Two Guy Trio

"Many moons ago this little town was known for a few things; two of them being the university and blues driven guitar rock. Obviously, things have changed. Luckily, the university is still here and the dinosaur blues have given way to the new musical flavor- power pop. I know pop has been in Austin for awhile, but every year another band comes out who is better than the last one. Case in point Two Guy Trio. Your Rock-N-Roll Birthday is a great, local album. The media kit is even better but that's another story. Each song seems to have all the required ingredients to make these guys big. Why aren't your local stations playing them? Are Staind songs that good? You tell me another band that incorporates "Like a Prayer" lyrics better than on "Fumes From Downtown" and I'll tell you to shut up and go buy this album. I'm not into ranking albums but if I were this would definitely fit into my top ten local CD's of 2002."
- Limp Lizarino

Kazaa looks to legitimate arm to survive
By Anick Jesdanun, Associated Press, 2/3/2003
NEW YORK -- Two Guy Trio's singer, Evan Gamble, doesn't mind that bootleg copies of his band's ''Shelby Sugarcane'' are spreading on the Internet through the Kazaa file-sharing system.
A half-million fans have downloaded legal copies of the song through Kazaa, the Internet's leading bazaar. Illicit trading by a few million others is a minor nuisance. More important is Kazaa's ability to let an emerging pop-rock band like his find an audience.
''Whether it's licensed or unlicensed, it's a fan,'' said Gamble, 21, a junior at the University of Texas. ''We want people to hear the music, so they'll buy the album, so they will come to the show and request songs on the radio.''
Kazaa's owners at Sharman Networks Ltd. are trying to build a business out of giving stuff away on the Internet, so artists like Two Guy Trio can flourish.
If only the major music labels would cooperate.
Of course, that would mean embracing a network engaged in what the entertainment industry considers massive digital theft. Instead, the industry has sued to shut it down.
Sharman and its partner, Altnet, say the entertainment moguls ought to accept file-sharing as a viable distribution method.
Altnet already offers a payment mechanism. Problem is, the songs that Altnet embeds with copy protection are but a trickle in the flood of pirated files available through Kazaa.
Kevin Bermeister, Altnet's chief executive, says he has tried to establish a working relationship with music companies -- even after they sued. He says he has sometimes won the interest of executives, but never their lawyers.
Maybe that's because Kazaa is exceeding the success of its ill-fated predecessor, Napster.
Download.com distributes about 14 million copies of Kazaa software each month. At a typical moment, about 4 million Kazaa users are sharing some 800 million files -- movies, pictures, songs and more. Most are unauthorized.
''I don't think it's legitimate to have a business model that depends on piggybacking on an unlawful enterprise,'' said Robert Schwartz, a Los Angeles lawyer who represents AOL Time Warner's music and movie units.
Matthew Oppenheim, the recording industry's senior vice president for business and legal affairs, compared Altnet's offer to a robber trying to sell security to a bank. ''If this is a company that really wants to be in a legitimate business, they would get out of the illegitimate business first,'' Oppenheim said.
But while they build that legitimate business, the companies behind Kazaa have refused to drop the free file-sharing, which brings them undisclosed advertising and other revenues.
Altnet says it's better to ease users into something new before dropping the old.
Search for songs on Kazaa and you get the authorized files on Altnet marked with an orange icon, alongside the regular shares in blue. After downloading an Altnet item, another click gets a license and informs of payments due.
Altnet even developed a micro-payment system so you can enter a credit card number once and combine charges from future buys.
In the case of Two Guy Trio, a music video costs just 10 cents and songs are free for 90 days, after which fans are encouraged to buy the album. Without a license, the song or video won't play.
Though the percentage of users walking the licensed road is still relatively low, Bermeister says it's increasing as folks get used to the process and Altnet makes payments easier.
''Even though people trade content illegally on Kazaa, if they are doing sufficient volumes of legitimate business, what's the problem?'' asks Gabe Zichermann of Trymedia Systems Inc., which distributes video games through Altnet.
The bigger challenge is content. Since its launch in May, Altnet acquired about 800 items for licensed distribution -- mostly video games and obscure songs. Major movie and music libraries remain unavailable.
''Sure, I'm frustrated,'' said Nikki Hemming, Sharman's chief executive. ''The only thing preventing this product from being this amazing distribution mechanism is the lack of cooperation.''
Copyright holders led by major studios and labels consider Sharman and other companies behind Kazaa as villains, rather than potential partners.
Last month, a federal judge in Los Angeles agreed to hear the industry's lawsuit, determining that Sharman, based on a South Pacific island, is subject to US copyright law. Sharman, whose main offices are in Sydney, Australia, countersued, accusing the entertainment industry of hoarding content in an illegal monopoly.
Sharman also hired Washington lobbyist Philip S. Corwin to persuade Congress -- unsuccessfully so far -- to force content providers to license their works, as well as to establish user fees to cover lost royalties.
The entertainment companies have set up their own subscription services like Movielink for movies, pressplay and MusicNet for music. - Nick Jesdanun

Best Bets
Friday, May 9, 2003

Two Guy Trio: Great music, strange math


Steven Alford and Evan Gamble were frontmen of rival bands at Stratford High School in Houston in 1998. In Gamble's words, they "were not really good." But when the two combined their efforts — for the sole purpose of "getting more girls" — sparks flew.

After graduation, they moved to Austin. Alford enrolled at St. Edward's University, Gamble at the University of Texas, but education is not their focus now. "We don't really take school (as) seriously as rock 'n' roll," Gamble said.

That's because they live for music, as frontmen for the Two Guy Trio, a power-pop/rock band. Bass player Jay Cesak and drummer Jason McKenzie round out the group. The origin of their moniker, producer Michael Barnett explains, is that when either Gamble or Alford sings lead, the three remaining members make up a trio. Hence "Two Guy Trio."

Their debut CD, "Your Rock-n-Roll Birthday," was released last September, and downloads of it — both legit and illegal versions — are skyrocketing. One legal file-sharing service says Two Guy Trio's single "Shelby Sugarcane" has received millions of downloads. If you missed their jam-packed shows at South by Southwest in March, catch them tonight at Spiro's.

- Ginger Cowles

Your Rock-n-Roll Birthday (Edible)
Two Guy Trio is a young Austin band with more than two guys and more than a trio. Two Guy Trio is also an Austin band with more than its fair share of novel songwriting talent and stylish song arrangement. On Your Rock-n-Roll Birthday, the local quartet has crafted songs so full of sugar and spice, the lush tones and thick harmonies are enough to make a listener sick with a sugar rush. With a little time, the solid rock power-pop surfaces to the top and molds catchy chorus after catchy chorus. While even too much of Matthew Sweet-inspired harmonies can be a bad thing, Two Guy Trio only let it get out of hand a handful of times. Take opener "Still Got It" for example, a song with such a simple, 21/2-minute life that still manages to pack greater punch than the more epic compositions such as "Back in My Direction." Keeping it short and very sweet is the strength of Two Guy Trio, and it makes the edgy melodies of songs like the pensive "Tired Boy" pronounced and articulate. Added to the mixture is a genre-bending cover of Stevie Wonder's "Sir Duke" that, while staying faithful to the original, pinpoints what makes Two Guy Trio better than many of its fellow local college-aged rock bands: They understand how to make rock pop. - Matt Dentler