Expanding Universe Video Journal: Part One Now Posted!

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!

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

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.

URIZEN Summer Update: The Final Frontier

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

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...

Expanding Universe: Redemption in Gainesvile

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?

Expanding Universe: A Tale of Tampa

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.