ks-Js (a little bit of a slow roll but i'm too stunned to notice at the time)....you have got to be kidding me, quad jacks? that is when the room started spinning.... from that point on, i was beyond tilt, i was upside down and even though i still had a decent stack , it felt like i was the small stack at the table after that beat. i ended up about 5 hands later with all of my chips in the middle with A-J offsuit. i ran into an A-Q held by a bigger stack. could i catch a jack to stop my tilt? of course not... and so i ran screaming from the room tearing at my eyes trying to rid them of the image of runner-runner jacks (ok, i made that part up).
i feel like i might have been more philosophical had he caught an ace to make a higher straight, but quad jacks? it still burns me after a couple of nights of sleeping it off, can you tell? i was a 2 to 1 favorite...
but as everyone to whom i have related this story says, "that's poker".
1.26.2006
hey lady, there's a big fat whale in your boat...
let's go sailing hails from LA and produces a wonderfully dreamy, piano driven, space pop sound that soon finds you gazing wistfully out of the window of your downtown highrise wishing for a field to lie in and warm sunshine... sorry, carried away...
anyway, i guess the best way to describe them is to let them do it themselves:
"Let's go sailing is full of rainbows and fairies. But it also has a darker side...It is full of lost and neglected stuffed animals found at the side of the road."according to their site, there is an lp due out in spring '06. let's hope that this will propel them outside of california and possibly to the east coast.... might i suggest atlanta?
In November of 2002, Shana Levy left Irving to pursue Let's Go Sailing. She asked friends Tanya Haden, Nikki Monninger, Brent Turner and Byron Reynolds to work on an album's worth of material and soon enough they began recording on a demo with Chris Chandler (Flaming Lips/Modest Mouse/Elliott Smith) and Rod Cervera (The Rentals/Weezer). The recording process quickly gained momentum and, with the help of Chris, Jim Putnam (Radar Bros.), and Ben Mumphrey (The Pixies/Frank Black), they decided to make a hi-fi record independently. The result is the 11 song LP "The Chaos in Order." A limited self release of 3 songs from the cd is available on the website and at independent record stores in Los Angeles including Amoeba and Sea Level Records.
::songs:: (all stream only)
- all i want from you is love
- heart condition
- better off
(ed: i would post the files, but i think that you should go here and pay $5 for their ep and support local music....so, nah)
you can also visit their myspace page.
many thanks to my good friend michael "the nubs" for discovering the song and to "the wife" for finding out who sings it...
::beans::
1.24.2006
i heard "chinese democracy" is coming out this year...
and who knows, this time it might be true:
Axl breaks his silence (Rolling Stone)
right, and i'll get famous from writing this blog...
1.21.2006
my apologies...
as was pointed out, the white octave song links in my previous post are only samples... sorry about that i didn't realize that they were. deep elm has started doing that lately, which is disappointing (not that they don't have every right to do that, just a personal disappointment).
but you can now stream the entire album on their website:
white octave on mywire.org
turn off your pop-up blocker... if you want to do that.
1.20.2006
with the best intentions...
since i plan to be updating more often, i now have an RSS feed that any of you crazy aggregator types can subsribe to....
http://sotherewewere.blogspot.com/atom.xml
it will also now be on my sidebar for future reference.
any thoughts on whether or not i should drag myself kicking and screaming into the 21st century and join myspace?
1.19.2006
oh the cards, damn the cards...
i couldn't catch a decent hand to save my life last night, and if i did i couldn't get any action on it...just terrible. i made it to the final table but that was just barely by the skin of my teeth. the hand that did me in was the best i had seen all night. blinds were at 150/300 and my stack was right at 1750. i was sitting in the big blind and look down to find Ah-9h. we were 7 handed and first to act folds, second to act (big stack) raises to 650, then everyone folds through the small blind to me. i raise to 1200 and 4th position (now my arch-nemesis) quickly goes all in so i had "no choice" but to call. he flips over pocket jacks, i catch nothing and then start sobbing into my supplicating hands. needless to say, a frustrating end to a frustrating night....yarrrrrr.
after last night, i'm thinking about changing games and playing a lot more california hold 'em.... what, you haven't heard of this? then just wait 'til my twelves bust out your elevens!! ....seriously, wait, it will happen, soon.
::beaner::
1.18.2006
i have been gone for oh so long...
but i have listened to a lot of music and played some poker. i didn't get rich while i was gone because you have to spend money to make money, blah, blah, etc... however, i did fairly well...placing second behind a good friend in the weekly poker game hosted by WCP . i will also now be playing in this game a little more regularly and hopefully getting into the points system that determines winners for each "season" of play throughout 2006. i will keep you updated on how that goes... winning is everything though, i need a bankroll to keep playing.
as far as music goes, the best thing that i can tell you to do right now is to go and sign up for e-music (seriously, not just for my benefit...for your own wallet's) and download all of the music that is listed on my sidebar under "most recent downloads".... seriously, i can't help you if you don't help yourself....like god, only with music and not anything else.... oh, and i also own your soul.
most importantly, get the latest album by criteria, when we break.
rising from the ashes of one of my personal faves, the white octave (which itself finds its roots in another stalwart of my collection, cursive), criteria takes the white octave sound and smooths it out a little and then plows forward. their first release, en garde, as their website puts it, was "criminally overlooked", but what they did get was attention from indie powerhouse saddle creek records. their follow-up LP, when we break, was realeased in august to critical acclaim and saddle creek has re-released en garde as a result. listen to it, its good, i promise.
"i'm stuck in a basement world..."
::songs::
from en garde
- it happens
- me on your front porch
from when we break
- prevent the world
- run together
::other related tracks::
the white octave - style no. 6312
- appeals for insertion
- call the kiss
- style no. 6312
cursive - such blinding stars for starving eyes
- retirement
(ed: cursive has gone on to bigger and more brilliant things, but this album was the only LP put out with Steve Pedersen on guitar, who later went on to form the white octave and criteria)
12.16.2005
support independent music...
as you might have gathered, i am now a huge fan of the online mp3 site, emusic.
the genesis of this infatuation came from a conversation with a friend who told me that he had just signed up for a site that gave him 50 free downloads to keep during a trial period and then 40/month for $9.99/month. i kind of took this as a "if it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is" kind of thing. but my curosity was piqued so i checked it out. at first i was convinced that it was some kind of subscription service like napster or rhapsody. i looked and looked through the "terms and conditions" but found no such strings, and it looked like there were no usage limits or proprietary encoding. (at this point i probably sound like a paid endorser, but i'm not). so, i started looking for music to see what kind of choice i had. i found a lot of stuff, in fact, most of the music that (if you read my sidebar) was stolen previously. all of the music is from independent labels, so pretty much right up my alley...and i found a lot of stuff in that alleyway. so i signed up for my 50 free downloads, 5 minutes later i had 1 left. so then i activated my first month's subscription and i now have 2 total downloads left and 30 days to wait until my account reloads OR i can buy a 50 download "booster pack" for $14.99....which will probably happen here pretty soon... 88 downloads in about 15 minutes, that's some sort of record.
so, needless to say i am now up to my elbows in music and will need to buy a bigger ipod soon....i do accept donations for this worthy cause.
also, on my sidebar under the "recently purchased" section will now be a list of emusic albums that i have downloaded.
if you decide to try this out, even the free trial, click on the banner on my sidebar...i get more downloads if you do that.... yay for me!
peace.
11.29.2005
wwfsmd...
i don't know why it took me so long to share the good news...
for more truths and the complete story, visit:
www.venganza.org
and to all of those who believe that pirates really can save us from ourselves, i say:
yarrr
11.28.2005
check it out...
i stumbled across these guys today and thought i might share them with all of you. hailing from Echo Park, CA, they have a couple of ep's out and just signed with The Militia Group. sort of a garage-esque jangly sound with good harmonic guitar parts overlaid and vocals very reminiscent of one of my personal faves, red animal war. look for their first full length out on said label in mid-2006.
here are some songs:
- detox
- the easy life
- same as it was
and mainly because i started thinking about them, not for comparison sake:
the first full length, breaking in an angel, was put out on Deep Elm and i have since been smitten. taking their name from a line in the book red badge of courage, these guys play smart, angular rock with heart-on-the-sleeve post-hardcore breakdowns that punctuate the songs lending intensity to already emotionally-charged compositions. the intelligent and insightful lyrics are conveyed with distinctive and urgent vocals. i would recommend any album by these guys, but especially Breaking in an Angel, their first and most raw effort.
from Breaking in an Angel
- weak bones may break
- hope
from Black Phantom Crusades
- still
- right now, today, i don't believe in hell
from Polizida
- satellites
- mexico
11.11.2005
if everyone jumped off a cliff...
the boys at wicked chops wrote about this first, but i would also like to put in my 2 cents....or 2 pence in this case.
according to the BBC, the UK is looking at banning all internet poker ads that induce people to gamble, as in offering free entry into tourneys and free grand prizes like cars, trips, and other assorted awards. "why?", you ask, because they do not want to encourage people to start down the road toward a gambling problem.
now, i understand that gambling can become an addictive habit, like alcohol, smoking, or narcotics...all of which have their respective "anonymous" clubs, gambling included. this is a touching concern for the UK govt. to have for its citizens, and commendable, too ... if it weren't so hypocritical.
the national lottery in the UK is much like the lotteries you know and love in the US, you buy a ticket (there's a bunch of ways to play) and there are drawings or scratch-offs....and it has its own tv show...on tv, where ads run (or adverts), in between the parts of the lottery show. people watch this show, where the amount of the prizes are shown and inducements given for playing the lottery, and then spend their hard-earned money on a chance, nay, a gamble, that their ticket will come up a winner. tv > inducement > gamble > gambling problem ... does this not follow the same formula that the govt. accuses the poker industry of following?
it would appear that the state is allowed to induce you to gamble, but no one else is ... especially if the gambling requires skill. one assumes that you just cross your fingers as the logo suggests, instead of using your brain.
question: if the state is trying to protect you from yourself, who is protecting you from the state?
11.10.2005
my feet literally haven't touched the ground....
...for the last few weeks. i can't even begin to explain how instupituously busy i have been. needless to say that we are now homeowners (in debt up to our eyeballs) and more well-travelled than we were before.
the weekend to start the madness was like the movie four weddings and a funeral, only with just 3 weddings and no funeral, so it would be more like a sequel: more weddings and a wedding then a conference. minneapolis followed by denver and then big canoe.
then a day later i went to sao paulo, brazil for a week to a non-profit conference that we organized. i would like to tell you about the city and its urban sprawl and overwhelming poverty, but all i saw was the hotel, the conference center, and the inside of my eyelids.
...or was it...
there are some of you who might appreciate this - it was about 12.15am one morning and i had just returned to my room where i turned on the tv in the hopes of having it lull me to sleep. as i was flipping through the channels, i saw a familiar face....i thought and looked more closely and sure enough it was a very young looking Mark from the upcoming season of the Real World/Road Rules Challenge: Gauntlet II and several previous challenges. the premise appeared to be that a hitchhiker had stolen his truck and wallet and so he himself was hitchhiking, some guy picked him up and picked him up and after 30 seconds of conversation offered him a job as a lifeguard at the santa monica beach club. he arrived, blah, blah, blah, bad plot, stupid movie...falling a..sl..eep...him and woman walking to jacuzzi.... then all of a sudden its all asses and elbows, and i'm wide awake. some of you might point out that i should have seen this coming, but i was tired so leave me alone. anyway, that prompted a quick channel change (lest it somehow show up on the hotel bill even though i never pressed any buttons, i swear, i think Cine Action becomes Cine Erotica after midnight) and a note to self to tell the wife....because she likes Mark and its fun to crush people's perceptions of other people.
i really am truly sorry that this is the best story that i have to tell after so much time off, but other stories would be work-related or inside jokes, and that's just not cool.
anyway, i just got done with the madness and am moving this weekend into the new ITP (for ATL people) residence, where i shall be able to again live a normal life and have extra time to write and look for music.
unfortunately, i have had no time to look for or buy new music although the list is getting longer of bands to check out and music to buy, beg, borrow, or steal.
i'm open to suggestions for music and anything else you might like to suggest to me....please keep in mind i'm not very flexible.
some tracks that have nothing to do with anything:
last days of april - i'm calm now
antarctica
- absence
- full crescent crusade
dntel - life is full of possibilities
starflyer 59 - wake up early
bear vs. shark
- 5,6 kids
- the great dinosaurs with fifties section
- seven stop hold restart
joan of arc - white out
::beaner::
10.18.2005
cause and effect....
so i first remember hearing about Reggie and the Full Effect when their album promotional copy came out, mainly because it was so good and so weird in so many ways. it came out when emo was burgeoning right around 2000 and some of the songs were awesome post-punk power pop masterpieces with tguk and anniversary-ish keyboards, some were more like an emo Adam Sandler. my memory is not always what i would like it to be, but i don't remember not thinking that "Reggie" was the keyboardist from tguk. however, apparently there was this whole "thing" over his real identity that i just found out about, whatever. the band consists of James Dewees (the keyboardist and one-time drummer for seminal hardcore band Coalesce) and that is it, just him and his weird sense of humor.
the song that caught my attention back then was called "dwarf invasion", it was written about, well, a dwarf invasion. the lyrics went something like this:
" (hoch hoch.....[repeated many times in background])
hallo americans
this is claus from common denominators
that's the band you are listening to right now
we are from finland
this is our debut album here in america, das grund
this is the dwarf invasion blah
one two three four
you are not my friend
you are my foe
you are two feet tall
you have got to go
this is dwarf invasion (dwarf invasion)
dwarf invasion (dwarf invasion) (dwarf invasion) (dwarf invasion)
shut up dirk
this is not a friend
you are very small
you can barely stand up to me
you can't play basketball
this is dwarf invasion (dwarf invasion)
thank you very much for having us in your country
we'll see you next year
goodnight
go back to the room
go back
so not the most serious thing i have ever heard, but it was funny and the rest of the album was good.
reggie fell off my radar for a little while during the time that screamo and other harder versions of this music occupied my music listening hours, and, to be honest, stuff that was less of a joke and more serious.
pick back up in the present day and i just heard i song from their new album Songs Not to Get Married To on Vagrant that i really like. apparently he just got a divorce, hence the name of the album, and the new stuff is a little different than it used to be, here is a quote from the man himself:
"This is my new record. It is a little less silly than the last three, but I recently got divorced and lost everything so I don't have much to celebrate these days. However, I am still a happy camper, just single camping now. I hope you enjoy the new record and if my ex-wife is one of those unknown people who gets one of these bios…wow, you scored hella good huh?"
so, yeah... there's no bitterness there. a little more of the Coalesce side of him comes through in some metal-ish songs, but there are also some pop gems included.
anyway, all of that to say that i liked the song and thought that you might also enjoy it, so here you go:
- get well soon
and some other songs from the new album:
- what the hell is contempt?
- what the hell is stipulation?
and an old song just for the hell of it from promotional copy, mainly becuase i can't find the dwarf invasion mp3 anywhere on the whole wide worldwide web:
- from me 2 u
::bye bye::
10.13.2005
i just couldn't stop laughing....
i found out this morning that one of my good friends (who i love dearly) is thinking of getting a new puppy. when asked by my wife what breed, she replied "a golden doodle".... dead silence on my end while this was being relayed to me. i finally broke down and asked what a "golden doodle" is and was directed to www.atlantagoldendoodles.com . apparently, this is a mix between a golden retriever and a poodle. i did some research and found a link to www.goldendoodles.com, where i also found a breed called a "labradoodle".
let the hilarity ensue....
in light of my recent discovery of these cross-breeds, i have some suggestions for other crosses that might involve the ubiquitous poodle:
weinoodle
rottwoodle
shitzoodle
st. bernoodle
great doodle (the mechanics of this breeding session would be mind boggling)
australian shepoodle
chihuawoodle
i also found this quote on www.goldendoodles.com:
"The size of the Dood depends on its parentage."
it just seems so obvious that the parentage having something to do with the size of the ... oh wait, they didn't, did they? they did...
what happens if you get a golden shower from a golden doodle?
10.12.2005
out of necessity...
so now that my favorite poker blog/news site has my blog linked on their page, i feel compelled to update and post more...also i just wanted to.
Brunch for the Bayou - this was a great event and in its entirety (auction, poker tourney, donations, etc) i overheard someone say that they were going to clear about $50k for Operation: Home Delivery and Habitat for Humanity. the tourney itself went well (mostly because i was the tourney director, ahem) and was won by Sammy "killer" Reid, go here for a complete update.
i was watching steven's untitled rock show on fuse while doing something else that needed decent background music and as i was about to turn off the tv and head to bed and i hear the opening notes of one of the best songs ever written... "seven" by Sunny Day Real Estate. in high school (when the album diary came out) my parents didn't pay for MTV so i never got a chance to see this video on alternative nation or 120 minutes, and believe it or not this was the first time i had ever seen it. it was low tech brilliance at a time before internet and digital editing on home pc's... i salivated over every second of it, and marveled at how young Jeremy looks, especially with the nose ring. ahhh, the good old days. i listened to the whole album on my hi-tech ipod today and loved it again. i could almost close my eyes and be back in high school.
i just followed a bunch of links while looking for links and spent a lot of time reading old forums and message boards from when SDRE broke up what seems like a milion years ago and then got back together....all of that to say that i have used up all of my blog time this evening.
there is more to write about, but that will come at a later date...i promise.
9.23.2005
let's make this short and sweet...
when it comes to reviewing albums, i'm not very good at the superfluous flowing descriptions of the sound contained within a record. the stuff that usually ends up not telling you anything at all about whether or not you will like the album, just leaves you with an adjective overdose.
so my new addition to this blog will be short/sweet album reviews that will tell you if i like the record or not, and that is it. of course, you then would have to trust my judgement which is your own decision anyway. i like what i like and can't be held liable for an album that you buy and don't like....although i'm sure that i will end being sued by a disgruntled reader for misleading album reviews...
also keep in mind that i don't have unlimited funds or labels sending me stuff to review, so i have to buy albums that i think i will like to start with, so a lot of my reviews will be positive.... unless someone, or a label, wants to provide me with material for reviewing ..... (anyone, hello?) in which case, there would be negative reviews to balance out the glowing reviews, presumably.
on with the show:
"brilliant. buy it if you like the old stuff, buy it if you've never heard it....just listen to it."
"awesome. the whole album. start to finish. emo-tronic."
(i already talked about this band, see below, and i might copyright the name of my new sub-sub-genre so back off)
"spectacular, just absolutely spectacular. no major label letdown, just more of the same beautiful songcrafting."
that is all for now, or at least until i can buy more music.
later...
9.20.2005
the numbers don't lie...
statistics ::
hailing from Omaha and the scene that has produced so much incredible music recently, Denver Dalley is one hell of a one man band. the guitarist and co-songwriter of the much-lauded band Desaparecidos, and oft-overshadowed by the wine drinking, Wynona Rider dating frontman, Conor Oberst, Denver has begun to cast his own shadows as the impoetus behind statistics. he plays all instruments (with a little help from some friends on a few tracks) and writes all songs, and does both of these very well. the music is straight-foward rock with some electro-pop influences and nostalgic guitar work that starts as a one would think a singer-songwriter would start an album, soft strumming and picked guitar with soft vocals ... then in comes the drums and the bass and the rock. dynamically varied and musically delicious, i love this stuff. this is what i have come to expect from middle america, from the early-90's through to today, solid and refreshing music that consistently helps to define the genre. get these songs and then turn up the volume and bask in the glow of all that is good in music:
- final broadcast
- reminisce
- another day
(*buy* the new album often lie from Jade Tree Records)
check out some other tunes from Jade Tree Records:
the loved ones - the loved ones
strike anywhere - chorus of one
despitado - burning house
breather resist - a social worker's nightmare
onelinedrawing - we had a deal
jets to brazil - resistance is futile
the promise ring - why did we ever meet
