Oso Closo

1 Comment » Posted by estus / Uncategorized

wrote this yesterday forgot to post it. so now i’m posting it after. even though it was about today as though it were the future. its like 1984…now.

so we’re starting rehearsals for Tommy tomorrow. i’m pretty stoked. i’ve never done this before. i was a band kid in high school so i didn’t sing in any musicals or anything. and i wasn’t enough of a dedicated band student to ever get asked to play in any pit orchestras. it was always a small ensemble made up of the kids with the brownest noses. never really was one of those. but i was such a huge musical theater fan though. this is one of those little factoids about me that my friends are always saying caught them off guard when they found out. i think, to be perfectly honest it was mostly brought on by this outrageous attraction to girls on stage that i had. particularly the stars of the show. especially if it was a musical. something about a leading lady singing and dancing pretty much kills. anywho the song we do called “promenade” or “the country song” as its known to the vast majority of people, is all about guys and dolls, one of my absolute favorite musicals. when i was in high school i saw that at school and the girl who played adelaide was the answer to all questions about beauty to me. i had it really bad. i was also a very silly person at that age. but during that whole spell i was very expressive with regard to my leading lady friend. i wrote notes and called them letters. and i wrote the country song. and then we started playing it because we’d been playing all of our songs for a good long while and i wasn’t having any luck writing so i busted out that super old song kind of as a last resort. its ended up being a really fun part of the show these days. which i’m glad about. but i still feel a little silly singing the words now. oh well. but let me just use this as a little segue` to something about the band that matters. the record is Re-coming out you know. its cool. its got a live dvd with it. you buy it and you get the cd and the dvd. its of the cd release show. so its got really great live versions of a few songs that aren’t on the record. and a couple of them, like the country song for instance will probably never make it on to a studio record ever. so i’m stoked that they are on there. hopefully you’ll like it. i think its good. anyway. i’m seriously up way too late right now. we have to start in…not long. so i’ll see you guys soon. i’m gonna post about some exciting new tour dates for post tommy stuff sometime soon. keep an eye out.

now that its today. it was a lot different than i thought. i’ll let you know when im not falling asleep sitting up.

No Comments » Posted by adrian / Uncategorized

4 Comments » Posted by adrian / Uncategorized

We in Oso Closo have been playing some of the songs in our setlist for a few years now. We keep the songs exciting by frequently changing little details, whether planned out in a rehearsal or in the spur of the moment live. Sometimes a mistake can lead to something golden. Something that I have started doing in the drum department on a few of the songs has been leaving a little rest of space before a really big section of a tune. This creates a moment of beautiful calm before the storm which is usually the McQueen. I feel that a pause can sometimes be even more affective than the most tasteful drum fill. It gives a little breath, maybe with some tension too, during a transition to a next section. It works at all dynamic levels too. Off the top of my head, I have been doing this during Andy’s solo on Phonetalker and right before Chris’ solos on Poetic and the Ruiner. The result is usually triumphant. Here is a sweet analogy I thought up in the van this past weekend:

Imagine you’re at a basketball game. There’s commotion everywhere. Vendors yelling, fans cheering, annoucements blaring, referee whistles, squeaky gym shoes on the court, loud shot clock horns… But when a big star goes up for an awesome slam dunk a good distance from the hoop, the whole place just stops. The player, Michael Jordan, hangs in midair. It seems like an eternity. Everyone in the stadium holds their breath and ceases cheering. A million flashes ignite the silence. It’s like a dream. And then he slam jams the ball and the chaos resumes, amplified greatly. That’s kinda how I feel about these little drum silences. I am Michael Jordan. Watch me dunk my drum jams into your sweet little ear hole.

Here are some insightful quotes from some guys that know what they’re doing:

“Music is the silence between the notes.” - Claude Debussy

“Silence will save me from being wrong (and foolish), but it will also deprive me of the possibility of being right.” - Igor Stravinsky

People can get caught up with chops and spectacular displays of technique, especially on an instrument like the drums where you don’t have to breathe. There’s this crowd of drum clinic-going, Modern Drummer magazine discipled, gear headed, I can play a million notes in three seconds while juggling people that I just want no association with. I want my playing to look and sound organic and natural, serving the music. I strive to play simply and supportively. If a song is fast and 16th note based, sure I’ll play a quick fill that might be considered “cool” if it is appropriate within the music. Thank you, Ed Soph. Man, this sounds like a rant for another post…

Anyway, come hear us live, the silence will rock you more than you think.

from Ryan

No Comments » Posted by jacobi / Uncategorized

there is just something about louisiana that does something to me. maybe its the humidity. maybe its the amazing food. maybe its the incredibly relaxed system of laws. history, culture, music…crawfish.  could be anything. but its safe to say i love louisiana. particularly a little town you may have heard of called new orleans.

first time i went there i was in a band called my spacecoaster. we had a show in lafayette but we decided to drive to new orleans and eat because we’d never been there. we pulled into town, parked and walked to a restaurant. we quickly realized that the restaurant was far to nice for a bunch of scraggly lookin rockers so we walked back to the van, only to find it occupied by a homeless man. desperately trying to figure out how to get the many musical instruments to a nearby hiding place, most likely a box or pile of vomit somewhere. so the point is that for a long time i wasn’t fond of the city. but in all reality i just parked on the wrong corner.

later i went down again with my good friends snarky puppy and met up with a great friend of mine named casey who was living there helping rebuild after katrina. this was a much different experience.  as soon as i arrived casey and i got started on changing my mind about Nola. we drove straight out to all the carnage, picked up some beers and i started figuring out why this place is so great. we went to the airport. still totally shut down and very much off limits to the public, but with some creative curb hopping and off roading techniques we made it over to the infamous levee. we walked out on it about 200 feet and sat down with our feet hanging off and casey told me that it was the best spot to fish in the entire world. we spent the day in the 9th ward driving around looking at houses that had been demolished by the storm and thousands of FEMA trailers. we stopped at a little building that you have to duck down to walk inside, and ordered a few pounds of crawfish and ate them on the curb outside. daytime new orleans is fantastic. but it is fully eclipsed by nighttime new orleans.  around ten oclock we went out to magazine street to meet up with casey’s many new local friends. all bartenders and waitresses on the same strip. we hit what seemed like every place with a menu and a bar. i’ve probably never been so indulgent in my life. i could barely walk. whiskey going to my head and food piling up in my stomach. at some point i looked at my phone to check the time and realized that it was 4 in the morning. i asked casey if we should get going and he said that right now is when all his friends are finally getting off work and can hang out. i clarified that we were talking about the droves of bartenders that we had just spent hours hanging out with, and he clarified that at this point in the night we would leave magazine and go to the frenchman and keep workin. i told him no dice. and we headed home. but not before he showed me one last place. brothers. brothers doesn’t make any sense. you walk up, you’re at a gas station. there are bullet holes in the gas pumps. seriously. when you go in there are about 20 people all piled around one girl who is serving fried chicken and fried fish. as gross as this looks and sounds, its late. i’m pretty much wasted and need something to try and fight the ridiculous hangover i will undoubtedly have the following day. what i taste is quite possibly the greatest chicken that the world has ever known. there isn’t any way to try and describe it in text form. doing this chicken justice is laughable. ha. so anyway we go home sleep it off and have a really great day scrapping metal and running around like a couple of kids. thats a whole ‘nother blog though. i loved it. i love new orleans. i love brothers.

but i just realized that i was supposed to be blogging about the weekend. during which we played three shows. here’s the rundown.

tulsa: exit 6c. sweet little club. great owners. and some of my family came out to see the show. it was awesome.

new orleans: we didn’t have a show booked for the night. and i got an email from our good friend jenn gates. a sweet girl that i mcqueen and i know from several snarky puppy trips. she said “hey man i’m havin a party, saw you don’t have a show. come down.” so basically doing that would be really irresponsibe, financially, as well as in terms of the potential for liver spots someday. but i couldn’t resist. so we had to go. we drove 11 hours from tulsa to new orleans. showed up. figured out a PA and played until the cops shut us down. it was a total blast and i’m so glad we did it. thanks again jenn. you’re the best

monroe: … monroe louisiana is a very interesting town. we played at the blue monkey with our good friends the feds. they destroy. i slept on a couch in a strange house that smelled a lot like crap. and this cat kept climing up to cuddle with my feet, but i’m allergic to cats so i kept trying to get it off the couch without touching it. so eventually i just grabbed a little towel and popped the cat with it locker room style, and it moved. but kept trying to come back. so i would just hold up the towel and it knew what was up. so i thought i’d won. but when i woke up i was staring face to face with a big cat turd. i did not win.

anyhoo. i’m sure there’s some footage from at least the monroe show that will be put up by the mighty estus himself at some point but i thought i’d let you know how things are goin. we’re having a blast. thanks everybody whos coming out to these shows.

No Comments » Posted by adrian / Uncategorized

Our new friends at Dallas Theater Center sent out this press release last week, so we wanted to share it with you. This is going to be awesome!

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Dallas Theater Center Artistic Director announces featured band for his Dallas directorial debut

DALLAS – July 14, 2008 – Dallas Theater Center Artistic Director Kevin Moriarty announced today that his DTC directorial debut, The Who’s Tommy, will feature local band Oso Closo. The five-member rock band, based in Denton, will appear in the legendary rock opera alongside actors who are still being cast in Dallas and New York.

“Oso Closo is one of my favorite local bands,” Moriarty said. “The moment I first heard their album, Rest, I was struck by their unique sound, inspired musicianship and fresh personality. Seeing them perform live confirmed for me that they will bring a bold musical style and dynamic personality to DTC’s production of Tommy, which will feature Oso Closo at the center of the production, singing, playing and interacting with the actors who will play the characters in the rock opera.”

The quintet’s eclectic style of blending genres like rock, pop, bluegrass, jazz and even mariachi with energetic strings and operatic inflections is a testament to the five members’ music education. Adrian Hulet (lead vocals, pianist), Ryan Jacobi (percussion), Chris McQueen (guitar, vocals), Lindsey Miller (guitar) and Andy Rogers (bass, vocals) have degrees from or ties to the renowned jazz program at the University of North Texas.

“We feel honored and overwhelmed to be a part of a piece of work as legendary as Tommy, particularly alongside an organization as accomplished as Dallas Theater Center,” Hulet said. “We’re shooting to remain true to the original, but with an especially unique interpretive approach.”

Oso Closo’s debut album, Rest, received rave reviews when it was locally released in 2007. A professionally remixed special edition of Rest featuring a live DVD will be released in conjunction with the run of The Who’s Tommy at DTC.

“They’re going to blow the roof off the building and bring a real rock sound and energy to the production,” Moriarty said. “For the first time in 50 years, the Kalita Humphreys Theater is going to truly rock.”

Before taking the stage in DTC’s season opener Sept. 2, Oso Closo’s summer tour includes Lola’s in Fort Worth July 11, The Deli in Norman, Okla. July 12, Exit 6C in Tulsa July 17, Hailey’s in Denton July 25, Flamingo Cantina in Austin July 31, Warehouse Live in Houston Aug. 1, and House of Blues with Fair to Midland in Dallas Aug. 2.

The Who’s Tommy will launch DTC’s 50th anniversary season and signal its commitment to producing a wide variety of musical theater pieces in singular productions, and its belief in collaborating with a wide range of local artists. 

“As a new member of the community, I’m deeply impressed by the vibrancy and talent of the local arts scene,” Moriarty said. “From rock bands in clubs to the diverse theater companies and the many outstanding cultural organizations throughout the city, Dallas is teaming with artistic life. As we look ahead to our move to the Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre at the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts one year from now, we’re already preparing to engage a wide variety of talented artists from Dallas and across the nation to create bold, exciting work here in Dallas for our community.”
All performances of The Who’s Tommy will be held at the Kalita Humphreys Theater, located at 3636 Turtle Creek Blvd. at Blackburn St. where it runs Aug. 27-Sept. 21. Preview performances are Aug. 27-Sept. 1. Opening night is Tuesday, Sept. 2 at 7:30 p.m. Performance times are Tuesday through Thursday evenings at 7:30 p.m.; Friday and Saturday evenings at 8:00 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday matinees at 2:00 p.m.; and select Sunday evenings at 7:30 p.m. Single ticket prices range from $16 to $60 and are available by calling the box office at 214.522.8499 or by visiting www.dallastheatercenter.org.

ABOUT DALLAS THEATER CENTER

One of the leading regional theaters in the country, DTC produces new, contemporary and classic plays and musicals to an audience of more than 90,000 patrons annually. DTC’s Mainstage season is presented at the Kalita Humphreys Theater, one of only three existing theaters designed and built by the legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright. In 2009, DTC will move into and become one of the resident companies of the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre, a multi-form space conceptualized by the Pritzker Prize-winning architect Rem Koolhaas.

The mission of DTC is to engage, entertain and inspire our diverse community by creating experiences that stimulate new ways of thinking and living. DTC is committed to consistently producing plays, educational programs and other initiatives that are of the highest quality and reach the broadest possible constituency.

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We’re really pumped about this, please come check it out, Aug 27 - Sep 28.

3 Comments » Posted by mcqueen / News and Updates

she lives next door to me. she’s pretty old. but she’s also old school. she doesn’t use air conditioning if she doesn’t have to. she just opens the front and back doors, and lets the air flow through all day. cool right? tough old lady. doesnt need any of your new fangled air cooling whatsits. anyway so the other day i’m on the porch and this dude comes out from between the houses. scares the crap out of me. he’s got on some tiny jean shorts of the cutoff variety, a jersey type of shirt. in terms of whether or not he was dressed, i’d say he was getting by on a technicality. also a bandana tied around his head. not in the biker way but in the daniel son way. so he walks up and introduces himself. i’m going to leave names out for now but we can just call him gus. cause thats a funny name. so gus is asking me about what i do and telling me that he’s old friends with this old lady next door. lets call her beulla. cause thats even funnier.  ok so he’s old friends with her. they’ve known eachother for a long time blah blah blah, here’s where it gets interesting. Gus starts asking me a lot of questions about what we’ve got in the house.  he’s gathered that we are musicians but is curious to see if we have some sort of recording setup or anything like that. so i’m starting to get the vibe that gus is casing our house. which makes me very uncomfortable. so i start making weird faces at him, in an effort to let him know its time to either get to the point or go away. he briefly apologizes for asking so many questions without making his intentions known. he goes on to explain that Beulla has been seeing strange things in and around our house lately and he was here to inquire about them.  here’s what she sees:

every night around “dusky dark” someone walks out of the house (this is my house mind you) and goes to the shed in the back yard. at this point there is some loud clicking noise that results in the emergence of a person who is dressed in a full set of armor.  shortly after this the armored man is joined by others and they all have what seems to be “a meeting at the trees” for some sort of  “oxygen cleansing ceremony” also it should be noted that there is definitely one of us that is “the preacher” and she’s not sure but it seems like we’re in some sort of cult. unless of course there is some strange explanation of these actions that she is not picking up on.

well darlin. i’ve often wondered if losing your mind is degenerative  or all at once. i wonder if this lady knew she was going crazy and it frustrated her or if she just woke up one day and started seeing armored men and stuff. i hope it was the latter. all of the seniors i know are losing control of their bodies. can’t pick up things they used to. hard to move around. i can see frustration in their eyes. sometimes its just downright fear. fear of dying, maybe fear of being a vegetable. in any case its not something i ever want to have to go through, and i know i will. ugh.

anyway that got dark.

so i tell the guy that the lady is obviously crazy. and sure enough. he doesn’t believe me. he says he does. but i’m pretty sure he’s not convinced that we’re not drinking our own pee and worshiping magnolias and oaks.  not sure. but its all good either way. gus and beulla seem very tolert

2 Comments » Posted by adrian / Uncategorized

So it’s 1:28 am and I just returned from a Night Speed mission with my two younger brothers. We made the middle-of-the-night run to our favorite 24 hour doughnut shop - Spunky Dunkers Doughnuts. Yep, that’s really what it’s called. Go nuts people. En route we listened to the King of the Roots albums (in my opinion), Game Theory. I decided I think the next Oso record should have some orchestral crash cymbal moments. Looking forward to getting back to Denton and Osoing this weekend. Cheers.

RJ

No Comments » Posted by jacobi / Uncategorized

Yes, it is in fact my first blog on the Oso site, and what better way for me to begin  than by telling readers about the third greatest day in my life; the first greatest day being the Jimmy Page and Robert Plant Walking Into Clarksdale tour in 1998, the second being the Robert Plant Mighty Rearranger Tour in 2004 and the third being the Robert Plant and Alison Krauss Raising Sand Tour, which just passed through DFW this past Monday.  Both Plant and Led Zeppelin have been my musical alpha and omega leading back to my days as a wide-eyed thirteen year old obsessively watching the Whole Lotta’ Love bit in “The Song Remains the Same”.  I’m now pushing twenty-five, and very little has changed.

I have to admit that this Robert Plant experience has been quite different from the past two.  The music he and Krauss performed is much more subdued than the Zeppelin catalog that most listeners are familiar with and I, therefore, do not feel that he unleashed in quite the same way that he stereotypically does.  I don’t necessarily mean this in a critical way. When Jimmy Page has done so much to beat the Zeppelin horse to  death i.e. two reunions with Plant, the Puff Daddy Kashmir remake, and the Black Crowes tour, I find it admirable that Plant  perseveres to separate himself from the Zeppelin legacy.  

While I could turn this particular blog into a concert review, I’d rather take this opportunity to enlighten readers on one of the many facets of my complex and bizarre personality.  It’s not possible for me to have a casual interest in anything.  All my interests are in actuality obsessions.  Led Zeppelin is perhaps the most long running of these dating back to my early teens.  Since the band is no longer together I can now only obsess over the one member who is still active touring and recording.    Rumors are flying that this may soon change.  With any luck the Zeppelin ship may be taking off again this spring.  

As these blogs continue I may feel more inclined to disclose my other life interests.  I fear, however, that readers may find me so strange that I’ll lose my only chance of ever landing a boyfriend or husband and will be earmarked as some type of “cat lady”, which I guess is cool.  I like cats. 

3 Comments » Posted by lindsey / Uncategorized

Three fifths of Oso Closo and friends blowing things up and singing songs. Amurrrica!

1 Comment » Posted by adrian / Uncategorized