I no longer use the "sportmurphy.com" email listed elsewhere online. try myspace/facebook if you have something to say or ask.
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Tuesday, March 04, 2003
OK - full disclosure - I directly accused Isaac Guzman of being a mere "ink-tease" ...the sort of slut-scribe who tempts you with promises of coverage in order to lure your boon companionship. I still think the guy is only looking to enhance his prestige / quality of life by placating me with press so I'll hang with him, but nevertheless, he has come through. Here's a nice tight piece - not overly ruined by editors, I trust, though I do sense that moony tangents about my brilliance may have been cut for space - at last seeing daylight in today's New York Daily News. Buy copies for relatives. WRITE CONCISE "LETTERS TO THE EDITOR" IN RESPONSE, since if you send one clever and gripping enough (you 5: write witty ones... you other 5: write moving and poignant ones... you last 2: write glib and hip ones. Now... GO!) it'll mean more ink via the letters column, and maybe it'll even make Isaac look good to his bosses. Share the piece with your dim, disinterested-in-music relatives and slug co-workers and say "Look, I know this guy! You should get this!" Legit proletarian newsprint attention! I'm not kidding! They'll buy, jack, they'll buy! Man, I'm already thumbing through vacation brochures. Thanks, Isaac, I toast you with the fine fine Scotch that has kept me up this late.
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/story/64150p-59780c.html
A heart-tugging cry of 'Uncle'
By ISAAC GUZMAN
DAILY NEWS FEATURE WRITER
In the 17 months following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, dozens of musicians, ranging from elder statesman Bruce Springsteen to the "riot grrrl" band Sleater-Kinney, have released songs about the tragedy. But few, if any, have made a statement as personal as "Uncle," the third album from Long Island's Sport Murphy. The record's 22 tracks were all written and recorded as a tribute to Murphy's nephew, Pete Vega, a firefighter who died after Brooklyn Heights Ladder Co. 118 responded to the World Trade Center attack.
Murphy, 43, and Vega, who was 36 with a wife and daughter when he died, were practically raised as brothers in Brooklyn's Windsor Terrace neighborhood. Murphy was so distraught that he started drinking after several years of sobriety. But he resisted writing anything about Vega, so that he wouldn't be accused of trying to "capitalize on 9/11 sympathy and propping myself up as some kind of spokesperson."
Months later, however, the songs finally began pouring out. Some, such
as "No Fair" and "Everybody's Gone," were filled with grief. Others, like "Johnny Lightning," recalled the pair's youthful high jinks, some of which found their way onto the album due to Murphy's childhood fascination with portable tape recorders.
"It all just kind of came spilling out," Murphy says. "Some nights were emotional, but it was a good release that way. Some of it was just frustrating because I felt like nothing I could do could say enough."
Released on the Kill Rock Stars label, the album has received high critical praise. Britain's Uncut magazine called Murphy "a skewed pop visionary" who is "the true heir to the mercurial genius of [the Beach Boys'] 'Pet Sounds.'"
Ranging from bizarre analog keyboard experiments to lush folk-pop and even a take on Charles A. Tindley's 1901 gospel song "What Are They Doing in Heaven Today," "Uncle" covers a wide musical terrain. Once the leader of the local alternative rock band the Skels, Murphy has been drawn to unlikely sources, such as early-20th-centry composer Charles Ives and 19th-century songwriter Stephen Foster, as well as modern-era musicians Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks (who appears on the album).
"Sport's not relying on cliches," says David Garland, host of WNYC's "Spinning on Air. "He's being inventive with the music and the words, yet the end result is not something terribly highfalutin."
In fact, Garland was so taken with Murphy's approach that he plays on several of "Uncle's" tracks. He's one of nearly two dozen musicians who participated on the album. It's an approach that Murphy has fostered since releasing his first solo album, "Willoughby," in 1999.
What stands out most, however, is the naked honesty that informs every song. In remembering his nephew, Murphy found a powerful source of inspiration, one that is nearly as palpable in the music as it was during Vega's life.
"He was an adrenaline junkie," Murphy says. "He was always jumping out of planes. Before he died, the life he led and the risks he took were pretty instructive when I would get self-pitying about how tough it was to be a musician."
March 3, 2003
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/story/64150p-59780c.html
A heart-tugging cry of 'Uncle'
By ISAAC GUZMAN
DAILY NEWS FEATURE WRITER
In the 17 months following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, dozens of musicians, ranging from elder statesman Bruce Springsteen to the "riot grrrl" band Sleater-Kinney, have released songs about the tragedy. But few, if any, have made a statement as personal as "Uncle," the third album from Long Island's Sport Murphy. The record's 22 tracks were all written and recorded as a tribute to Murphy's nephew, Pete Vega, a firefighter who died after Brooklyn Heights Ladder Co. 118 responded to the World Trade Center attack.
Murphy, 43, and Vega, who was 36 with a wife and daughter when he died, were practically raised as brothers in Brooklyn's Windsor Terrace neighborhood. Murphy was so distraught that he started drinking after several years of sobriety. But he resisted writing anything about Vega, so that he wouldn't be accused of trying to "capitalize on 9/11 sympathy and propping myself up as some kind of spokesperson."
Months later, however, the songs finally began pouring out. Some, such
as "No Fair" and "Everybody's Gone," were filled with grief. Others, like "Johnny Lightning," recalled the pair's youthful high jinks, some of which found their way onto the album due to Murphy's childhood fascination with portable tape recorders.
"It all just kind of came spilling out," Murphy says. "Some nights were emotional, but it was a good release that way. Some of it was just frustrating because I felt like nothing I could do could say enough."
Released on the Kill Rock Stars label, the album has received high critical praise. Britain's Uncut magazine called Murphy "a skewed pop visionary" who is "the true heir to the mercurial genius of [the Beach Boys'] 'Pet Sounds.'"
Ranging from bizarre analog keyboard experiments to lush folk-pop and even a take on Charles A. Tindley's 1901 gospel song "What Are They Doing in Heaven Today," "Uncle" covers a wide musical terrain. Once the leader of the local alternative rock band the Skels, Murphy has been drawn to unlikely sources, such as early-20th-centry composer Charles Ives and 19th-century songwriter Stephen Foster, as well as modern-era musicians Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks (who appears on the album).
"Sport's not relying on cliches," says David Garland, host of WNYC's "Spinning on Air. "He's being inventive with the music and the words, yet the end result is not something terribly highfalutin."
In fact, Garland was so taken with Murphy's approach that he plays on several of "Uncle's" tracks. He's one of nearly two dozen musicians who participated on the album. It's an approach that Murphy has fostered since releasing his first solo album, "Willoughby," in 1999.
What stands out most, however, is the naked honesty that informs every song. In remembering his nephew, Murphy found a powerful source of inspiration, one that is nearly as palpable in the music as it was during Vega's life.
"He was an adrenaline junkie," Murphy says. "He was always jumping out of planes. Before he died, the life he led and the risks he took were pretty instructive when I would get self-pitying about how tough it was to be a musician."
March 3, 2003
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