Last night at Brasil was an awesome jam.

Thomas Helton and Nick Anaya started things off with some heavy jazz stylings - almost all totally improvised. Nick played his heart out, like he always does - it was great to see him in action. And Thomas has this amazing ability to both hold down a groove and go out at the same time. Damn these guys are good.

For the second set, Roy Keyes from Shake Kabibo held down the bass and hung with even our fastest, weirdes tunes like Flux. Henry Darragh came up with his Trombone for a few tunes. You know the tune Invibile Pants? It's got a pretty complicated melody. Man, Henry picked it up like it was nothin'. Knew a bunch of our other tunes, too. Wow. It's such an honor to work with such fine musicians.

Jason Jackson & Fluteman John weren't able to make it, but in their stead we got a couple songs from Josue Zapata, formerly of the Kabibo Mind Control project, on trumpet, and he was outstandaning. We had a couple other surprise guests, including a drummer (sorry I don't remember your name, man - email us) and guy we just met named Tab who sat in on bass for a tune. He's a lefty player and normally plays a bass that's strung opposite a normal bass, but last night he just grabbed Roy's bass and flipped it upside down. Hope we get to play with him again.

All in all, I'd say our first "Drop Trio and Friends" funk jazz friday was a success. Thanks to everybody who came out to witness it! 

¶ posted by Ian Varley at 11:36 AM -

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  Tonight, Drop Trio will be back at Brasil for Funk Jazz Fridays - this week for something a little out of the ordinary. We'll be having sit-ins by a bunch of friends, doing a combination of Drop Trio songs, standards, and freeform jams. On the roster so far:

Henry Darragh - Trombone & Keys
Nick Anaya - Saxophone
Fluteman John - Flute
Thomas Helton - Bass (first set)
Roy Keyes - Bass (second set)

And several more TBA ... come one and join us, it should be a wild ride. 

¶ posted by Ian Varley at 12:40 PM -

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  A new record by producer Victor Stone was just released on Magnatune.com. One of the tracks, Not Even Alone, is a remix of a Drop Trio track (Lefty's Alone). You can download a copy of the track at Magnatune.com, and purchase the whole album for as little as $5. Give it a listen:

(You might not know it from listening, but this is the same track used by Solange Knowles in her song Freedom!) 

¶ posted by Ian Varley at 3:41 PM -

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  This week's Houston Press features an inside look at the world of Drop Trio.

"We can make odd time signatures danceable, but we're still dorks." Amen. 

¶ posted by Ian Varley at 1:52 PM -

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  There's a new site called TexasWeedMusic.com which sells Weed files (what's that?) from Texas artists. They've got a front-page feature on Drop Trio running at the moment. If you haven't checked out the Weed music sharing framework yet, give it a try - it's a neat idea (you can make money by passing on tracks that you like to other folks). If you're a texas artist, tell 'em Drop Trio sent you and they can Weedify your music, too. 

¶ posted by Ian Varley at 4:09 PM -

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  Passing along this request from our friend Ceeplus, a DJ at KPFT:

Reprogram Radio / 90.1 KPFT / www.kpft.org

It's PLEDGE DRIVE week so please try and call in and DONATE whatever $$$ you can to help our show & KPFT. It really helps keep us & KPFT on the air ... any size donation will be taken, and you don't have to pay now, you can be billed whenever. Please try and help.

Thanks - Eric Castillo / Ceeplus & the House of Brown Ale, Killers for Hire (dj project)

These are the guys who gave us our first radio interview, and they put forward some of the local music in Houston, local or otherwise. Show 'em your support and pledge during their show - the more financial support they get for music programming, the more of it there will be!

Also show your support for Soular Grooves, DJ Sun's weekly radio program, and all the other shows you listen to! 

¶ posted by Ian Varley at 2:41 PM -

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  Tonight at Funk Jazz Friday, we'll be trying something a bit new - a multitrack live recording of our show! If it's particularly good, we may release some of the tracks as an EP and / or live CD. So come on down and be part of the crowd, live at Brasil. Who knows, we may even name a song after you.

If you're out cruising around and looking for some good funk, we can also highly recommend hitting the Continental Club - there's a show there tonight with Sharon Jones and the Dap-kings. This is authentic soul funk at its best, a rare occurrence in Houston. Head there for the show, then come by Brasil afterwards for desert and more music!

BTW, last night's duo show at Dean's was great. It was pouring rain, so moving our gear wasn't so much fun, but the music lovers were out, and the duo played almost all improvised tunes. Maybe some of them will work their way into the trio repertoire soon ... 

¶ posted by Ian Varley at 3:00 PM -

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  Ian and Mike are doing a special show tonight as Drop Duo at Dean's Credit Clothing. Take the light rail down to 316 Main and check it out. Show starts at 10 p.m. 

¶ posted by Ian Varley at 8:29 PM -

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  OK, the deadline for nominations in the Houston Press Music Awards is tomorrow (5/12). If you haven't done it already, please do us a favor and pull the lever for Drop Trio.



Best New Act - Drop Trio
Best Jazz - Drop Trio
Best Funk / Soul / R&B - Drop Trio
Best Bassist - Nino Batista (Drop Trio)
Best Drums - Mike Blattel (Drop Trio)
Best Keyboards - Ian Varley (Drop Trio)
Album Of The Year - Big Dipper by Drop Trio

Vote now, or check out our picks for the other categories if you're not familiar with Houston's music scene. 

¶ posted by Ian Varley at 11:20 AM -

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  Those of you who know Little Brother Project, a great Houston band, may have heard some of their recent news. We just got it via their blog. This past weekend, they played in a battle of the bands in Piney Woods and blew away the competition, taking home a cool G in prize money. As if that wasn't enough, on Thursday LBP will be the house band during a live club appearance of Dave Chappelle (from Comedy Central's Chappelle show)! Way to go guys.

So where can YOU see them? Well, you can catch LBP on Friday at Rhythm Room with our friends Righteous Buddha, and you can see 'em a week later at Funk Jazz Fridays, at Brasil.

One more thing - LBP is starting a weekly event at Dean's Credit Clothing, called "LBP Presents" - they'll be inviting other bands to come play the weekly slot. This Thursday, Drop Duo (2/3 of Drop Trio!) will be playing the kickoff event at Dean's. Come by and check it out! 

¶ posted by Ian Varley at 10:27 AM -

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  Holy camole! Who would've thought that our best show of the month would have been in little Beaumont, TX? We played to an incredibly enthusiastic crowd of a couple hundred Beaumont jazz & jam fans, and the weather was just about as perfect as it gets 'round here.

Here's a shot from on stage (thanks to Dr. Meyers for the photo):



We'll post some audio clips early next week. Thanks to all the folks at the Art Studio, and especially John Fulbright for setting up the show. 

¶ posted by Ian Varley at 2:54 PM -

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  We had a blast of a show last night in Baton Rouge w/ Righteous Buddha. Chelsea's kicks ass, and so does RB. And so, by the way, do Louie's omelettes, as attested to by the fact that Ian had 2. Patrick also stepped up to the plate for a 2nd course, and we didn't get out of the joint until after 4. Thankfully we found lodging pretty quickly at a nearby Hampton Inn.

We're in Beaumont now, chilling out and getting ready for our show tonight at the Art Studio. Should be great weather tonight, come on out and enjoy it if you're in the vicinity of Beaumont. (Say a little prayer for Ian's mixer, which decided it would try drinking a beer last night, with somewhat disasterous consequences.) 

¶ posted by Ian Varley at 2:37 PM -

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  Tonight, head to Brasil to catch Austin's Unified Feel Theory. Rather than trying to describe it, I'll just let the music speak for itself. These guys are great, definitely go check 'em out tonight.

Also tonight, Drop Trio will be at Chelsea's in Baton Rouge, LA, so if you know folks out there, spread the word! Tomorrow night (Saturday) finds us at The Art Studio in Beaumont, TX, so likewise, spread the word to your friends out east!

ps - Yes, in the mailing list email today, we meant to say that Pennie was born on April 30th, not Nov. 30th. Doh! 

¶ posted by Ian Varley at 10:19 AM -

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  So who is this mysterious new bass player we've been mentioning? Patrick Flanagan is a native of Denton, TX and grew up in Fort Worth. He studied Spanish and Music as a Rice undergrad, and got his J.D. from the UH Law Center. In addition to playing bass, Patrick is also a marathon runner, fluent Spanish speaker, and a volunteer for Houston Taping for the Blind and TALA.

So, what does Patrick sound like on bass? Here's a sample:

Melody-Melody -

(Patrick's solo is about 6 minutes in.) We'll be introducing Patrick to life on the road with Drop Trio this weekend as we hit Baton Rouge and Beaumont. Wish him luck.  

¶ posted by Ian Varley at 7:23 PM -

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  Check it out - our good pal Arthur Yoria has signed on with Magnatune.com, the record label that's not evil. He's the 2nd Houston artist to work with the Berkeley based label, who offers all their music under the Creative Commons license and believes that artists, not labels, should be in control of their own careers.

Here's his page. Go buy his music! 

¶ posted by Ian Varley at 11:36 PM -

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  We had a great time on Saturday night at the Cryolab, thanks to all of you who came out for it. Marc from LBP was back in full force - we can safely say he is the world's funkiest pick-using bass player. The other bands were all great - Perpetual Motion Theory, White Noise Transistor, Superna, Drexl & Dubtex.

Here's a copy of one of our tunes from Saturday night:

Invisible Pants -

More live tracks coming soon ... 

¶ posted by Ian Varley at 10:06 PM -

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  OK, as promised:



All together now: AWwwwwwwwwwwwww!

You can see some more pics here. 

¶ posted by Ian Varley at 10:30 PM -

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  Tonight, come on over to the Candu show! Read this press release to find out more about it. The address is 2819 Pease, just north east of the crossing of Hwy 59 and Hwy 45 downtown.

Pics of Pennie Layne coming soon!! 

¶ posted by Ian Varley at 5:44 PM -

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