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Wiretap Scars
''Wiretap Scars'' is an album by Sparta, released on August 13, 2002 on DreamWorks Records and peaked at number 71 on the ''Billboard'' 200. Only months separated this release from their debut EP '' Austere''. The album is greatly influenced by the music of At the Drive-In, with whom most of Sparta's members originally played before their split in 2001. The vocals and track naming in particular reflect At the Drive-In's ''Relationship of Command'', the last album made by the group. This is in contrast to the music of The Mars Volta, formed by two other members of ATDI (Omar and Cedric), which departs entirely from the post-hardcore genre. Critical reception ''Wiretap Scars'' garnered positive reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average rating of 69, based on 14 reviews. Drowned in Sound's Andy Frankowski commended the band for retaining the Drive-In sound while offerin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sparta (band)
Sparta is an American rock band from El Paso, Texas, formed in 2001. The band currently consists of Jim Ward (vocals, guitar) and Matt Miller (bass), who are touring as a three-piece with rotating session drummers. Founding members Ward, Paul Hinojos, and Tony Hajjar were members of post-hardcore group At the Drive-In, forming Sparta in 2001 after the break-up of their former band. The band entered a hiatus from 2008 onwards for Ward to focus on his solo career and side projects, reuniting from 2011 to 2013 for a series of shows and permanently reuniting in 2017. The band has released four studio albums to date, with their fourth, ''Trust the River'', being released in 2020 after a 14-year break between releases. Sparta's music has been described by ''Pitchfork'' as "anxious, epic guitar rock", and have been described by ''SPIN Magazine'' as having "a reliably cathartic and emotionally charged presence". History ''Austere'' (2001–2002) After the demise of their previous ban ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the database was first made available on the Internet in 1994. AllMusic is owned by RhythmOne. History AllMusic was launched as ''All Music Guide'' by Michael Erlewine, a "compulsive archivist, noted astrologer, Buddhist scholar and musician". He became interested in using computers for his astrological work in the mid-1970s and founded a software company, Matrix, in 1977. In the early 1990s, as CDs replaced LPs as the dominant format for recorded music, Erlewine purchased what he thought was a CD of early recordings by Little Richard. After buying it he discovered it was a "flaccid latter-day rehash". Frustrated with the labeling, he researched using metadata to create a music guide. In 1990, in Big Rapids, Michigan, he founded ''All Music Guide' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Matt Miller (musician)
Matt Miller is a native of El Paso, Texas and the bassist for the Post-hardcore band, Sparta. He currently resides in Los Angeles, California. Sparta Matt Miller joined vocalist Jim Ward, drummer Tony Hajjar, and guitarist Paul Hinojos in Sparta a few months after its conception when original bassist Erick Sanger was let go from the group, and Miller's previous band Belknap broke up. The fact that Sparta was starting so soon after the break-up of his bandmates previous effort, ''At the Drive-In'', did not faze Miller, though he knew the band would have a rough start. For the band's first record, ''Wiretap Scars'', all members contributed lyrics, and Miller was no exception. Though Sparta's frontman Ward now takes on lyrical duties by himself; Miller has expanded his role in the group, now providing back-up vocals along with guitarist Keeley Davis (Hinojos has since left the group). Also, some songs on their latest album, ''Threes'', are noticeably more bass orientated. The first ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paul Hinojos
Pablo J. Hinojos-Gonzalez (born July 17, 1975), also known as Paul Hinojos, is an American musician best known as the bass guitarist for At the Drive-In, and former touring member of The Mars Volta. He is also a former guitarist of Sparta. Biography Hinojos was born in Los Angeles. He met future bandmate Omar Rodríguez-López at the age of 13 in El Paso, Texas and apparently introduced Omar to another close friend and collaborator Cedric Bixler-Zavala. Rodriguez-Lopez and Bixler-Zavala would later ask him to join At the Drive-In after some significant member changes in 1996, making him a part of the band's most successful and well-known line up. After At the Drive-In took an indefinite hiatus in 2001, Hinojos, along with fellow ATDI members Jim Ward and Tony Hajjar, formed the band Sparta. Hinojos left Sparta in 2005, quoted as saying, "My time with Sparta has run its course, and simply wasn't fun anymore." A few days later, it was announced that he had joined The Mars Volta, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jim Ward (musician)
James David Ward (born September 19, 1976) is an American musician. A self-taught guitarist and pianist, he is the lead singer and rhythm guitarist for the band Sparta; he is also a co-founder of the post-hardcore band At the Drive-In, which he formed in 1993 when he was 17 years old. At the Drive-In While in At the Drive-In, Ward played guitar and sang backup vocals, as well as playing piano and keyboards on select songs. He performed lead vocals on two tracks, entitled ''"Hourglass"'' and ''"Ursa Minor"'', as well as singing co-lead with lead vocalist Cedric Bixler-Zavala on a number of tracks. Using the money from his college savings, he created the label "Western Breed Records" specifically to release Hell Paso and Alfaro Vive, Carajo!, At the Drive-in's first two releases. After the demise of At the Drive-In, Ward has stated that he is happy with the break-up, that he started the band when he was 17, and felt like he was always 17 while in the band. On January 9, 2012, it ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Onion
''The Onion'' is an American digital media company and newspaper organization that publishes satirical articles on international, national, and local news. The company is based in Chicago but originated as a weekly print publication on August 29, 1988 in Madison, Wisconsin. ''The Onion'' began publishing online in early 1996. In 2007, they began publishing satirical news audio and video online as the ''Onion News Network''. In 2013, ''The Onion'' ceased publishing its print edition and launched Onion Labs, an advertising agency. ''The Onion''s articles cover current events, both real and fictional, parodying the tone and format of traditional news organizations with stories, editorials, and man-on-the-street interviews using a traditional news website layout and an editorial voice modeled after that of the Associated Press. The publication's humor often depends on presenting mundane, everyday events as newsworthy, surreal, or alarming, such as "Rotation Of Earth Plunges Entire N ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The A
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the most frequently used word in the English language; studies and analyses of texts have found it to account for seven percent of all printed English-language words. It is derived from gendered articles in Old English which combined in Middle English and now has a single form used with pronouns of any gender. The word can be used with both singular and plural nouns, and with a noun that starts with any letter. This is different from many other languages, which have different forms of the definite article for different genders or numbers. Pronunciation In most dialects, "the" is pronounced as (with the voiced dental fricative followed by a schwa) when followed by a consonant sound, and as (homophone of pronoun ''thee'') when followed by a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Weighted Mean
The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The notion of weighted mean plays a role in descriptive statistics and also occurs in a more general form in several other areas of mathematics. If all the weights are equal, then the weighted mean is the same as the arithmetic mean. While weighted means generally behave in a similar fashion to arithmetic means, they do have a few counterintuitive properties, as captured for instance in Simpson's paradox. Examples Basic example Given two school with 20 students, one with 30 test grades in each class as follows: :Morning class = :Afternoon class = The mean for the morning class is 80 and the mean of the afternoon class is 90. The unweighted mean of the two means is 85. However, this does not account for the difference in number of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Standard Score
In statistics, the standard score is the number of standard deviations by which the value of a raw score (i.e., an observed value or data point) is above or below the mean value of what is being observed or measured. Raw scores above the mean have positive standard scores, while those below the mean have negative standard scores. It is calculated by subtracting the population mean from an individual raw score and then dividing the difference by the population standard deviation. This process of converting a raw score into a standard score is called standardizing or normalizing (however, "normalizing" can refer to many types of ratios; see normalization for more). Standard scores are most commonly called ''z''-scores; the two terms may be used interchangeably, as they are in this article. Other equivalent terms in use include z-values, normal scores, standardized variables and pull in high energy physics. Computing a z-score requires knowledge of the mean and standard dev ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Music Journalism
Music journalism (or music criticism) is media criticism and reporting about music topics, including popular music, classical music, and traditional music. Journalists began writing about music in the eighteenth century, providing commentary on what is now regarded as classical music. In the 1960s, music journalism began more prominently covering popular music like rock and pop after the breakthrough of The Beatles. With the rise of the internet in the 2000s, music criticism developed an increasingly large online presence with music bloggers, aspiring music critics, and established critics supplementing print media online. Music journalism today includes reviews of songs, albums and live concerts, profiles of recording artists, and reporting of artist news and music events. Origins in classical music criticism Music journalism has its roots in classical music criticism, which has traditionally comprised the study, discussion, evaluation, and interpretation of music that has be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sputnikmusic
Sputnikmusic is an American music community website offering music criticism and music news alongside features commonly associated with wiki-style websites. The format of the website is unusual in that it includes both professional and amateur content, distinguishing it from professionally written music websites such as ''Pitchfork'' and ''Tiny Mix Tapes'', as well as collecting and presenting a wiki-style metadata database in a manner comparable to Rate Your Music and Discogs. Over time, the site came to be established as a credible source; it is now among the sources that Metacritic uses to compile "Critic Scores" and is used as a news source by other websites. As a general rule, the staff writers tended to focus on new releases; however, any user was welcome to submit a review of any album that has been officially released. All genres of music were covered by the site, with dedicated subsections for metal, punk, indie, rock, hip hop, and pop; an 'Other' section also caters ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jann Wenner
Jann Simon Wenner ( ; born January 7, 1946) is an American magazine magnate who is a co-founder of the popular culture magazine ''Rolling Stone'', and former owner of '' Men's Journal'' magazine. He participated in the Free Speech Movement while attending the University of California, Berkeley. Wenner, with his mentor Ralph J. Gleason, co-founded ''Rolling Stone'' in 1967. Later in his career, Wenner co-founded the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and founded other publications. As a publisher and media figure, he has faced controversy regarding Hall of Fame eligibility favoritism, the breakdown of his relationship with gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, and criticism that his magazine's reviews were biased. Early life and career Wenner was born in New York City, the son of Sim and Edward Wenner. He grew up in a secular Jewish family. His parents divorced in 1958, and he and his sisters, Kate and Merlyn, were sent to boarding schools. He completed his secondary education at the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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