URIZEN | Intergalactic Blog System

URIZEN Joins the Dallas Lineup of PAGANFEST 3

2012-01-18T12:11:00.000-06:00

More details on this show coming soon. We will be selling presale tickets at our webstore so keep your eyes open and prepare for Pagan warfare!

2011: Like a Robot Walking into the Sunset...

2011-12-29T15:38:00.000-06:00

2011 is coming to a close, and as is the tradition during this time of year, we stop to look back on our achievements from the previous year before diving headlong into the next! 2011 was arguably the biggest year of URIZEN thus far, and 2012 is going to have to put on its big boy pants to top it.

Though there was no official new release from us this year, I like to think of this as the Year of Universe:Red. Officially releasing in December of 2010, Universe:Red was our vessel for adventure this year, and what a vessel in which to ride! Perhaps most monumental (for me anyway) about the release of Universe:Red was that it gave way to the Expanding Universe tour; the first proper US tour in UriHistory!

Touring has been a dream of mine for as long as I can remember, and despite the massive amount of work, money, frustration, and auto repair that went into it, I can very honestly and legitimately say that it met and exceeded every one of my expectations. Most people would look at our very modest tour and not see what the big deal was, but for us, it was a personal triumph and the fulfillment of a lifelong goal. For those of you who attended, helped us book and promote shows, shared the stage with us, or donned jumpsuits and monster costumes to help us bring our show to life, you may never know how much we appreciate you. It would have been entirely impossible without everyone's help, and we are indebted to you all!

Aside from our main tour, we had so many great opportunities to hit the road and perform with awesome people for even awesom-er fans. We continued our beloved tradition of con performances at All-Con in Dallas and Omnicon in McAllen, and had the time of our lives doing a mini-tour of Texas with our good friends and greatest source of career-based inspiration, The Protomen. On top of all of this, we also manged to squeeze in some local shows along the way, and even resurrected the aborted souls of NEZIRU on Halloween.

2011 also saw the departure of two UriMen from the group, but in their absence we had the opportunity to share the stage with a couple of very cool and talented dudes: Dan Sandberg and Cesar Gonzalez. Thank you both for donating your time and talents to us, this won't be the last time you'll be seen on a URIZEN stage, I guarantee it!

Thanks are also in order for the bands that helped us during the Expanding Universe tour: The Protomen, Bat Castle, D&D Sluggers, Children of the Reptile, Earths Collide, Brazen Angel, Prime Mover, Centura, Come See My Dead Person, Broken End Stereo, and every other band that we shared the stage with along the way. Independent music cannot exist without a strong community of musicians, and every one of the people in these bands did us favors that we will happily return anytime they need it!

Thanks also to the people that made our lives a whole lot easier during 2011: Joshua and Loyal Family in St. Louis for your generosity and hospitality; Hoyt Parris and Pathfinder Promotions in Atlanta for your tireless dedication to metal music; Todd at All-Con and Mark at Omnicon for putting a shitload of oft-thankless work into these conventions that we love to play and attend; Rustin and the staff at Tomcats West for giving us a homebase, a great sound system, and a pay scale that helps us keep gas in the Macho Van; and of course the Damask family, who provided us with a home and a family in North Carolina and asked for nothing in return.

Perhaps the biggest thanks of all goes to our friends and family who piled into our stinky (often AC-less) Macho Van to travel great lengths for no pay with nothing provided, all for the greater glory of bringing a robot, goo monster, Kuato, and more to life every single night at every show this year: Gabe Castañeda, Casey Drinnen, Gus Ruby, and David Cerezo, there would have been no URIZEN this year without your help!

So how will we top such a monumental year? Simple: More tours! More conventions! New stage show! New album! Maybe even a stop at a little music fest in Austin called... umm... Something By Somethingwest? 2012 will be bigger and URIZEN-ier, so don't take your eyes off of us for a minute.

Thanks again for making 2011 a year that will live on in our memories forever!

Daniel // URIZEN

P.S. We played with Green Jelly this year. Green. Jelly. Seriously, what an amazingly cool fucking year this was!

URIZEN to Perform 'autocratopolis' Album from Start to Finish

2011-11-14T15:52:00.000-06:00

2011 is coming to an end, and with 2012 fast approaching, we here at URIZEN are bracing for in influx of newness: new album; new stage show; and lots of new shows in new places with new fans.

But before we step forth into the future, it feels fitting to look back at what brought us to where we are today, and it all started with Thomas, Julio, and myself growing together as musicians as we created autocratopolis, our first full-length release.

To honor the past before welcoming the future, we have decided to play autocratopolis live, from start to finish, at Tomcats West in Fort Worth, TX on Saturday, December 10th.

This is the first (and likely only) time we will ever perform the album in its entirety, so this is definitely a special show for us. This show will mark the first time we have ever performed the songs “a shift in the weather” and “or 3 steps” (aka “Neon pt.2”) in a live setting, and will be a chance for you to hear rarely played songs like “streetlight” and “oh, the humanity!” along with crowd favorites such as “never felt so dreadful” and “barren winds.”

Because we are still hard at work on our new stage experience, this show will also be rare in that it will feature URIZEN in an “au natural” setting. No jumpsuits, no armor, no monsters. Just three musicians sharing their work with people who appreciate it for what it is.

Joining us for this experience will be our very good friends in Lizard Professor, and our fellow Do For It Records pals The Spectacle, along with more bands to be announced. This will be a nightlong celebration of hardworking DFW musicians and uniquely crafted music, and we’re excited to be a part of it.

So join us on Saturday, December 10th at Tomcats West at 3137 Alta Mere in Fort Worth. Ages 17 and up are welcome; $10 over 21, $15 for under. This will be the last time you see URIZEN onstage in 2011, and it may be the last time you ever hear some of these songs from autocratopolis performed live, so mark your calendars now!

Expanding Universe Video Journal: Part Two Ready and Willing

2011-09-20T19:31:00.000-05:00

The video journals keep a-chuggin' along with Part Two: Gateway to the East. And remember, each video diary more-or-less corresponds with one of the original blog entries we posted from the road, so if you want a little more context, or a little more info about what happened on the tour during those particular scenes, don't forget to check 'em out. The St. Louis-related blog is right here: http://urizenonline.blogspot.com/2011/06/expanding-universe-onward-to-st-louis.html and you should be able to find the rest easily enough by using the "Expanding Universe tour" tag.

I will say that editing this video was tough, because there was a lot going on in that hotel room that I personally found to be quite hilarious. The challenge in assembling these videos, however, is realizing that not everyone finds you as hilarious and interesting as you find yourself, so sometimes you've gotta pull back a little bit. But who knows, if there's enough interest, maybe we'll revisit these videos in some sort of "director's cut" version, eh?

No?

Awww... c'mon!

Expanding Universe Video Journal: Part One Now Posted!

2011-09-16T03:41:00.000-05:00

Hey, remember that thing we did this summer? You know... that thing where you drive around and play music and do fun stuff while losing lots of money? Oh yeah... touring! That's the rub!

Well, while we were touring, the camera was rolling... a lot. We ended up with hours and hours of footage (thank you, digital camera with built-in hard drive!), and now we're trickling the juicy bits down to you a little at a time, starting with the video above!

In the video above, you'll see what happened during our first night of the tour in our hometown of Fort Worth. If you kept up with the original tour blogs, you already know that our mode of transport, the Macho Van, was in desperate need of a radiator transplant, lest our entire tour be effed in its stupid A. Now you can live the experience as if you were standing around with us, watching awesome dudes save our tour and our asses! (For the full experience, watch the video while sniffing a nice stinky bottle of coolant.)

Part Two is in the can, and Part Three is already underway, but frankly, the only way I'm going to know if you guys are actually enjoying these videos is if you tell me so! So if you're enjoying what you're seeing so far (and I hope you do), and you want to see more, just let us know by commenting on the YouTube page, or on Facebook, or even here on the blog.

Stay tuned for more, and if you haven't already, make sure to head to our YouTube Channel and click that big, tasty "Subscribe" button so you don't miss out on any shenanigans! SHENANIGANS!!!

Download the Entire URIZEN Catalogue Now... and Name Your Own Price!

2011-09-01T13:49:00.001-05:00

Hello friends!

As we here at URIZEN HQ crawl into our dank cave to begin earnest work on new music and a revamped stage show, we felt it would be nice for all of you out there to have plenty of UriGoodness to fill your heads with in the meantime. And to that end, we have offered up our entire musical career on Bandcamp.com... for FREE!*


I need no further details! Let me at that bounty!

The more observant among you will notice the asterisk after "FREE!" and assume that we don't actually mean "free" (which is, admittedly, a valid concern). The good news is that, yes, we do actually mean FREE! (freefreefreefreefreefreefree), but what that little butthole-lookin' punctuation mark is trying to tell you is that it doesn't necessarily have to be free. "Free" in this scenario actually means:

*name your own price

So yeah, if you want it all for free, do it to it, boss! If you want to give us a few bucks for our trouble, even better! You decide if and how you want to support this project, because hey, we're doin' it for you, chums! But, as a gesture of good will, there are two things I would like to ask of each of you:

1. Join the Mailing List: When you download any of our stuff from Bandcamp, you'll have to put in an email address. We'll then take those email addresses and add them to our mailing list, so we hope you don't mind. We promise not to spam you too much, but sometimes you come across a deal on generic Viagra that you just gotta share with the world.

(And hey, if you want to just join the mailing list anyway, more power to ya! Just click here: http://eepurl.com/fwjtY and let the magic of the internet do the rest!)

2. Share with your Friends: The goal of this whole thing is to share our music with the world. That's what we want! But we're only three guys, and we only know so many people, so that's why we're asking you to spread the http://urizen.bandcamp.com/ link to your friends and family and anyone who might enjoy what they hear. That way we can all rock out in unison next time we see you on the road!

Again, our goal as a group of musicians is to have our music heard by as many people as possible, and we really feel that this is a fair way to do that while still benefiting both parties. And keep in mind, all songs are streaming in full at the Bandcamp site, so you don't even have to download anything if you don't want to! With your help, we'll raise URIZEN Awareness by 48000% (estimated) by the time the new album and tour are ready to launch, and then, my friends, it will truly be a party!

Oh, one more thing... "free" (as in "no money exchanged") downloads are limited to 200 per month, so act now if you want to get in on some of that sweeeet non-monetary goodness.

And don't forget, for you old-schoolers out there, we still have plenty of flesh-and-blood physical albums for sale at the URIZEN Online Superstore!

Now go! Listen! Enjoy!

Expanding Universe: Gooblins, Blizzies, and the Father of Death

2011-08-22T15:22:00.000-05:00

Prologue
As you probably read in the last blog entry, we were supposed to spend this week traveling to and from WorldCon in Reno, but had to pull out for horrible, stupid reasons (namely money). In an act of desperation last Saturday (mere days from the time we were supposed to leave for Reno), I contacted mankind's (and my) last hope, The Protomen, to see if we could join them on their latest run through the non-DFW portions of the state of Texas. To my great delight and surprise, I was contacted that night by Murphy Weller himself, and the wheels were set in motion. Before I knew it, it was Tuesday morning, and we were loading up the trailer and hitching it to the Macho Van to meet our friends The Protomen in Houston.

Tuesday, August 16 2011
With all of our previous mishaps involving overheating engines, broken air conditioners, malfunctioning windshield wipers, and blown tires, we decided to go into this final road trip of the summer with all systems operational. The A/C was fixed (goodbye, all remaining tour money!), the oil was changed, the fluids were topped off, and the trailer was outfitted with a shiny (dirty) new (used) spare tire. With the trailer packed full and the Macho Van in top operating condition, we had only one thing left to do before we could hit the road: gather supplies.

Sorry if you were expecting a case of beer and a gallon of vodka, but it's Texas in August, mother fucker!

Though it unfortunately makes for a less interesting blog entry, I am happy to report that the trip from Dallas to Houston went off with absolutely no complications, and we arrived in our host city with enough time for us to check into our hotel room and watch a little TV on the loudest, broken-est television set I have ever encountered before making our way to the venue, Super Happy Fun Land.

This was our second time at SHFL, and I think it's safe to say that the venue is a bit... eclectic. Located on the train tracks in a mostly abandoned warehouse district just southeast of downtown Houston, Super Happy is a venue that's a little hard to swallow at first. The graffiti-covered outer walls aren't exactly inviting, and the dark, expansive insides are covered with a fairly large amount of nightmare fuel.

Is... is that... Roseanne?

But beyond its odd exterior, SHFL is a pretty cool venue with a good stage and some cool staff. Unfortunately, we had a bit of trouble with the sound guy, and our sound (especially onstage) left a lot to be desired. Even still, the crowd (which was quite large for a Tuesday) gave us a warm reception, and further showed their generosity by buying a very sizable amount of merch throughout the course of the night.

When the Protomen finally took the stage, the place was even more packed, and the crowd was energetic and ready to rock. The Protos seemed to encounter the same sound issues that we did, and I noticed an unmasked KILROY making frequent trips back to the soundboard to try and remedy the situation. Luckily, everything seemed to even out before the end of their second song, and the rest of their set went off without a hitch.

Thomas and Julio couldn't get enough!

The only other incident of the night occurred when an in-character Turbo Lover, in full Dr. Wily-attitude mode, was shoving his way through the crowd on the way to the stage (as he typically does), when a testy audience member got a little pissed about his "ill-mannered" behavior and decided to shove him back. When Turbo got back to the stage, he grabbed the mic and gave the guy an innocent, Wiley-esque "fuck you" and the dude got super pissed and stormed out of the venue. His loss, of course. Going to a Protomen show without a sense of humor is like jumping out of a plane without a parachute, of course it's going to end badly!

At the end of the night, we loaded up our wares and bid our ProtoFriends goodbye until we were to meet again on Thursday in San Antonio. We got a little food, then headed back to the hotel for some sleepies before heading to San Antonio in the morning.

Wednesday, August 17 2011
Wednesday was our day off between ProtoShows, so there's not much to tell. Lots of driving, and lots of laying around in an icy cool hotel room. For the second day in a row, Julio had to feed his debilitating Blizzie (aka DQ Blizzard) addiction, and I've never seen anyone so happy to ingest a delicious frozen treat.

Not pictured: Blizzie-induced erection

We also had a chance to satisfy my own personal south Texas addiction, El Taco Tote.

You're damn right it's Tacotote Time!

Thursday, August 18 2011
Checkout time at the hotel was at noon, yet load-in at the club, Jack's, wasn't until 6pm, so we had a lot of time to kill. The obvious solution? Natural Bridge Caverns! Sure, we're a band on the road, but that doesn't mean we can't do tourist-y stuff every now and then. The cave itself was pretty damn cool, and the tour guide (though mostly disregarded by the rest of the tour group) had a lot of cool things to say. The tour we went on had a lot of rare formations, and a lot of odd ones, like the "cave bacon."

Thomas found the cave bacon to be irresistible!

Once we got to the bottom of the cavern, the guide killed all the lights and we got to experience a few minutes of total darkness, which was both cool and terrifying, as it gave me a pretty damn good idea of what it would be like to be blind. It also made me think of Cradle of Filth.

When the lights came back on, we found out that we were in a room they called the Cathedral room, primarily because of the formations on the wall that resembled a giant pipe organ. Giant pipe organ, you say?

One Night Only: The Cave Gooblin

After finishing up at the caverns, we headed back into town and decided to just ambush the club a few hours early. They were totally cool about our early load-in, and we even had enough time to grab a few pizzas before getting to work on the show.

And no, the giant fish smoking a blunt is not part of our usual stage setup...

Pretty much everything about this show was better than the Houston show. Both the sound and the soundman were amazing, the lights were killer, and the crowd was rowdy, on their feet, and more than willing to participate in chants, claps, and the waving of lighters during "Nothing is Epic." The energetic crowd (peppered with the smiling, rocking faces of various Protomen) and the loving, welcoming feeling from the city of San Antonio made for a tremendously awesome "farewell" for this particular stage show and summer of touring. If any of you reading this were present that night, I just want to say thanks! You gave us a great sendoff, and truly energized us to come back after our break with the best album and stage show yet.

The Protomen must have felt the energy too, because of the half a dozen or so times I've had the pleasure of sharing the bill with them, this was by far the best performance I have ever seen them give. They ran through the entirety of Act II, which was quite a treat, but the excellent sound at Jack's made the whole affair sound massively huge ("The Father of Death" sounded like a damn bomb going off). On top of this, the band themselves were going absolutely nuts: stomping around the stage, headbanging, stage-diving, fist-pumping with such abandon that I would be surprised if at least one of them didn't suffer a bit of a dislocated shoulder! All around, it was just an amazing night of performances in front of an amazing crowd, and I couldn't have been happier to be a part of it.

After their set, I received my customary big, sweaty hug from KILROY, and after they finished signing an ungodly amount of autographs and taking an assload of pictures with assloads of fans, we all gave many hugs and high fives and smiles before heading north as they headed south. It's difficult to vocalize how thankful we are of the Protomen, and how lucky we are to be able to play with them and spend time with them and learn from them. We've played with dozens of national and international touring bands during our run so far, but never has a band been so willing to give us advice and be frank and honest about both the downsides and payoffs of following this crazy rock n' roll dream. It's an honor and a pleasure to be able to play shows with and spend time hanging out with such a fun, cool, and genuinely awesome group of people, and I look forward (as always) to our next encounter with those crazy Tennesseans known as The Protomen.

And so, with this blog entry, we officially lay to rest this crazy summer of shows known as the Expanding Universe tour. And in doing so, we shall retreat back to HQ where we will soon emerge with new music, new stories, and a new stage show to share with you all over again. Thanks once again to everyone we have met during our travels, and a huge thanks of course to everyone who has supported us in our dream, both now and in the past. This is only the beginning, faithful friends!

URIZEN Era III: coming soon!

URIZEN Summer Update: The Final Frontier

2011-08-15T13:43:00.001-05:00

Okay, there’s a lot to say in this update, but first things first: I am sad to announce that we must regrettably and heartbreakingly cancel our upcoming appearance at Renovation, the 69th annual WorldCon in Reno, NV. I could go on and on about the millions of things that went wrong in our camp that led to this cancellation, but the short and skinny of it is that we ran out of funds, and the 3,000+ mile round-trip drive to and from Reno was just too much gas money for our poor little hearts to conjure. I can’t even begin to describe how bad we feel for having to cancel so close to the event, and we can’t apologize enough for the fans we may have let down, or for the event organizers who will have to clean up our mess. I pride myself on almost NEVER cancelling shows, but it was very literally not possible for us to make this trip, and it kills me to admit that. In our absence, however, the convention will continue to go on, and it will be an amazing adventure, which we encourage everyone to attend!

So that's the bad news. Dealing with the reality of that situation has been very difficult for me. And the only thing keeping me from strangling myself with a1/4" cable right now is the divine intervention of a little band from Nashville, TN that some of you may have heard of... a group of auditory warriors known as The Protomen. Seeing that our now-canceled Reno trip coincided with The Protomen’s tour leg through Texas, I wiped away my shameful tears and contacted mankind’s last hope via email. Before I knew it, they had arranged for us to join them on two of their three Texas show dates, and our lives got a lot less bleak and starting approaching the realm of pure awesome once again! And so we shall fight alongside these Protomen on August 16th in Houston and on August 18th in San Antonio, and those who bear witness shall pass on stories of those nights to their children, and that oral history shall continue infinitely through the annals of time, until the sun consumes our Earth in an explosion of firey devastation. Or at the very least, everyone will have a really fun and fantastic experience, so ultimately it’s a win-win situation!

So Texas friends, come see us one last time before we retreat into URIZEN HQ for the winter, where we will prepare for you delicious musical and visual treats for the future. Send us into our self-imposed artistic seclusion with happy memories of chanting crowds and joyful smiles! We shall come creeping out again soon, stronger than ever and ready to be merry with you all once more!

-Daniel // URIZEN

Expanding Universe: A Risque Cafe and the Atlantian Re-exploration

2011-07-05T18:27:00.022-05:00

Sunday, July 3 2011
I left the following bit of information out of the last blog because I didn't want to cheapen the sincerity of my words expressing thanks to people like Ed at Backstage and the fans who make us feel loved and needed. But this story needs to be told, because after our show in Gainesville, Matt, Gabe and I paid a visit to the most magical place on Earth (well, the southeastern US anyway): Cafe Risque.

You can probably see where this is going...

My point in mentioning the trip to Cafe Risque is not to bore you tales of bands going to strip clubs on the road, because that cliche is as well worn as the elastic on some of these women's... *ahem* g-strings (zing!). You see, the fact that we ogled nude women is not the point (it is a point, just not the point). The point is that Cafe Risque was one of the most bizarre concepts I have ever heard of, let alone experienced, and I want the world to know.

Let me paint a picture for you: imagine yourself in a Denny's. Imagine yourself sitting at the counter eating some pancakes or a cheeseburger. Got it? Now imagine that you're doing those things while high heels are stomping around your plate and a 22-year-old co-ed's butthole is grazing the tip of your nose. Throw in a pale, surly waitress and a dimly lit corner filled with porno mags and sex toys and you've got yourself the Cafe Risque.

Now just to be clear, I'm not dogging Cafe Risque. In fact, I'm thinking of starting my own franchise in the D/FW area. If you had told me that I would be going to an all nude strip club/sex shop/diner in Micanopy, FL at 4am on a Sunday morning, I would have expected the skin tautness of a Shar Pei and enough C-section scars to recreate a map of our current tour. What we found were young, friendly, clean women with good bodies and good attitudes, and perhaps that was the biggest shock of all.

Anyhow... on to the business at hand.

Back in the hotel room, I awoke at 9am after only a few hours of post-Risque sleep because I was unrealistically paranoid about the safety of our trailer and equipment in the somewhat... "questionable" area where we were staying. But sure enough, I checked the Macho Van and its cargo and all was well. Soon the others were up and we were on our way to Atlanta, GA for the final show of the eastern US leg of the tour (but not before a quick detour at Crazy Dave's Fireworks).

As you remember from the last blog entry, one of our main trailer tires suffered a bit of a tread malfunction (we now refer to the tire as "Bucktooth Billy," despite his problem being more closely related to a gap-toothed individual than a buck-toothed one) and we were running on a spare. And the spare, as it turns out, has a bit of a slow leak somewhere around the valve stem. But faced with a choice between a treadless tire and a slow-leaking one, we went with Mr. Slow Leak.

Somewhere between Valdosta and Macon, we stopped for gas and noticed that the leak seemed to have upgraded from slow to steady, and we were growing worried. The logical solution?

Yeah... that's right. The URIZEN Special.

It was duct tape time.We figured, "Hey, as long as the tape stops the leak, we'll be okay, right?" Well, past version of me, I'm going to go ahead and let this next picture answer that question for you.

Where did we go wrong?!?

So the spare was shredded, and our only remaining tire was Bucktooth Billy, so we had to strap that goofy looking asshole on and try to make it to a Walmart tire center to get ourselves some manner of safety net for the remaining drive to Atlanta, and for the long haul home later that night.

I'm not going to bore you with the particulars of the next few hours worth of events, but I will provide you with this handy Cliff Notes version:

Go to Walmart; no tires the size of our rim.
Call Tractor Supply Co.; confirm that proper tire size exists there.
Arrive at Tractor Supply; buy new tire.
Jack up trailer; remove Bucktooth Billy.
Find out new tire is too small; Bucktooth Billy goes back on; new tire returned.
Back to Walmart. Closes at 6pm, but guy says he'll be there to help us with a last ditch solution if Tractor Supply fails.
Arrive at 5:58pm; Walmart tire center closed; guy apologetic.
Guy offers to have his cousin come and replace tire; we agree out of desperation
Jack up trailer; remove Bucktooth Billy.
Walmart tire guy sees Bucktooth Billy and suggests that it's fine to drive on and is still in good shape.
Exasperated and running extremely late, Bucktooth Billy goes back on the trailer.

Two hours and a refunded $149 later, we leave Macon, GA with the exact same fucking bucktoothed-ass tire we rode in on. God. Dammit. After everything, we're finally on the road towards Atlanta, nervous of the inevitable blowout that Bucktooth Billy is sure to suffer.

Yet amazingly, Billy pulls through! We made it to The Masquerade in Atlanta with enough time to load in before the first band went on and all is well.

See?

Even better was the fact that The Masquerade was possibly the coolest looking venue we had played in the US so far. We played on the Hell stage, one of three total (Heaven and Purgatory being the other two... obviously), and we were excited to rock out after a day of pseudo-catastrophe.

Welcome to HELLLLL666KILLSATANWAR

The other cool thing about this show is that it was put on by Hoyt Parris and Pathfinder Promotions, who we met at last year's Dragon*Con, along with Brazen Angel, who we would be sharing the stage with that night. The reason I was excited was because Hoyt is one of those rare breeds that I was talking about in the previous blog: a guy who does what he does out of love for music and the scene that he cares about. Ever since my first correspondence with Hoyt, he has been professional, courteous, quick to respond, and extremely helpful and generous in helping us find a good show in Atlanta. To say that I appreciate his efforts would be a huge understatement, but let's just say that if I had a guy like Hoyt in every city we played, I would have a lot more money in my pocket and a lot fewer empty Tums bottles scattered around my desk.

A big thanks also goes out to Prime Mover for an utterly badass opening set, and a massive debt of gratitude is owed to the completely awesome, completely cool Brazen Angel for bringing a great crowd for us and making sure we walked away with every penny of the door money they made. It was an unexpected and overly-generous gesture, and we can't thank them enough for doing it. Just as the formula should always work, the combination of a hardworking promoter and a great lineup of bands brought a tremendously cool and enthusiastic crowd to the Masquerade on a Sunday night, and we couldn't have asked for a better end to that journey.

What followed the show in Atlanta is nothing anyone will want to read about. 13 hours of driving across the southern United States yields very little in the way of fun and adventure. It does, however, yield this humorous picture of James sleeping somewhere in Louisiana:

Duhhhhh...

A nightlong/daylong journey finally culminated in us arriving back home, safe and sound, on the 4th of July. The reprieve, however, is only temporary: Omnicon in south Texas is up next, followed by a conquest of the western territories!

Onward to Adventure!

Expanding Universe: Redemption in Gainesvile

2011-07-03T11:41:00.001-05:00

Saturday, July 2 2011
At the end of the last semi-angry, semi-bitter (well, mostly bitter) blog entry, I begged for Gainesville to redeem Florida in our eyes. The first thing that happened when we piled out of our van? We noticed this:

...the fuck?

Our non-problematic trailer tire finally joined his asshole trailer tire brother in breaking our balls by somehow tearing off a strip of tread right down the middle of its ass. At this point in the tour, though, changing a tire is like breathing, so we didn't even have to disturb the bro-ier members of URIZEN while they watched preliminary UFC bullshit on not one, but two goddamn screens!

Meanwhile, Matt stared off into space and longed for the embrace of death

They were forced to abandon their activities when it was time to leave for the club (sorry, guys), and we hit the road on our way to the Backstage Lounge.

Right when we pulled up, we were greeted by booking agent/soundman/light operator/videographer/every-goddamn-thing-in-that-club mastermind Ed. I'm going to spoil the ending of this blog right now and tell you that Ed single-handedly redeemed the state of Florida and the entire independent club circuit in our eyes, because he was that awesome.

That's Ed, wading through all of our garbage

Not only was Ed awesome, but the club was awesome too! A good-sized stage, professional equipment, a stellar light setup, and a multi-camera video display for recording bands... This is gonna be our night!

For the sake of completion, we'll say that the guy in white is Matt

Wait... no? It's not? But why?!?

Well, as the fates of touring have dictated many times in the past, both of the other bands that were supposed to be on the bill with us had their vans die on them, and we were left as the sole band in a foreign land. Our immediate assumption was that Ed would, understandably, cancel the show. I mean, why go through all the hassle of putting the show on when only one band had showed up?

Luckily, we had underestimated the awesomeness of Ed, and he logically argued that we were there, he was there, and we might as well have a goddamn show! And so it was that a band from Texas played a show by themselves 1,000 miles away from home, and we had a blast doing it. And much to our surprise, people came! And people stayed! Then after the show, people bought stuff and asked us to sign their newly-bought stuff!

Long after we finished playing, there was one fan, a retired Marine, who had stuck around because he insisted on buying us all a drink. He talked about how lucky he felt to have seen us, and how much he admires us for "having the balls" to hit the road and share our music with people like him. He called us some of the "chosen few;" the people who inspire others with their music and spirit. I'm not sure how the other guys took it, but it really did mean a lot to me. This guy had been enjoying live music for upwards of 30 years, and to know that we had that big of an impact on him was a special feeling. When we parted, he held up his copy of Autocratopolis and said, "I'm going to spread the word about you guys. I'm going to show you to everyone I know."

So the lesson here is that, yes, sometimes shows suck. And yes, sometimes club owners are total fuckwads who piss on your face if you don't bring in the drinkin' fans. But sometimes you'll run across places like the Backstage Lounge, where you'll meet people like Ed and his soundman Daniel, and you'll understand that there really are still people out there who do what they do for the pure love of music. It's not always about money with everyone. People like Ed will make sure you leave with $40 in gas money just because he appreciated the experience. And people like Ed, and Daniel, and the Marine, those are the people that we will continue doing this for. Because a community of music lovers still exists in this country. You just have to wade through the turds like Julie at Pegasus to get to the places that really matter.

Expanding Universe: A Tale of Tampa

2011-07-02T16:43:00.000-05:00

Friday, July 1 2011
Now look... I'm not usually one to judge something based entirely on one experience, but with that said, I'm pretty sure Tampa is a shithole. Now if you're from Tampa or you like Tampa or you have family from Tampa, please don't be offended. I'm sure there are good people and good places in Tampa, just like with any place in the world. But the Tampa we saw yesterday was just a rundown desperate shithole with shitty people and shitty places. But maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start from the beginning.

We pulled into our hotel in St. Petersburg around 4pm (in the rain, as if that's a surprise anymore) and lazed around in the hotel before heading to the club. I went out to the van to make a phone call and was treated to a show by what was very obviously a cracked out dude and what was very obviously his young blond "escort" for the afternoon. The dude was going nuts about something, and the chick was trying desperately to get him back into the hotel (and into his wallet) but I'll be damned if he didn't escape to the outside world at least 3 or 4 times while I was out there.

But look, man, I'm not going to judge a whole city because it has some rundown areas. Every city has that. Dallas sure as shit has that. The real reason we're down on Tampa is because of our experience at the shithole capitol of Tampa: the Pegasus Lounge.

If you see this sign, just keep on driving.

We found this club in the center of a rundown, mostly out of business, shopping center on the asshole end of Busch Gardens. We walk into the club and get hassled by the doorman because we have 7 in our group and he doesn't believe that we're all vital to the show. Our merch/goo monster person is under 21 and he tried to fucking charge for her to get in, but ultimately he didn't (remember that, it'll come into play later).

The next experience at this lovely establishment was me getting hassled by the toothless redneck fuckers who frequent this shit heap because I was wearing a Germany soccer shirt. Was it the Germany part that offended them? The soccer part? The general un-Americanism so close to the Fourth of Joo-Lie? Who knows. But I had to sit there and listen to this asshole try to make some unformed point about the military and Germany and how he died 15 years ago and each day's a gift, and all the while his fat fuck counterpart sat at the bar and shouted random bullshit at us every time we passed his dumb chunky ass at the bar.

Once the soundman showed up (after all the bands were there and the first band had already set up unstage), we found out that we were just unloading onto the sidewalk until the other band was finished. I'm sure this isn't an issue for most bands, but if you've seen what we bring on the road with us, you can imagine that this was a bit inconvenient.

Welcome to the green room. Tampa style.

I will say this: the show itself was not bad. The first band, Broken End Stereo from Tucson, were cool guys and very interesting to talk to. The dudes are currently 2 months into a 14 month stretch on the road, and they've got the road warrior thing down solid. During their set, Mr. Fatfuck at the bar decided to heckle them, and he got slapped down quickly by the singer who informed him that his own dick was bigger than Fatmaster's entire forearm.

Our set went over well, and the crowd (aka the other bands) seemed to enjoy it, with the requisite sea of cell phone cameras popping up once the Robot made his appearance. All of the band members were very cool and very nice, so they made up the only enjoyable portion of our stay in Tampa.

The real fuck-all of the night came when I sent Matt in to ask the owner, supposed music lover Julie Bible, about payout. Not to ask for money, mind you. Not to collect money. Simply to ask about the payout process and find out what the door split was going to be. Her first reaction was to shake her head and laugh and sputter out, "Well I don't thank we got a thang for ya'," before having the doorman slap down the door sheet on the bar, along with 5 one dollar bills. "Five dollars..." he sneered. (Remember the cover that we didn't pay for our 7th person? That's where the $5 came from. Suckas!)

Julie went on to say, "This was the worst show I have ever seen here. The worst I have ever seen. No one came, no one drank, none of the bands had any draw." Matt responded with, "Well, we are on tour, so what do you expect?" She want on to deride me personally, saying, "Yer manager or whoever I talked to had a whole lotta big game to talk, sayin' y'all'd bring out all these people." She topped it all off by asking where our next stop was and giving us a condescending "Well maybe you'll have better luck there" before waddling off with her mullet flapping in the breeze.

Look, let me make a few things clear about this show.

1. I contacted Julie to book a show and was 100% upfront about this being our first tour and our first show in Tampa. I said I would promote (which I did), but that I couldn't promise a big crowd from us. I didn't even ask for a guarantee because I knew it would have been unwarranted.

2. Julie (who booked this "worst show ever," not me) decided to build a bill where 3 of the 5 bands booked were from out of town. Dallas, Tucson, and Orlando. Seriously... what the fuck do you expect in that situation?

3. The Pegasus Lounge is such a shithole that one of the bands that was supposed to play showed up, walked in, said "fuck this shit," and bailed. Seriously. They walked in the door and decided to bail on the show. They were wiser men than we...

Julie Bible and the Pegasus Lounge are exactly what is wrong with independent music and the independent club circuit. Give nothing, expect everything. These clubs book bands and just expect the show to draw and be amazing with no effort on their part. No promotion, no enthusiasm, no fucking interest in even watching the bands they book. All this from a club owned by someone who "loves live music and wanted to establish a place where local and touring acts could come and play and have a good time" (a direct quote from the Pegasus website... not quite living up to those standards, it would seem).

We played a lot of shows in a lot of new places during this tour, and every single one of them was a learning experience. But what we learned most of the time is that most bookers and club owners typically mean well and want to have a good show for the benefit of the club and the musicians. The club is their business, and we understand that, and we want to help. But some clubs find that balance between supporting a business and supporting the art of music, and those are the real heroes of independent art and the future of the music industry.

Clubs like the Pegasus Lounge and owners like Julie Bible don't give a shit about music or art or furthering the tradition of musical performance. They just want some bodies and amps to come fill their stage to bring some drinking mouths through the door. That's it. And I understand that clubs like that are the norm, and clubs like 2720 Cherokee in St. Louis, who care about music and care for their musicians, are the exception. But that doesn't mean I can't be pissed off about it. Goddamn it.

Gainesville tonight. C'mon Backstage Lounge, redeem Florida in our hearts!

Expanding Universe: URIZEN vs. Old Man Ocean

2011-07-01T17:25:00.003-05:00

Thursday, June 30 2011
The "next day" of the tour began right after the Charleston show, as we had no hotel for the night, but also because we were eager to get to Jacksonville to hit the beach for our day off. Since the drive between Charleston and Jacksonville was relatively short, we dragged our feet by hanging out at Walmart for a while, gathering $1 kites with which to build our epic, patented 6-tier kite monstrosity.

After Walmart, we hit the road. We all wanted to experience a proper east coast sunrise at the beach, so Thomas planned to pull over to an oceanside stop around 6am for us to have a look. Unfortunately, we ended up outside of Savannah, GA just before sunrise, and we learned a harsh lesson about Georgia beaches:

they suck.

I give you... the beach?

Well, in fairness, we never actually made it to the coast in Georgia, so they may very well have some nice beaches. But just like most things we've encountered in the south, the beaches are hidden and hard to get to. So we all watched the sun rise over some stagnant swamp water and got bit by a bunch of dang ol' skeeters then loaded back into the van in hopes of someday finally arriving at a proper beach.

A few hours later, we were crossing over bridges in Jacksonville, drawing ever closer to our destination on Neptune Beach.

Pictured in the distance: URIZEN clouds

We finally found our hotel, grabbed a primo parking spot for the Macho Van, and set out to finally discover the thing we had been longing for all week long...

Gabe.

Oh wait, not Gabe. I meant this:

Da beeech!

After a brief first contact, we checked into the hotel (like 6 hours before scheduled check-in) and piled into our room. It was basically the same as every other room we've stayed at during this tour: two beds, a table, a chair... a beachside patio.

Into the ocean we went, to battle our old nemesis: Old Man Ocean. The old man was quick to retaliate against our wave-bashing by robbing Julio of his frisbee and James of his sunglasses. You win this round, you salty bastard.

You maniac! Damn you! God damn you all to hell!

After our first round of beach and sunburns, it was off to El Potro for some cheap, delicious Messcan food. Gabe and Julio said it was some of the best flan they'd had, and I think I can now officially confirm once and for all that I hate flan. It's like fat-textured tapioca with a gross bitter aftertaste... you guys can keep that all for yo'selves.

The second part of the lunchtime outing consisted of a trip to the local Dollar General, where James made a most amazing purchase: 35 temporary dinosaur tattoos for $1. I think you know where this is heading...

Dino-bro half sleeve

We hit the ocean again before sundown, where Thomas and Julio had the time of their life.

See?

Thomas and I walked down to a pier that went out into the sea where we saw a fisherman catch a tiny hammerhead shark and I took a few generic sunset pics of the beach to cap off the day.

But all good things must come to an end, and all good tours must move on to more shows, so we woke up early Friday morning, ate a most delicious complimentary brekkie, and set our compasses westward to Tampa.

RIP Frisbee and Sunglasses. Gone but not forgotten.

Expanding Universe: Like Regular Carolina, but Further... South

2011-06-30T17:23:00.000-05:00

Wednesday, June 29 2011
From the moment I booked the South Carolina stop of this tour, I had a weird, bad feeling about it. I couldn't place what it was exactly, just this feeling that something was going to go wrong. But waking up this morning proved to be not only uneventful, but very pleasant! In a final act of hospitality, the Damasks provided us with an enormous bag of delicious bagels, and packed the numerous leftovers for the road, along with some bananas, a bunch of cookies, and various other goodies.

Thomas and Julio were ecstatic.

But gut feelings usually happen for a reason, and at around 3pm on the drive down to Charleston, I finally found out what was going to go wrong. To make a very long story short, the club we were supposed to play at decided to bump the show in favor of...

A beer pong tourney.

I specifically said "Spinal Tap" then "puppet show."

So now, a 5-band show that was supposed to start at 9pm has to be over by 10, and who's the guy that has to figure out how to make it happen? Yours truly. So away I go, rebuilding the show to start at 6:30 and end at 10, contacting bands as both time and the venue draw near.

But wait, you didn't think that would be the only problem for the ol' UriCrew, did you? Of course not! While approaching Charlston, the standard "URIZEN Rain-on-Arrival" began, and it was more of a downpour than ever before. And this probably wouldn't have been a problem... had the driver's side windshield wiper not broken in the midst of the hurricane...

The picture above was only made possible after we coerced James into making an emergency exit from the highway we were on, which only led him onto another highway... on a bridge... that was going in the complete opposite direction of where we needed to be.

At this point, we were running too late to properly inform the other bands of the new schedule, and it didn't look like we were going to get the wipers fixed anytime soon, so talk of cancellation began. By which I mean, I wanted to cancel this goddamn show. It seemed like further disaster awaited, and it didn't seem like the damn thing was going to pan out in our favor anyway, so fuck it, right?

Wrong.

Well, so said the others, anyway. I was ready to throw in the towel, but they wanted to go ahead with the show, so I went along for the ride. We arrived at the venue (on James Island, no less), which I was told was called The Oasis, but is apparently now called The Edge, and began the ceremonial unloading of the trailer onto the rainy ground.

In a bit of a humorous twist, though, right next to the venue was this place:

For those who don't know, UriBassist James is known in the inner circle as "Jam," or in more formal situations, "Jimmy Jam." So you can imagine our excitement to find a place like this... located on James Island... *BRAAAAHHHMMMM*

So the show finally started around 7pm, two full hours before it was supposed to start originally, and as you can imagine, all of the early bands got screwed. I felt bad that no one was there, but I commend the bands for playing their hearts out regardless of the nonexistent audience.

By the time we were about to go on, we realized that there were actually people starting to show up... for the beer pong, of course. So you can imagine that the apathy was runnin' high with the beer pong crowd as we started to play, and we continued the nightlong tradition of playing for the other bands and their girlfriends.

Because what could be more exciting than this?

But something strange started to happen: the applause after each song started getting louder and louder as the night went on. Slowly, the tables in the back close to the pool tables started filling up, and the walls in the back of the club had more and more people peeking around to see what the hell was going on up on stage.

By the time we finally pulled out the robot battle, the goddamn room had packed out and people were losing their shit! It was after 10, but the beer pong tables sat on the sidelines, flaccid, ignored by the once pong-hungry masses. We finished to resounding applause and a healthy crowd at our merch table, and I felt both proud and a little like an asshole for wanting to cancel.

I should have had more faith in the framed Jim Morrison poster

We hung out at the club for a bit longer before the beer pong-ing became intolerable, then made our way to a Denny's, where I found this humorously broken looking Green Lantern plush in a claw machine.

Hittin' up da beach tomorrow for the off day, stay tuned!

Expanding Universe: Son of North Carolina

2011-06-29T16:55:00.001-05:00

Tuesday, June 28 2011
The hospitality from the Damasks continued today in the form of free pizza and a TV, on which we watched a documentary about rumspringa, followed by more sleeping on the floor.

He might just be planking.

Eventually we were forced to leave the comfort of this temporary home in favor of a show at Night Light in Chapel Hill, so into the van we piled, and on the road we went. The road from Raleigh to Chapel Hill was, of course, accompanied by a torrential downpour, as has been the tradition during this tour, and it pretty much always lets up right before we arrive at the club, so I guess we should be happy about that.

And yes... that really does say Papsmear Teens...

Night Light is a cool little club tucked away near the UNC campus. And when I say little, I mean little...

Poor monster looks so sad that he's too big to play properly

First up for the night was a band that I had been extremely excited to see live, D&D Sluggers. With both a SNES and a DS in their equipment repertoire, I knew these guys would be a prefect fit to play with us. I want to play shows with these dudes forever. Their music was catchy and fun, their onstage banter was witty and improvisational, and their show included both sing-alongs and dance-offs.

Gabe won them both.

After D&D was a cool band from Durham, NC called Earths Collide, who had songs about both the Death of Superman comics and Masters of the Universe, so there's really no going wrong there. These guys are basically just starting out on their musical journey, and I personally am excited to see where they go next.

We were pleasantly surprised to see Cody and Chelsea, our old friends from Dragon*Con, in the audience, and were even happier that they made a request for a song before the show. We did our best to accommodate...

We're professionals here, folks.

After the show, Julio and I got into a huge argument about the amount of stink emanating from the bands' white suits and armor (which, for the record, is horrendous), but managed to not punch each other in the face, which is a pretty big victory when you consider that we've been stuffed into a rolling metal rectangle with each other for the past week.

Back to the Damask house and off to South Carolina in the morning!

Expanding Universe: From Beautiful Green Mountains to Horrible Red Stoplights

2011-06-28T15:44:00.001-05:00

Monday, June 27 2011
The goal for today was to complete the unforgivingly long journey from St. Louis to Wilmington, and we still had a good 8 hours, a punctured trailer tire, and some Appalachian mountains to deal with. With the tire quickly patched and switched out, it was time to put the Macho Van's little V6 heart to the test and see how it dealt with mountain ranges.

...Prepare for Van Death

The result?
Surprising! Though having to resort often to what we have dubbed the "van killing gear" or "van slicing stroke," Macho made it through in style and gave us some amazing views of the beautiful North Carolina mountains.

Yeah, just like that!

Outside of the mountain-y goodness, however, North Carolina got a lot less beautiful and a lot more strangled with rage-inducing traffic. Traffic is always frustrating, but traffic in a foreign land when you've got load-in to make is especially nightmarish.

The gas prices were hilariously immature, however.

But before long, we had made it to Wilmington, NC for a no cover, 10pm show at 16 Taps with Children of the Reptile.

See?

16 Taps was a pretty cool little bar with a nice high-ceilinged stage. Wilmington had a really nice downtown area too, though it was predictably deserted on a Monday night. We grabbed some slices of pizza and toured the various sleeping hobo piles.

Children of the Reptile rocked it (we'll get to play with them again in Charleston on Wednesday) and we had a good time rocking for the small, but very enthusiastic, Wilmington crowd. Everyone in that bar was extremely complimentary and supportive, and I don't think anyone there left without making a purchase at the merch table first, and for that we are extremely grateful!

After the show, we began the always thrilling process of breaking down gear and loading our junk back into the trailer, at which point I decided to make my transition for regular ol' guy to super sick bro-dude.

Hey bros, you know where they're showin' the fights?

Our lodging for the night would be provided by the incredibly awesome, incredibly generous Damask family, but first we had to make the 2-ish hour journey from Wilmington to Raleigh. The odd thing about NC interstates, as far as I can tell, is that there is absolutely fucking nothing on the roadside: no gas stations, no billboards, no streetlights, nothing. Couple that with the tiny sliver of moon in the sky and you have the recipe for a terrifying pitch-black drive into the heart of fear itself.

A few hours and minor mishap in which we jackknifed the trailer later, we arrived safely at Casa de Damask at roughly 5am and littered our stinky bodies all over their nice carpet. We woke up this morning and they fed us waffles, followed by a delicious pasta, and all the while we were using up all of their hot water and occupying the bathrooms. These people are too kind, and we love them (except for Sam, who we all hate).

Fuck you, Sam.

Night Light in Chapel Hill tonight with Earths Collide, D&D Sluggers, and more! Let's dooo 'dis.

Expanding Universe: Superman and Friends

2011-06-27T04:12:00.000-05:00

Sunday, June 26 2011
Woke up this morning and waded across the hotel room to take a shower. Decided to wake everyone else up with Erasure's "A Little Respect" and was treated with a 98% nude dance from the banana-hammocked Gabe.

Not pictured: Gabe

No show today so we took our sweet time traveling between St. Louis and Knoxville on the way to Wilmington for a show on Monday night. That meant some casual dining at Taco Bell, some upscale shopping at Wal-Mart, and of course, a stop at one of America's most revered landmarks. Yeah, you know what I'm talkin' about...

The world famous Giant Superman Statue in Metropolis, Illinois. Metropolis is a wonderland of Superman merchandise, Superman-branded Pepsi machines, poorly painted Supermen on every building, and, most importantly, Superman Thomas.

The road beyond Metropolis was, understandably, not as exciting as the Superman-filled wonderland we left behind. But there was still one very important discovery for us to make at a gas station in Tennessee: a stockpile of time-warped WWF t-shirts from the year 2000. All the classics were there, Stone Cold, Lita, Latino Heat, Kurt Angle, Tazz, and this now-classic number, which has already been incorporated into James' wardrobe:

That dude is addicted to Jerichohol

It is currently 5am local time and we are all wide awake, listening to Sadistik Exekution's "Dejeka Infinitus" while Gabe finishes the day the way he started it: terrorizing people with his tightly-wrapped ballsack.

Expanding Universe: Onward to St. Louis

2011-06-26T12:54:00.000-05:00

Saturday, June 25 2011
We departed from Fort Worth at about 3am and began a long sleepy journey through Oklahoma and Missouri. The trip was largely free of difficulties, as the formerly overheating Macho Van was now ice cold and problem-free.

The fuel gauge, however, is still quite broken.

There were only two problems to speak of. The first is that we somehow acquired a metal shard of some sort that is slowly draining one of our trailer tires of precious life. The other problem was the return of...

My name is Inigo Montoya.

Our old nemesis, the wasp, had stowed away somewhere within the workings of our ventilation system, and decided to make a surprise appearance on Matt's leg while I was driving. Despite some panic and the destruction of a Kleenex box while attempting to slay the beast, the incident passed without tragedy, and we will wait to meet our enemy on another day.

Many hours and many Immortal drum-alongs later, we finally arrived at 2720 Cherokee in St. Louis.

The venue was totally awesome. Very clean, very spacious, big stage, friendly staff... everything a visiting band could ask for! There were two art galleries as well, one upstairs:

And one downstairs, which featured the greatest masterpiece of all:

US v. Mexico revisited

The lineup was an eclectic blend of metal, surf rock, hip-hop, dirty dub, improv... you name it. Very diverse and very fun. With some drink tickets and a green room full of comfy couches, we were happy to hang out all night... and we did. Somewhat involuntarily.

Dramatization

As Casey and I were bidding farewell to one of the night's other musical acts, we were puzzled by his "gotta get out of here before the storm" statement. Our bewilderment didn't last long, as moments later, an epic downpour of rainy goodness was bearing down upon us. The flooding got so intense that the foosball game was interrupted by an impromptu fountain of water gushing out of a drain in the basement.

Eventually the storms calmed slightly and we rushed our gear back to the trailer. After bidding the staff and other musicians farewell, we were on our way back to the hotel. Sort of.

Turns out, Missouri floods pretty easily. So at some point, the interstate became an underwater affair. Several traffic jams and side roads later, we were back on track and ready to rest our weary heads for a good night of dry sleep at the hotel.

But, you know... that didn't really end up happening either.

Our return to the hotel room was commemorated by flooding across 70% of the usable floorspace (aka our beds), and wouldn't you know it, no other rooms were available! But you know that's not going to stop our sleepy asses from passing out after 48 hours of sleeplessness. We piled on top of each other, cowered in dry corners of the room, and crashed mightily.

Thanks for the fun and adventure, St. Louis! The road to North Carolina awaits!

Expanding Universe: The Journey Begins

2011-06-25T04:09:00.001-05:00

Friday, June 24 2011
If there is one phrase that best describes the condition of our trusty (/not trusty) van, The Macho Van, that phrase would be: riddled with problems. Since we returned from our mini-Texas tour, Macho has been in and out of various shops to fix various problems for various costs. The one constant, however, was that the Macho Van was overheating, and no amount of work ever seemed to fix that.

Pictured: Every tour by every band ever.

On Friday afternoon, I picked up the van for the last time before hitting the road for the eastern leg of the Expanding Universe tour. But before we could even strap on the trailer, that bitch was overheating once again. With no time left, we geared up and prepared to hobble across the US in an overheating van with the heat a-blastin' all the way across America. We had no choice; this tour was happening one way or the other.

But for once, Luck was on our side. No, man, not luck, we've got horrible fuckin' luck... I'm talking about Cody Luck, the totally badass dude who replaced the van's goddamn radiator in the parking lot of Tomcats West hours before our performance! Yes, that's right. This guy is so awesome that he just shrugged and provided us with a few hours of what would be at least $70/hour of labor in exchange for some Whataburger chicken strips. And you would think that just finding one dude to do that would be miraculous enough, but two?!? Oh yes. Two. Los Bastardos' own Wes Howard sacrificed his time and clothing as well to assist Cody in this act of pure Uri-based philanthropy. Without a doubt, these two are 100% responsible for our safe journey across the country, and we couldn't possibly thank them enough.

With our minds finally cleared of van-based frustration, we were able to rock an excellent kickoff show at Tomcats West before loading up the gear once again and setting sail on a 12-hour nighttime adventure to St. Louis.

Tour-pollo 13: "San Antonio, We Have a Problem"

2011-06-11T05:00:00.000-05:00

So today marked the beginning of the URIZEN Texas Mini-Tour, and the official start of our summer of touring... and I don't think it's possible that any more shit could have gone wrong! Truly it was the Apollo 13 of tour kickoffs.

Let's start from the beginning, shall we? The fun began with us making about a thousand new friends that all looked a lot like this:

Hello there.

In the time since our last excursion, the UriTrailer became less a transport unit for musical equipment and more an apartment complex for legions of wasps. They were none too happy about us trying to reclaim our property, and an epic battle ensued. Many wasps were killed, much time was wasted, and much sunburn was acquired.

But soon, the trailer was loaded and were on our way. Smooth sailing from here, right? Man... did you even read the title of this blog entry?

Once we got to Dallas, we noticed a little problem: the van was very much overheating. So we checked the coolant, and hey, it was bone dry! Throw some coolant in there and problem solved... right? *sigh* No... not right.

So after some fresh coolant, some stop leak, and a new radiator cap, we were still blazing hot, so we had to kiss our ice cold, wonderfully breezy A/C goodbye and crank up the heat to keep the engine from es'ploding.

Back on the road, heat blazin', windows wide open and loud as shit, but at least we're on our way to San Antonio at last.

Well... almost.

Oh I'm sorry, did you guys want to drive on me?

The left tire on our trailer just fuckin'... disintegrated. So we pull over, jack it up, take off the pile of scraps that was once a tire, and throw on the spare. But wait! The spare is totally flat! Hooray! So... trailer is jacked up again, wheel is removed, and half of the party is left behind to defend the crippled trailer. The rest of us take the van in search of air, but everything along the interstate is conveniently out of order. We finally find air in fuggin' Abbott, TX (birthplace of Willie Nelson!) and head back to our near-dead roadside associates.

Alright, alright... we change the tire, we hit the road, we finally put some miles behind us, and all is well. I mean, except for the fact that we're four hours outside of San Antonio, and we're set to hit the stage in four hours. Aye aye aye!

Don't be sad, Matt, we'll get there someday.

The rest of the trip actually went off without any problems, and we arrived at Clicks with about an hour to spare. Despite taking 10 full hours to complete what should have been a 4 or 5 hour trip, the day of bullshit was totally worth it! The club itself was awesome, the staff was friendly and generous, and the crowd was excited and rockin' out despite it being after midnight. We met some awesome new friends, hung out with a few old ones (Rik Buddha in da house!), and spread a great deal of CDs and shirts across the land of San Antonio.

But the best part of the entire trip so far...?


Burrotote HUGE! God I love you, El Taco Tote...

Headhunters in Austin tomorrow, let's see if we can make the trip without incident!

The "URIZEN Across the Planet" Initiative

2011-04-29T13:24:00.001-05:00

We here at URIZEN HQ can certainly be said to possess two dominant qualities: a strong desire to share our music with the world; and an insane lack of financial smarts and business sense. When those two characteristics collide, you get things like this... the "URIZEN Across the Planet" initiative!

The goal of URIZEN Across the Planet is to get a copy of our latest musical lovechild Universe:Red into as many countries as possible. To that end, we will send you a FREE copy of Universe:Red if you are the first person in your country to email us and ask for it! Holy shite!

Some guidelines:

Send emails to UrizenOnline@gmail.com with the subject "URIZEN Across the Planet"
One free CD per country! Once someone from your country has emailed us for a CD, that's it! You snooze, you lose!
CDs will be mailed via USPS First Class International. Translation: cheap and slow. Allow a decent amount of time for your CD to arrive... it may take a while!
United States residents are not eligible for this promotion! Sorry, US fans, we've already got Universe:Red in the States!
Your email must include your FULL name and a viable mailing address! If we don't know where you is, we don't know where to send!

This promotion will go on for as long as we feel like doing it, so act now before we decide this is a bad idea! Live in the US? Already have Universe:Red? Tell your foreign friends about it and enrich their lives with 8-bit rockin' goodness!

Let's cover the Earth with URIZEN: one resident of one country at a time!

Disclaimer: URIZEN is in no way legally obligated to send you a CD. URIZEN may be unable to fulfill your CD request if: your mailing address is invalid; the USPS does not offer shipping to your area; or if shipping to your area will cost us an assload of money. This promotion is subject to end at any time, with or without notice.

8-Bit Universe: Coming to All-Con!

2011-03-17T16:56:00.001-05:00

As some of you may remember, we released a con-exclusive CD when we journeyed to Dragon*Con in Atlanta last year.

Yeah, you know, this guy.

Well, we didn't want to give anyone the wrong impression and make it seem like we care less about our beloved All-Con, so at this year's con, we'll be releasing a new CD called 8-Bit Universe. "What's all this, then?" you're probably asking yourself (especially if you're a bobby...). Well, 8-Bit Universe is a complete chiptune remix of the entire Universe:Red album! That means that you'll be able to hear all seven of your favorite Universe:Red tracks in full-on, 8-bit, Nintendo-y glory! Holy explosive nerdgasm!

Have a sneak peak at the 8-Bit Universe label, won't you?

Click to embiggen, my child.

So if you're going to be at All-Con this weekend, swing by our table and pick up one of these limited edition badboys! And for those of you who can't make it, be on the lookout for 8-Bit Universe to make it your way soon!

See you at All-Con!

Tales from a Red Universe | Part Four of Four: Cardboard Residence

2011-03-07T19:30:00.001-06:00

"Tales from a Red Universe" is a four-part exploration in which Thomas takes you behind the scenes of the lyrics and concepts of URIZEN's "Universe:Red." Slip on a spacesuit and join us for the ride, won't you?

(Haven't read Part Three yet? No problemo, look here!)

Boxmen

From my box I can see everything. Life and all the joy that it can bring. No I don't want to live beyond my frame. 'Cause in here the weather's always better, and life's a winning game! I find the scum outside to be a source of loneliness, but in my fear fortress the box has sown my redemption. Outside it's wet and cold... a violent sight I shan't perceive but through my filters and protection. I am a box man! What? I've never heard such ridiculous buffoonary! Why would I want to join you out there? Just look at my life compared to yours. I've got all the things a boy could ever want. Friends by the thousands, the very world at my fingertips! I'll never join you! Never! That's ludicrous... absurd! Outside again... could I resume that life? To know... I'd finally found a way I can feel safe outside....to know... to know! I'm fine to dull sensations of pain and agony, but to hide from danger I have hidden everything. An even keel... my life is plain and dull, but at last I have realized. Into the world I go! (Lyrics: Thomas Drinnen)

This song was inspired by the internet and the burgeoning internet culture that frustrates me daily, despite a clear inability on my part to simply "avoid" it. I still can't seem to escape its grasp. I would have to say that this song is a criticism of people who experience the world primarily through the filters of media, opting only for scant interaction with the "real world"... though, really, I am currently living the life of a Boxman myself... so... yeah... I should heed my own advice!

As far as its relation to the Kobo Abe novel, The Box Man, really there is only conceptual similarities. Abe's book followed a man who traded in his normal life to live in a cardboard box attached to himself and filled with all of the necessities he needed to survive. The book itself goes far beyond this simple concept, but, as it relates to the song, I thought that this idea sounded very similar to the lives that we are all now living. (The book, and in fact the author, comes highly recommended, by the way!)

The problem (and thereby the point) in living on the receiving end of a computer screen is the extra degree of separation and the "safety" that it affords. Just as our personal bravery multiplies ten-fold when we are giving the finger and glaring at others behind the safety glass of an automobile, so too does our bravery multiply a million-fold behind the safety glass of a computer screen. Here we live up to our worst potential as islands of humanity: constantly judging and assessing things and people that necessarily suffer extreme ambiguity at the hands of an ever widening degree of separation.

The more filters you view something through, the less "real" your image of it invariably becomes. In an attempt to maximize physical time alive and the safety of consistency (and therefore predictability), humans are, ironically, minimizing the actual reasons one would even have to live a long life in the first place. That's how I see it anyway.

In regards to the overall concept of the album, this is just the universe-incarnate's next stop towards unavoidable oblivion.

The Lonely Resident

I wandered through this splendid world observing this and that, but thunderstorms, and winter cold, made me wish I had a hat. I tried to find, by light of day, when all my clothes had dried, a single friend to laugh and play, but everyone had died. They died! Now, all I can seem to find are the roaming ghosts of humanity wrapped up in the clothes of humans they once had claimed to be! And I feel so misled. They said the more I knew the more I'd have to gain and, well then, what had I to lose? But here I am... again. A stranger now estranged, somehow, by those who steered me wrong. They led me on and now I'm all alone. (Lyrics: Thomas Drinnen)

The final track of the album. Although I had not read the book at the time I wrote the lyrics, the main character has a striking similarity to the wolf of the steppes in Herman Hesse's Steppenwolf (itself a comment on Neitsche's superman). "The Lonely Resident" is about a man who traveled the path of knowledge that was expected of him, only to find that in doing so he has ostracized himself from those who urged him on.

In returning "home" with his newly transformed and "superior" mind, he finds that he can no longer relate to people, to such an extreme degree that despite being surrounded by humanity, he feels as though he is living among the ghosts of those he remembered from his youth (as they have not advanced or improved at all). To quote Randy Newman: "It's lonely at the top."

From the human perspective, the song represents extreme regret in the face of the "path taken" but, from the universe-incarnate's perspective, it represents the final moments of a journey back towards singularity. In having finally become successfully isolated, by way of intellect, the only thing left to do is to plunge headlong into oblivion. At long last: a return to nothingness. Again, a more positive spin is endowed depending on the perspective you chose to view it in.

In regards to Universe:Red as a whole, I feel that the album becomes very circular (and even symmetrical in a way) if we keep the nature of the universe in mind: from nothingness into spectacular "somethingness;" to a growing, multifarious, and frustrated consciousness transformed into a singular, frustrated, and very human consciousness; an aging and deteriorating human life gives way to indignation, fear, and isolation before finally returning to nothingness.

Conceptually, the final three tracks of the album represent, for me, a hidden optimism. Somewhere deep within me, there is a vague hope that we, as humans, must one day return to the void of nothingness in order to fulfill some universal desire or longing for non-existence. Whether that means a brief glimpse of understanding at the moment of impact (death) or a sudden clarification as the threshold from life into death is finally crossed, only time will tell!

You have just read the final chapter of "Tales from a Red Universe," in which Thomas discussed the lyrics and concepts of URIZEN's Universe:Red. Like what you've read and heard? Stop by the URIZEN Online Superstore to get your own copy of Universe:Red today!

We hope you have enjoyed these Tales... from a Red Universe!

Tales from a Red Universe | Part Three of Four: Human Revelations

2011-03-03T16:41:00.002-06:00

"Tales from a Red Universe" is a four-part exploration in which Thomas takes you behind the scenes of the lyrics and concepts of URIZEN's "Universe:Red." Slip on a spacesuit and join us for the ride, won't you?

(Haven't read Part Two yet? C'mon man, view it here!)

A New Revelation

(staccato 8-bit notes represent the universe speaking to humanity by way of science and technology) Oh yes, of course. Please allow me to translate. He says: Of the universe, it should be noted that yours is but one of many. That due to things like uncertainty... and probability... the landscape of your future is truly a matter of limitless potential, and that's good. I failed to grasp emotion, or suffer with disease. "Cold" and "loneliness" astound me. I tried to find a better "self" to be. I had hoped that beyond the stars, I would find a way. I had dreamed that behind the mind, I would find the answers. I had hoped, that through it all, there'd be much more to see. I had hoped that I'd finally find a "me"! And to summarize, existence is constantly splitting and branching off into new and wondrous paths. And each new moment holds with it any number of an unfathomable amount of possibilities. So for those moments giving rise to pain, it is to be hoped that elsewhere, along a concurrent path, an inverse moment is giving rise... to joy! (Lyrics: Thomas Drinnen)

"A New Revelation" marks the universe's (and the album's) transition of perspective from the totality of the vast without to the conscious within. During the song there are two sections where the synth line seems to be "speaking" to an unidentified human who is then translating the findings to the listener. This is meant as the universe revealing itself to humanity, thus creating this mutual duality where the universe and the human intellect are nearly one in the same, yet, nevertheless, forever divided by their respective distinctions of perspective.... or are they?

Beginning with "I failed to grasp emotion..." we find the universe lamenting what it believes to be its failed attempt to find a "self" or a "me," and we are given insight into the universe's plan back in "Budding": to continue into consciousness in hopes of returning to some form of singularity, or in this case, a single human consciousness.

Throughout the song, the keyboards are clear indicators of the universe's "mood," and by the time the last "translations" have occurred, we find the universe fully seated in the final stage of grief: acceptance. Although admittedly ambiguous, the final keyboard solo serves to mark the universe's final transition into "total multiplicity;"essentially its death as a simple singularity. There is, however, perhaps some implied hope that a part of the universe has, in fact, survived and bridged the gap of duality.

From here on out, the perspective shifts from the burgeoning universe and it's manifold "self" to that of a single human consciousness... though who's to say they aren't still one in the same?

Nothing is Epic

Oh I hate, that I can't help but to watch the sky, and wonder. The universe grows and grows... it goes and goes. How I hate that I can't help, but to dwell helplessly below. Insignificance grows as the cosmic tide flows and flows and flows. I won't let the stars conquer me! Oh no! If I could grow in size till I could own the skies, would I see God? Or would I be.... Or could it be that this life is nothing more than this? (Lyrics: Thomas Drinnen)

Suddenly, we are back in the mind of a human... and we are still dealing with the same problems of existence and dissatisfaction. The lyrics (and, in fact, the entire song itself) were written (if memory serves me) sometime around the summer of 2005 while I was going to school for Audio Engineering/Production. As a result, the lyrics for the preceding tracks on the album were written with this song in mind, and (considering that this was originally the last song on the album) the story-arc does have a bit of a resolution here.

If you take the lyrics as they are (album concept aside), this song was the result of an extended investigation of mine into the worlds of quantum mechanics and astrophysics. At first, I was endowed with a mysterious sense of comfort at all the amazing and surprising attributes that the universe possesses.

As is my way, though, an underlying sense of human mortality began to overwhelm me again, and suddenly all of this new information was no longer exciting, but terrifying and imposing. This song is me as a man attempting to poke around at the edges of possibility, only to come back to the (seemingly) invariable notion that ultimately I am nothing more than one human consciousness on a collision course with non-existence. A fact that I daily (or usually nightly) lament.

There is an upside, though, to this track. If considered as a part of the whole concept, that is, if you assume that perhaps the human in question is, in fact, the universe-incarnate, the song takes on an entirely new tone. Though tragic in the apparent implication that the universe has not explicitly retained a working knowledge of it's "quest," it is, nevertheless, interesting to note that the universe is now on a collision course with its one true desire: non-existence. Without explicit understanding of the transition, however, is this really worth anything? Truly a philosophical topic that works both ways.

As per the original Universe EP, the ambiguous assumption is that the end of this song represents human death... in relation to Universe:Red, however, it is more likely to represent the death of hope, for in the next song we are introduced to the result of fear and complacency: the Boxman!

Join us next time for the final chapter of "Tales from a Red Universe" Part Four of Four: Cardboard Residence, in which Thomas discusses the universe and humanity as they approach their ultimate fates. Prepare yourselves for the final tales... from a Red Universe!

(Hey, don't give up yet! Read the final part here!)

Tales from a Red Universe | Part Two of Four: Universal Conscience

2011-02-24T18:12:00.003-06:00

"Tales from a Red Universe" is a four-part exploration in which Thomas takes you behind the scenes of the lyrics and concepts of URIZEN's "Universe:Red." Slip on a spacesuit and join us for the ride, won't you?

(Haven't read Part One yet? Foolish human, view it here!)

A Budding Consciousness

I will not tolerate this boundary, I find it troublesome indeed. I will not yield to limitation.. in fact I'll never yield again. I'll find a way to save my blissful state and backwards facing dream. The simple "I" that became, will not be made to live as "we". Ah, every moment it worsens... this, thickening awareness. Cluttering and corrupting my peace. Wretched questions with seemingly no end! I can see it in the distance... my doom! The cursed "why?!" I find this state of mine to be a harsh eventuality. And I shall not fear nor oppose. I'll find what it means to "know". I'll find the substance of my glee. I'll take it back to when "I" was the answer to most everything. I'll find the surface of my glee and suffer fate no more. I want to make this whole world go away. (Lyrics: Thomas Drinnen)

Here's where things start to go wrong for poor old Mr. (Or Ms... or Mrs... or Dr.) Universe. Having burst onto the scene with a great deal of pomp, we find the universe in an awkward and unforeseen predicament: it is growing a multiplicitous consciousness by way of universal laws, the developing order of the settling universe, and, of course, humanity's ever growing awareness of the universe from within (or, as Carl Sagan put it, humanity is: "a way for the universe to know itself").

An unintentional meaning and importance (and thereby responsibility?) is slowly being instilled into the universe, and the once proud abstraction of potential (and little else) finds itself moving away from the simple and reckless "I" and into the more complicated arena of "we". As the universe approaches the impending "death" of its beloved simplicity as a singularity, it invariably finds itself succumbing to the five stages of grief (I'm not going to mess with the updated seven stages... so there!).

In "A Budding Consciousness," the universe passes through the first three stages: denial, anger, and bargaining. ("Depression" is covered en total by the song "An Unfortunate Realization," where "acceptance" also makes a brief appearance (at the very last moment), and is finished off in "A New Revelation.") By the end of "Budding", we find the universe realizing that this evolution of consciousness is unavoidable, and, in an act of bargaining, it decides that perhaps in embracing consciousness it can find a solution wherein it might be able to return to it's less complex origins. And with a scream, the universe begins its final moments as a mysterious simplicity.

An Unfortunate Realization

(Instrumental)

Though "An Unfortunate Realization" has no lyrics, it serves as the universe's last moment of peace "to itself". Just as a human life ends by a return to non-existence, the universe's non-existence ends with the birth of a multitudinous conscious sense. Where before there was only potential, now there is realization (hence the title). You could say that this track represents the universe's "whole life flashing before its eyes" right before the moment of death.

In fact, album concept aside, I often list this song as my favorite Urizen track for this very reason. There is something bittersweet about recounting the events of a lifetime. Good or bad, the sensation is always a bit unreal... distant... faded. I always imagine the last of such moments as being all at once beautiful and tragic, and that is the unfortunate realization. It is the last chance to look back at the totality that is you... the most accurate picture of "self" you will ever have... and then, a moment later, it is lost forever.

Join us next time for "Tales from a Red Universe" Part Three of Four: Human Revelations, in which Thomas discusses the universe as a human, and the human as an impermenant mortal! Prepare yourselves for further tales... from a Red Universe!

(Don't stop now! Read Part Three here!

Tales from a Red Universe | Part One of Four: The Big Bang

2011-02-22T20:20:00.010-06:00

"Tales from a Red Universe" is a four-part exploration in which Thomas takes you behind the scenes of the lyrics and concepts of URIZEN's "Universe:Red." Slip on a spacesuit and join us for the ride, won't you?

In The Beginning
The tale of Universe:Red begins many moons ago... like, a whole lot of moons. It traces its origins back to 2007's Universe EP, and even contains a track (Nothing is Epic) that was recorded a few months before the completion of URIZEN's 2005 debut: autocratopolis!

The Universe EP was something of an embarrassment to me, I must admit. I marked it as my first big failure in the Uri-realm. Initially, It was a CD brimming with potential, but that potential was never fully realized in its first incarnation. Essentially, we had given ourselves a deadline as a band to have an album finished and, in an effort to solidify this deadline as absolute, we went ahead and booked a "CD Release" concert which would mark the day that we needed to have the CDs back from replication. Unfortunately, the results were... less than favorable.

At the time of Universe's birth as an embarrassingly underproduced CD, I was working full time during the week and, as a result, the final moments of Universe's completion came down to two very sleepless weekends in a row. During this time, we made sweeping last minute changes to the music, fought terribly with the vocal melodies in "A Budding Consciousness," and left ourselves without enough time to mix or master the album properly. Then, for some reason, we released it anyway. Oops! At some point, I do plan on going into much more detail about the creation of the original Universe; the turmoil I personally suffered at its disappointing hands, and the decision to re-record, re-mix and re-master it, but that's a story for another day. The subject of this blog will be the lyrics of Universe:Red and the overall concept that they attempt to convey.

Lyricising... Agonizing...
The lyrics for "A Noiseless Flash," "A Budding Consciousness," and "A New Revelation" were all written in a frenzy of panic two nights before the CD would be sent off for replication. In fact, the lyrics were written as I was tracking the final vocals that would end up on the first version of Universe.

It was the middle of the night/beginning of the morning (probably between 2am and 6am) and, at this point, it was just Daniel and I in the studio. I had a notepad, and as we would come to whatever vocal part needed lyrics next (the melodies of which had already been written), I would write lyrics that fit with our concept (which had already been worked out), read them to Daniel, and, if he thought they were good, I'd record the vocals right then and there. This was not the best idea... but it's what happened. The lyrics turned out well, but the vocal takes left a lot to be desired.

(Fun fact: If you listen to the vocals during the "I had hoped..." section of "A New Revelation" from the original Universe, you can actually hear the desperation and exhaustion in my voice that I felt as I was recording them! Although I was happy to get a chance to re-record them for Red, I do kinda miss that one section... it really brings me back to that absurd, last minute battle every time I hear it.)

Conceptualization
As for the concept, believe it or not, Universe was originally set to be a musical retelling of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Around the time that I began writing the first pieces of music for Universe, I was knee deep in books (and manga) about Hiroshima. There was something about the event that was both horrendous and intriguing. I had it all planned out, but, lo, it was not meant to be. Somewhere along the way my interest in writing about a historical event dulled and I felt inclined to write lyrics and music that were a bit more personal and self-derived.

The result, was a bizarre concept centered around the idea of the universe as a developing consciousness... or a "Budding Consciousness," if you prefer! The idea would be that, just as we humans are always looking to reconnect with this universality, looking to become part of a greater whole, perhaps the universe would feel inversely... looking always to returning to the simple singularity from whence it came. Maybe the universe didn't know what it was getting itself into by breaking out of that singularity... that beautiful void. And so begins "A Noiseless Flash," a song about the birth of the universe itself! (Interestingly, the title is carried over from the original concept and is, in fact, the title of a chapter in John Hersey's Hiroshima.)

A Noiseless Flash

Well I was created accidentally, a wonder of nature, and a glory to see. I set to expanding to conquer the void. Logic and convention were kindly ignored. Joy and release. I could never be slowed or persuaded to stop. And I will not be led away to wait for a start again. I find satisfaction in the things that I've done so far. A new fascination... (Lyrics: Thomas Drinnen)

The lyrics for "A Noiseless Flash" are, in my opinion, pretty self explanatory. As you read through, the song contains many of the most basic descriptors of our idea of the big bang, but set up from a first-person dialog. As per the song, the universe finds great joy in having forced its way into existence, and, in fact, initially can't even fathom wanting to return to the, then dreary, idea of halting, contracting, and then having to re-wait for another moment of universal inspiration. This is, of course, a reference to the old debate over whether the universe was expanding indefinitely to the point of instability, or if it would eventually contract back to a singularity in time. In fact, from the point of view of the universe "character" on this album, it could be interpreted that the universe initially planned to expand forever but, after a round or two in the ring with a manifold conscious sense, it would rather retreat back to a more austere simplicity. Like a child forging into the future with optimistic anticipation, the universe is more than willing to explore the depths of its own complexity with reckless abandon.The final lyrics of the track (tastefully omitted from the lyric sheet, by the way, so you'll have to listen carefully) lead us nicely into the next song...

Join us next time for "Tales from a Red Universe" Part Two of Four: Universal Conscience, in which Thomas further discusses the universe's growing sense of awareness, and the inevitable problems that result from it.

(Psst...! Read Part Two here!)

MetalMania Videos: The Whole Package

2011-01-20T19:28:00.000-06:00

In anticipation of our upcoming show at Tomcats West in Fort Worth on Saturday, January 22nd, us UriFolk took it upon ourselves to film some promo videos in the style of a certain 1980s-era sports entertanment entity, which now has something to do with saving pandas...

Whatcha Gonna Do, Brother?!?

Soon, the other bands on the bill were joining in on the fun, and a very entertaining series of videos resulted. In an effort to make things easier for you, the fans, we have decided to compile those videos here, chronologically, for your veiwing pleasure. Enjoy!

The whole incedent started with this:

In response to that initial video, Rustin Luther of the band American High, posted the following on the XtremeDFW forums:

American High will post a video response to this horrible verbal attack from the cowardly punks in the band URIZEN... We will not lay back and let some sissies in space man pajamas come disrepect our terf!!! Go back to your own planet and play slap fights with the girls you call band members. URIZEN claims to real a real band, with real talent... WRONG!!! Your nothing but a bunch of NERDS playing with robots and giant poop monsters, dancing to video game music! Take that 8 bit crap somewhere else!

YOU WANTED WAR URIZEN.......YOU GOT IT.

Im coming for YOU Daniel.

To which URIZEN replied with this:

Once American High got wind of this, they finally busted out the video camera and posted their own video:

Not content to sit by and allow such slander, URIZEN made this fuckin' ass thing:

Meanwhile, in East Texas, Jonny Pecker and the Beaver Bustin' Pickle Weasels were outraged by URIZEN's initial attack and issues this response:

Finally, URIZEN fired the last shot in a video that can only be described as... "masterful":

__________

So there you have it! But don't simply be content with YouTube videos... come out to Tomcats West on January 22nd and see how this thing is going to end! My guess? AWESOMELY!!!

DecemberHolidayMadnessSpecialsHolyFuckinShit!!!

2010-12-01T16:00:00.000-06:00

Happy Nondescript Inoffensive Winter Celebration Season, everyone!

To celebrate the season of ~~giving~~ buying, the URIZEN Online Superstore is offering FREE shipping on all CD orders now through the end of December! (Shipping charges still apply to international orders and the 13" plush URIZEN dolls because that shit is expensive and we ain't made of money!)

Not only that, but every single order will receive a FREE URIZEN sticker and a FREE mystery gift! As you'll remember from the Universe:Red offer, the mystery gift consists of whatever random thing we happen to find at the time of shipping. Past mystery gifts have ranged from URIZEN posters and robot toy kits to URIZEN-edited young adult novels and signed pictures of *NSYNC (signed by URIZEN... not *NSYNC). Someone even got a toy dinosaur! WOW!

So don't delay! This offer only lasts until December 31st, so order now to get your UriGoods in time for Christmas/Hanukka/Kwanzaa/Robanuka/Festivus/GERD Awareness Week/your Winter Solstice ritual!

URIZEN Online Superstore at BigCartel.com

URIZEN Confirmed for All-Con 2011

2010-11-22T22:49:00.001-06:00

It is with a sincere and great amount of joy that we announce that, for the third year in a row, URIZEN will appear as exhibitors and musical guests at All-Con in Addison next March!

For those of you who are unfamiliar, All-Con is a multigenre convention held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Addison, and for the past two years, they have let us bring our instruments and robots on stage to smash the place up and have an immense amount of fun. The convention lasts for three days (and two very intense nights, especially Saturday), and URIZEN is on hand for all of it.

The convention will take place from Friday, March 18th to Sunday, March 20th in 2011. Our performance this year will be on Saturday, March 19th at 4pm in the Oak Ballroom (just like previous years), with other small "performances" and/or panels possible. Also, this year our table will be in the main hallway, and not in the dealer's room, as it had been in years past.

Check out All-con.org for details, a full schedule (currently in the works), and information on passes. Book your hotels now, we'll see you in Addison!

Universe:Red CD Release Show - Take II

2010-11-19T17:01:00.000-06:00

Alright people... let's try this again!

Having cleaned up the rubble from the disaster that was the previous CD release attempt, we are ready to O-fuckin'-FICIALLY release this bastard, Universe:Red! This time, the show will take place at our home-away-from-home, the Ridglea Theater (the very location of our two previous CD release shows! Wow!). Sadly, we could not replicate the same lineup of bands that we had set up initially, but we did get our good friends Lizard Professor to join us once again, with additional support coming from Burn Down and a few more bands to be determined... at some point... probably.

Since the rescheduled show is on Saturday, December 18, it will no longer be James' birthday bash (sorry, James). However, it will now be Thomas' birthday bash! And Thomas is more important anyway, right? (again, sorry James) So show Thomas how much you love him by coming to the show, buying a copy of Universe:Red, and showering him with gifts and breasts.

A few other benefits to this show being rescheduled and relocated: the show is now all ages! That means that those of you who are under 18 are now permitted to join in the festivities. No discrimination here! Also, because the Ridglea has a much bigger stage, and a much taller ceiling, than Tomcats West, we will be able to provide you with an even more insane stage show than we had originally envisioned! Sweet holy fucking god, that's tasty!

Facebook event is live here, so RSVP, invite your friends, repost the link, and enjoy a lifetime of sexual favors from your choice of Matt or Julio! What a bargain!

See you on December 18th!

URIZEN gets "All Jack'd Up"

2010-11-17T20:27:00.002-06:00

This morning (aka "noon"), your humble UriMen made their way to TXA 21 Studios in Fort Worth to film a live performance for a DFW music show called "All Jack'd Up" (http://alljackduptv.com/). I have to say, from start to finish, this was one of the most pleasant professional experiences we have ever had! Come my children. Prepare yourselves. I've a tale; an impure tale to tell...

Our convoy of vehicles containing amps, instruments, armor, robots, Boxmen, and a spaceship arrived at TXA 21 Studios at noon. We checked in at the front desk and were greeted by Mark, the director of All Jack'd Up, who led us to the loading dock.

The loading dock

We weren't entirely sure why we had to first load in to the loading dock, then into the studio, but it became clear once we saw what was on the other side of the door...

Yeah... people with real jobs. So we quickly and quietly relocated our piles of shit from the loading dock into the studio, trying not to disturb people far more responsible than we. Once in the studio, it was time to cram 1000 pounds of URIZEN into a 500 pound sack... er, stage.


Gabe; our loyal slave... I mean helper...

Too Much Stuff

Matt wasn't nearly as excited about this as Thomas was

We set about our usual tasks: setting up drums, amps, etc.; getting everything mic'd; tuning; checking lines; all the usual stuff. But the amazing thing about today was that we got to have fun while doing it! Two factors can totally ruin a band's experience: 1.) Not having enough time to set up and sound check, and 2.) Dealing with an asshole-y soundguy. At All Jack'd Up, we had ample time to fine tune, and the sound guy couldn't have possibly been any nicer or more helpful. It was like a damn fantasy land!

Boring street clothes soundcheck

Once we ran through the songs, we were invited back to the sound booth to listen to the mix, which sounded great! Again, a luxury that we are certainly not used to.

James presents: Mixing board

Back to the studio we went, where we made our astonishing transformation from guys in regular clothes to... GUYS IN WHITE JUMPSUITS AND ARMOR! SHABLAGOO!

Matt needs to relieve some"tension" before shows

Thomas is quite pleased with this robo-dressing

As was I!

Gabe in his weekend wear

With the lines checked, the levels set, and the suits donned, we were ready for them to unleash the camera operators. We couldn't help but feel like these people were questioning their life choices once they walked into the room and saw this:

A degree in Journalism will get you up close and personal with these gentlemen

The nature of the filming was as follows: Play "A New Revelation" so that the director can plan a course of action for the cameramen (and woman), then play it two more times (for realsies!) to hopefully at least capture a decent full take of the performance. Then do the whole thing over again, but with "Boxmen" instead of Revelation (I don't know why you would care to read about this, but hey, you're reading the fuckin' blog, not me!).

I decided to just watch the flatscreen instead of actually playing. Seemed easier.

We hit the last note of the third take of Boxmen, and the shoot was over. Right after we finished, one of the camera operators called us "the most entertaining band we've ever had in here," and I no longer felt like we were wasting their time, which was nice. And so, we began the whole process in reverse: break down, parade our wares in front of the TXA employees, pile up our junk in the loading dock, and toss it all back into the cars.

All in all, it was astoundingly fun, and refreshingly relaxed! We can't thank Mark and his crew enough, they were all awesome and good-humored, and they made the day a total blast. Our episode is scheduled (tentatively) to air at midnight on Saturday, December 11th, so be sure to set your DVRs if you're in the metroplex.

Catch "All Jack'd Up" on TXA 21 every Saturday at midnight, and watch videos online at AllJackdUpTV.com. Support this show and its awesome crew!

URIZEN Launching Probe into Throbbing Blogosphere

2010-11-14T22:57:00.000-06:00

Greetings and salutations, UriFaithful!

It seems the time has come for URIZEN to embrace the hip new Web 2.0 just as it's becoming obsolete, so that can only mean one thing: tag clouds! Well... that and a blog, but I suppose there's always room for a tag cloud here and there. Right?

The purpose of this blog will be several... fold. One fold will be for news type items and informational-esque bits; another fold will be for telling tales of the Great UriAdventures in glorious detail; and other folds will have to do with us guys talking about stuff and things... 'cause we'll theoretically feel like doing so.

So basically this will just be a smattering of whatever the hell we feel like making it. Cool? No? Oh.... Okay...

I can say for sure that I, Sir Daniel O'Urizen, will be contributing regularly, especially with the news posts, but rumor has it that other UriMen will be splashing their seed upon the sloppy face of this blog from time to time as well, so keep yourself gasping and wanting in anticipation for that.

I hope this ceremonial first post was as good for you as it was for me. I swear I can usually last longer than this, I was just... really excited. This has never happened to me before, I promise. I'll take care of you next time, baby.