Spotlight on the Skins!...             Trisha Reis

It is a fact that Poor Yorick has been blessed with excellent drummers throughout its existence.  From James in the early days (yes...lead guitarist James Johnson was, in fact our first drummer), to Perry Hubert, to Stephanie Bush,... lets face it...our percussionists have usually been one of the best, if not the best musician in the band.  So we'd like to take the opportunity to highlight one of our best assets as a band...our drummer/percussionist, TRISHA REIS.

We met Trish in the summer of 2003 as Poor Yorick was in the process of re-inventing itself yet again.  We were certainly impressed with her background: hailing from New Orleans; having been a journey-woman drummer in the LA area; and her current emphasis as a Music Therapist with severely challenged populations;..all of this made Trish a welcome asset to our little organization.

But the simple truth is, as anyone who has heard PY over the past nine subsequent years can testify,  Trish has got the "chops".  The truth be known, she makes us sound better by just being back there, holding down the groove.  No matter if it's Jazz, Salsa, Bassa nova, Swing, Blues, a Waltz, or straight four-in-the-bar Rock & Roll,..Trish drives it. Take a minute to give a listen to the infectious, percussive performance she gives on "Monkey and the Rat" , the driving syncopated snare/hy-hat patterns on the goofy "You Stole My Lunch", or the smooth, laid-back brush work on
"I Might Be Wrong"... a bit of alright!

At this point, Trish has been the longest tenured drummer with Poor Yorick, and all of us down here at the PY Head Office (Clown-In-The Ground Cental: subsidiary of Dead Jester Enterprises) feel damn lucky to have her...

So..ladies and gentlemen, we give you...Trisha Reis!

...just sayin'

Studio News: Looks like the boys down at Central have put their heads together yet again (we thought we heard the clatter of slide-rules) and there is some consensus down at the head office that the current recording project will receive yet another working title change .  In keeping with the up-coming/on-going election year "jockeying" shenanigans, the new project is now called, "Another Horse Race: a micro-opera-ette".  Final vocal tracks are being done as well as a set of transitional pieces for the final mix.  The usual bit of procrastination has reared its ugly head, but progress is being made anyway.

 
Also...we are looking forward to an up-coming show at Waterloo Ice House (38th Street and Medical, Austin, TX) a week from today, July 6th.  Music starts at 7 PM for this "dinner show".  Always a pleasure appearing there with the usual well-behaved crowds (aka. no broken furniture or unwanted tattoos at the end of the night).  Thought we'd just extend the Independence Day festivities a bit.  Good food, great staff,...do plan to join us....and bring an unsuspecting member of the public.

Poor Yorick "Lite" will be playing Wednesday night for patients at the Austin State Hospital. Nearly every member of PY, past and present, has worked at the hospital. Despite having all the shortcomings and frustrations one could expect from a state run psychiatric facility, ASH holds a special place in PY's collective hearts. Looking forward to providing a little entertainment for folks who haven't gotten the best shake in life. 

News at large (or even smaller):  Lovely time last night, 6/23, playing a private engagement in one Austin's sleepy, well-forested sub-urbs...very nice.  Good to see some old "fans" again and to have had the opportunity to conjure a few new fans as well.  Another grateful nod to our delightful hosts, Cody, Chris, Steve, and Sally!

Studio notes:  Work continues, and appears to be tapering toward an end, on the new 12-minute project,..now tentatively entitled "Another Horse Race: a micro-opera-ette"....still not sure about that yet though.

Video possibilities: have been rummaging around the archives at the head office and ran across some video of "live" performances from days-gone-by that perhaps require exposure yet again... (did we just threaten to expose ourselves?).  Stand by... perhaps we'll get some of these versions of classic Yorick tunes posted along with the associated footage.

Finally:  We would indeed be remiss today if we did not throw a small bit of confetti directly at our "lead bass player", Mr. Robert "Woody" Woodruff and wish him the happiest of Birthdays!..we'll leave it to him to comment and divulge which birthday this happens to be.

'Til we get further clearance from the boys-down-at-central, this is Ron...

Woody reports:
Spent the day in the basement...er...den...as recommended by the boys in central. Rehearsed PY's upcoming project...an election year rock opera with the theme of Best Government ($ can buy), and a special ode to Rush (or any other big daddy pundit who guides political dogma)....in the end...we can be fooled...Just tell me what I want to hear and then tell me more....

 At times we get puzzled looks from folks when we reveal the band's name...so on occasion we'll feel the need to explain.  To quote from William Shakespeare's 'Hamlet', Act 5, Scene 1...

"Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rims at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment,that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen?  Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come; make her laugh at that." 

Translation?...Yorick, the king's jester at one time, used to be hilarious!...but he's been dead for a while and nobody's laughing now.  So yuk it up while you can!

NEW WEBSITE ADDRESS!

www.pooryorickaustin.homestead.com

Search engines have yet to catch up to the change so we're making the site link as easy to find as we can.  Be sure to Bookmark or put it in your Favorites.

More work this afternoon on some over-dub guitar tracks with James.  

It used to take us a year to finish off an album's worth of material and get it out in CD format. We're now experimenting a bit, not so much with our sound (pretentious though that seems), but rather with an intention to not let ideas just sit around...to act on them...get a song or piece of music out of the studio, push it along and actually have it available for people to listen to ..and hopefully react to...good, bad, or in between...in a relatively short time span.  Current access to technology makes this more viable than ever before.  So please don't hesitate to follow our little digital-bread-crumb-trail over to Soundcloud.com, give a listen and make comment.  It is after all an experiment.  Do it for science!

News from Pseudo Pstudio:

We are sneaking up on completion of what we hope to be a micro-rock-opera-ette devoted to the upcoming (on-going) election year.   Still have some over-dubs to do,..including some Lost John piano here and there, a guitar track or two from James, a couple bass tracks from Woody, some Trisha stuff...not to mention tightening up vocal tracks with Ron as well.  This little opus has yet to be titled in its entirety (perhaps something about 'money' and 'elections'), though the individual songs included in the nearly 12 minute string include two newish compositions, "Up For Sale", and "I Can Be Fooled", to be spliced together with two re-recorded 'reboot' versions of previously released Yorick songs,  "Best Gova'ment Money Can Buy" and "Big Daddy".  If all goes well (note the lack of complete conviction), we hope to have something in presentable form posted on Soundcloud.com in the coming days/weeks...might even get a 'single' version posted on itunes, Amazon, etc...but that's not decided.  There's even the possibility (even less decided) of rendering an EP...complete with the 12 minute single along with separate, more developed versions of the newer tunes,..and a couple other 'B-sides' as well...but that would be an after-thought at this point.  Stay tuned!

This posting cleared by the Boys-Down-At-Central, PY head office, Ossipee, NH.

Studio news: Wanted to have folks visit  Soundcloud.com to hear some of latest musings...including a brand new tune, "Transmitter".  Be sure to make comments on the "blue bar" below each tune if you are so inclined.

Hey!...not to be to discrete about it, but...The Boys-Down-At-Central have radio-ed us that a couple Yoricians have birthdays comin' up!

In between recording and rehearsing for this and that...we wanted to let people know that the address of our WEBSITE HAS CHANGED.  The new address is www.pooryorickaustin.homestead.com

Search engines such as Yahoo, Bing, etc.  haven't caught up yet so be sure to bookmark it so you can stay current with all the news coming from the 'Boys-Down-At-Central' at the head office up in Ossippe, NH.

Studio news:  We've been cobbling together some tracks lately,...not for any album-like project per se,...though we do have an EP-Mini-Opera-thingy on the front burner...dedicated somewhat to the upcoming election year...it will feature a couple of new-ish tunes along with some older 'reboots' of  our more politically driven songs, and run about 11-12 minutes front to back..  Some of this is posted now on Soundcloud.  Hope to have something presentable and downloadable by mid summer!