This week's selection on the Live Archive is a fresh one - our set from last Friday night at Brasil. Dig in.

Tonight (4/29), don't miss the Free Radicals @ Brasil and pianist Tim Lyddon at Cezanne.

And come see Drop Trio at the International Festival tomorrow! 1pm on the Flamingo Gardens stage. 

¶ posted by Ian Varley at 11:52 AM -

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  Drop Trio's latest release, Leap, is now on the playlist at KTRU. Do us a favor and call up and request a song from it, the phone number is 713.348.KTRU (5878).



And while you're in the favors mood, don't forget to nominate us for the Houston Press awards ... :) 

¶ posted by Ian Varley at 9:42 AM -

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  Last night, Blabat took the stage for the first time ever, and it was a roaring success. A thumping, boinging, squeaking success. They even covered a Crimson tune.

For the second set, DT took the stage and played close to two hours of zaniness & chaos (or should I say, kaoss). Patrick even pulled out the whammy pedal for some lead playing. One of our most fun sets in a while. Sound clips coming soon.

Tomorrow night (Sunday), MMW takes the stage at The Meridian. Enter the JamHouston.com contest and you might even win a pair of tickets. If you are going, let us know - we'll see you there! 

¶ posted by Ian Varley at 12:16 PM -

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  This week mark's Patrick's 1-year anniversary of joining Drop Trio. Happy anniversary Patrick!



To celebrate, we're putting up a track from his very first show with Drop Trio, April 30th 2004, in the live archive. The tune is "Shelby" (since known by such names as "Shelby Flips Burgers", "Shelby Gets A Haircut", "Shelby Cuts Up Her Socks", "Shelby Gets A Nosebleed", etc.) It was a tune we improvised together, with Patrick leading the way.

BTW, you might have noticed the recent bass player retrospective in the Live Archive, with tracks by Marc Reczek, Nino Batista and Thomas Helton. We've got to be one of the luckiest bands around, not only to have a succession of such incredible guys play with us, but to end up with one who not only shares our vision for the band and our sense of humor, but who continually pushes us to new heights musically. Cheers, Patrick. Here's to many more. 

¶ posted by Ian Varley at 9:55 AM -

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  We played a little private show last night at the Perpetual Motion Theory warehouse. It's becoming a legendary place for underground parties & that kind of thing. Our set was improv-heavy and LOUD. Yay for warehouses. We'll put a taste of it up on the archive soon. 

¶ posted by Ian Varley at 1:31 PM -

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  Hey all - we could use your help. Please take a minute and nominate us for this year's Houston Press Music Awards. We'd love nominations for:

- Best Funk/R&B & Best Jazz (Drop Trio)
- Best Bassist (Patrick Flanagan)
- Best Drummer (Nuje)
- Best Keyboardist (Ian Varley)
- Album Of The Year (Leap by Drop Trio)

NOTE: If you get a blank page or an error, please try hitting Reload; their server sometimes has problems.

Thanks for your support, as always! 

¶ posted by Ian Varley at 10:09 AM -

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  There's a new group in town called Houston Soundboard. If you're interested in supporting live local improvised music, go sign up for the street team and volunteer to help out! 

¶ posted by Ian Varley at 8:28 AM -

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  Either tonight (Friday) or tomorrow night (Saturday), you should go over to Diverseworks to see the premier of The Rosta Jazz Avengers show, Elemental. The Avengers (John Edward Ross on guitar, Thomas Helton on bass, Richard Cholakian on drums and Seth Paynter on sax) are one of Houston's most cutting edge jazz ensembles, and Elemental is a collaboration with filmmaker Laura Harrison. You can read more about it on JamHouston.com (and even listen to a radio interview Ian did with John Edward Ross).

In honor of their show tonight, and as a part of our retrospective series on former DT bassists, our live archive track this week is a show we did with Thomas Helton at the Cotton Exchange Bar back in January of 2004. We called the improv Republican Convention.

One more thing - today at noon, tune in to KPFT and you'll hear a couple Drop Trio tracks being spun. Houston entertainment attorney Mary Jane Hancock is doing a show on Open Journal, and she'll be using DT tunes for intros & outros. 

¶ posted by Ian Varley at 9:17 AM -

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  For those of you who are as addicted to MySpace as we are, we've put up a couple new tunes on our MySpace page. They're tunes from our Live Archive, so if you're a regular visitor there, you've probably heard 'em already. But come be our friend anyway. :) 

¶ posted by Ian Varley at 2:36 PM -

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  Our good friend from Beaumont, John Fulbright, will be having a show of his photography opening in Houston next weekend.



The opening is April 23 at London Hair Company (2227 Richmond) from 6-8 pm. Here's a flyer. 

¶ posted by Ian Varley at 10:41 AM -

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  Are you a musician? Are you in Houston? If so, here's an event that might interest you. An organization that Ian is involved in, the Houston Music Roundtable, is having a gret big 2-year anniversary party tonight (Tuesday, 4/12) at The Volcano. Check out the web site for more information.

 

¶ posted by Ian Varley at 9:39 AM -

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  Tonight, if you're looking for something to do, go check out some music by our pal Thomas Helton, over at Helios.

This Monday @ Helios I will be presenting some original work from my upcoming CD. The compositions use soprano, alto, tenor and baritone sax as well as bass clarinet, bass sax and maybe some upright bass.

How can you pass up bass sax? 

¶ posted by Ian Varley at 5:22 PM -

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  We're headin' over to Brasil tonight. Didn't you read the email?

What? You're not on our email list? Shame on you. Go sign up. 

¶ posted by Ian Varley at 6:56 PM -

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  Those of you who really like XML and RSS feeds (you know who you are) should check this out. Super nerd Ian just added one to our Live Archive Page. So now, when we post a new live archive track, you don't even have to remember to look for it; it'll just show up in your newsreader. Ain't we thoughtful? 

¶ posted by Ian Varley at 6:57 PM -

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  A little late, but ... last week's live archive track is an oldie but goodie. It's from a July 2003 show we did at Kaveh Kanes, a coffee shop in downtown Houston. The tune is one we haven't played in months, called The Allen Smithee Show. It's a much requested song, so who knows, maybe we'll bring it back (if we're not too busy writing songs about vortices and gravity belts).

On this recording, you'll hear the lovely bass sounds of Mr. Marc Reczek (of Little Brother Project fame). Soon to be Mr. Marc Walker ... yup, Marc is getting married next week! And Drop Trio is playing at his receiption. Awww. So everybody send him your good wishes. And wish his bride-to-be Lindsey lots of luck. ;) 

¶ posted by Ian Varley at 5:00 PM -

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  Hey, all you prog jazz fans out there ... Drop Trio is now featured on Aural Moon internet radio. Tune in, eh?

 

¶ posted by Ian Varley at 2:03 PM -

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  We're heading off to Lubbock. See all you beautiful people tonight. Don't forget! Jake's, 10pm, with the Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey. 

¶ posted by Ian Varley at 9:14 AM -

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