Murphee K

EndGame album release!

Sat, 23 Nov 2013 19:14:09 -0700

Here's where you can download EndGame and/or buy from me:

And as before, here's the copy that I wrote:

Murphee K presents a pro-present, pro-future 3-song CD.

After recording The Missing in 2004, singer/songwriter George Ryan Perez took a long hiatus in Texas.  But throughout that stint, he felt there was a hint of incompleteness left by the 7 songs, so he patiently laid out the plans to address this shelved album.

In 2007 the opportunity arose for him to move back to Gainesville, Fla. where he soon learned that all of the original members have moved on, too.  (And rightly so.)  Undaunted, he started back from scratch and recruited friends in town to help him rekindle that sunny, thoughtful, catchy punk magic from years past.  This took a considerable amount of time, but eventually he found the right mix with bassist Chris H. and drummer Shuhei.

To an extent, this album reflects that rekindling process; it elicits the unfinished parts and fantasizes the grand promises of "what life might've been".  But it also recognizes that "the past is gone" and offers a mix of optimism and realism one usually attains with acceptance.  After a successful Indiegogo campaign, The Missing was released in 2012 — eight years after its recording.  And on the heels of that come these 3 songs from EndGame, its spiritual successor, the "final nail" that completes the set.

Closure never felt so good.

released 31 January 2013
© 2013 Murphee K

George Ryan Perez:  vocals/guitar
Chris Hencher:  bass/vocals
Shuhei Yoshida:  drums

Produced and recorded by Rob McGregor on April 2012 at Goldentone Studio in Gainesville, Florida.

All lyrics written by George Ryan Perez.

Additional music sample on "Final January" by NoiseCollector
freesound.org/people/NoiseCollector/sounds/43073/

Band photography:  Rob McGregor
Illustration:  Bryan Koszoru
Design/Layout:  Nancy Mae Perez

To the continued support from all our fans, friends and families.  To all the past members of Murphee K:  Trevor, Peter, Craig Ian, Matt, Nancy Mae, Chris R., Will, Ronnie, and Chris L. To Chris H. and Shuhei — aka. Murphee K version 3.3 — who recorded this album with me.  And to Gainesville, Fla. for your support early on and, after moving to Texas, having a way of sucking me back in.

Thank you for making this dream come true.

Special thanks to the 2012 Indiegogo sponsors:  Art and Gloria Perez, Melchor Perez, Mr./Mrs. Jason Martin, Glenn Turner, Maru Aiko, Alex Chubin, Dr. Ishimaru, Glenda Alicia Leung, Anna Liza Panton, Natividad Perez, Nicholas Hughes, Heshan Illangkoon, Tatiana Klimenko, Bryan Koszoru, Chloe Kwan, Eric Piard, rockho, Kris Simon, and (3) Anonymous.

-George Ryan

The Missing album release!

Fri, 08 Nov 2013 21:24:37 -0700

I finally released The Missing, and you can totally download and/or buy it from me here:

Aaaand here's the copy that I wrote for it:

Murphee K are long lost friends who play intense, melodic, and sincere pop punk.

Inspired by early 90's bay area punk music, "The Missing" delivers catchy hooks, vocal/instrumental harmonies, and honest stories that evoke longing and cherished memories best exemplified by "May" and "The Trinidad and Tobago Song."

Produced and recorded by Rob McGregor on November 2004 at Goldentone Studio in Gainesville, Florida, this album features George Ryan Perez on vocals/guitar, Peter Wadsworth on bass/vocals, Craig Ian H. on lead guitar/vocals, and Matt Pathak on drums, with guest vocals by Nancy Mae Perez on "May" and Matt Parker on "A Stubborn Star Story."

Life then took a hold on all four members, and the album was left in the shelves.  Eight years and a successful Indiegogo campaign thereafter, this album was finally released with the proper packaging.  And after eight years, its title has never been more fitting.

released 21 December 2012
© 2012 Murphee K

Proceeds from the first 300 copies of this CD will be given to the Home Van.
homevan.blogspot.com

George Ryan Perez:  vocals, guitar
Peter Wadsworth:  bass, vocals
Craig Ian H.:  lead guitar, vocals
Matt Pathak:  drums

Produced and recorded by Rob McGregor on November 2004 at Goldentone Studio in Gainesville, Florida.

All lyrics written by George Ryan Perez except for "Lit" (written by Don Salvatore).

Additional vocals on "May" by Nancy Mae Perez.
Additional vocals on "A Stubborn Star Story" by Matt Parker.

Photography:  Ami Patel
Model:  Wenli Hu
Band Photography:  Ted Hayes
Illustration:  Bryan Koszoru
Design/Layout:  Nancy Mae Perez

Special thanks to the 2012 Indiegogo sponsors:  Art and Gloria Perez, Melchor Perez, Shuhei, Mr./Mrs. Jason Martin, Glenn Turner, Maru Aiko, Alex Chubin, Dr. Ishimaru, Glenda Alicia Leung, Anna Liza Panton, Natividad Perez, Nicholas Hughes, Heshan Illangkoon, Tatiana Klimenko, Bryan Koszoru, Chloe Kwan, Eric Piard, rockho, Kris Simon, and (3) Anonymous.

-George Ryan

Murphee K fundraiser for 2 CD release

Fri, 05 Oct 2012 13:55:32 -0700

[Update]

New bonus incentives listed at the Indiegogo campaign page as the deadline gets near (5 hours left as of this writing!). If we somehow reach the $1234 goal, two things will happen:

I will draw one MPK Adventures webcomic and publish it before 2013

The one person who breaks the $1234 goal will receive an awesome drawing from Bryan

Please visit the campaign page to see the first look at the album covers designed by Bryan! Yeah!!!

O HAI

Hi, I'm George Ryan Perez, singer/songwriter for the Gainesville, FL indie-punk band Murphee K, and I am happy to announce that I'm releasing not just one but 2 music CDs!

Share This Campaign

http://igg.me/p/209240

Niiiiiice! Could you plz tell me about the 1st CD you're releasing?

The first CD I am releasing is the one I made with Craig, Peter, and Matt, and it's called The Missing. It has 7 songs and it was recorded in 2004 (then mixed in Aug 2005) from Goldentone Studios. If you like catchy punk tunes that make you want to dance and hug your friends, then this CD is for you! And OK there may be some parts in there that could induce crying spells, so anyway FAIR WARNING.

[I want to take a second here to address Craig, Peter, and Matt. Guys if you are reading this, thank you. I wanted to dedicate this to you all because of the work you've put into this, and I wanted to finally give it a proper release.]

Cool story, bro, but what about the 2nd CD?

The second CD I am releasing is the one I made with Chris and Shuhei this summer 2012, and it's called Endgame. This CD contains 3 songs, each of which tries to improve upon every song from The Missing on every aspect imaginable. (The key word here is "try".) A couple of songs are also garnished with samples from video game music, which -- as some of you know -- I am quite fanatic about.

[Chris and Shuhei -- thank you for investing your time and effort into this, you both are top notch.]

Like, whoa, I'd like to be a part of this. How can I help?

So, ho-kay, let's talk about you. You, dear reader, could be part of my journey of releasing both CDs simply by contributing to this fundraiser. (Check out the perks on the side to see what cool things you'd get as a contributer.) In return, I will judiciously use the funds to do five things:

Pay the costs of the cover art designs

Order a press run of both CDs

Sell the CDs to awesome people like you directly (via the band website) or indirectly through iTunes or other online services

Use whatever is left to make T-shirts, stickers, or other merchandise

[BONUS] Donate 100% of the proceeds made from the first CD's first press run to a local Gainesville, FL organization

Oooh, what's this donation thingy you're doing?

I just told you! OK, OK, one more time: all the proceeds from The Missing's first pressing will be donated to one local Gainesville, FL organization. This means that once I start selling The Missing (the first CD), 100% of the proceeds that I make from its sales during the first run will go to charity.

As of this writing, I am still working on which organization that is, and I'm leaning towards either the Civic Media Center or the H.O.M.E. Van since I've had dealings with them in the past, but if you have any other suggestions, feel free to contact me. And if you would like some more clarification regarding this donation, please contact me as well. (Email is the best way to contact me.)

Well sir, this sounds pretty cool!

Why thank you, random gal or guy, and thank you for visiting my campaign and reading this! And please forward this to anyone who would want to be part of this too! (The links for forwarding are located right below the video.)

-George Ryan

Playing with new toys

Sat, 23 May 2009 17:55:52 -0700

One of the toys I recently got is a new keyboard:  a Roland Fantom X6.  It is not a keyboard for coding.

This was similar to the keyboard that was lent to me while I was in a band in Houston.  I played both keyboard and guitar for that band and, while it was fun, it was not easy.

So now this totals five instruments (drums, 2 guitars, 1 keyboard, 1 laptop) played by three people in MPK.  Chris was able to make his synth laptop going during the last show, and over the past several weeks, we've been practicing.

The next two shows will reveal how well we've been incorporating the new toys.  Details for these two weekend shows -- Sunday, May 31 @ 1982 Bar and Friday, June 5 @ Tim and Terry's -- can be found on our shows page.  And one of them is $FREE!!

As usual, we'll try to live webcast the shows, but I don't know if Tim and Terry's have wifi.  Maybe someone can let me know?  Hope to see you online!

Photo by:  west.m

-George Ryan

A dark and stormy Sunday night

Sun, 22 Mar 2009 16:06:55 -0700

So, ho-kay, we have a show this Sunday, March 29, with practice space neighbors Nomenclature -- cool guys whom we first met during one fateful night.

It was a dark and stormy night...erm, I mean, it was a very cold night, and we happened to have arrived at our practice space while they were already in full practice swing.  So we proceeded to set up our gear, tuned our guitars, connected all our instruments, and started producing feedback on our amps for our first song.  And as Chris, Ronnie, and I hit our first chord...

ZAP!

The fuse blew out.

We all went outside and it became apparent from the darkness that the entire side of the building's electricity was shorted.  This of course affected Nomenclature too.  And that is how we first met.

So this coming Sunday at ~9pm, we get the see perhaps the logical conslusion to that story when we play at 1982 with the aforementioned Nomenclature and The Butterfly Theory.  We'll try to live webcast this for our out-of-towne friends.

Now onto a totally unrelated subject...

This week I downloaded Internet Explorer 8, and it broke Murphee K dot com for a while.  (Sorta like a zapped fuse box?)  But thankfully, I was using conditional comments in choosing the correct CSS file, so fixing it was easy.  I placed the conditional comment I used to fix the bug below, but I'm not 100% sure if this is the right usage for IE8.  I do know, however, that it works:

But still, please use with caution.

-George Ryan

Debuting something new this Wed at 1982

Sun, 22 Feb 2009 18:50:50 -0700

So, ho-kay, here's what's been up since last we talked:

We have a show this Wednesday, February 25th at 1982 w/ Bo Coker, The Crash Moderns, Say When, Shotgun Diplomacy, and Call it Conflict.  We're playing around 9 or so, so come early!  We might also live webcast this show, depending on my laptop.  So maybe.

We've been working on three new songs!  One of those ("Nasaan Ka Ba") is a new "old" song I first wrote years ago but never played out in public.  The lyrics are written entirely in Tagalog -- which I'm currently fine-tuning -- and we're gonna debut it for the show on Wednesday.

As for the other two new songs, Chris and I are working on their lyrics since their music is done.  Personally, I like how the new songs turned out as they are indicative of the direction we're going as a three piece.  The plan is to include these new songs when we record in the studio in late March.

One of my flickr pics was exhibited at the new Water exhibit at the Science Museum of Minnesota.  I visited it recently to make sure they weren't pulling my leg.  ;)

So, yeah, progress on different fronts.  And btw, if I mess up this Wednesday while singing that one song with the weird sounding lyrics, don't laugh, I must've forgotten the lyrics!  Then afterwards, come say hi and laugh with me, ok?!

-George Ryan

A Kung Fu recap

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 22:41:27 -0700

If you caught the show this past Tuesday night, thanks for coming! I try to write these recaps relatively close after the show, typically the day after, but weeknight shows mean that I have to get up early the next morning. So after a recovery period -- one that I think at least two of us needed -- here we are.

First, the live webcast. After months of toying around with air cards, cell phones, and their associated data plans, it turns out that what I had already in the beginning when I first started doing this -- a network card connected to 1982's free wifi -- was best. Any bands that want to do live webcasts from 1982 can easily do it with just an old laptop, wifi access, and at least a webcam. Now, I could comment on other venues' "webcast potential", but dang dudes, we gotta play out in venues other than 1982 to do that!

Next, the bands. I wanna say congrats to Paxico via Mexico for a successful first show! (Or was it really their first show? I'm not sure.) My first show was at...umm, I think...oh man, on an open mic night! And at the same venue! Except it was still called Common Grounds, and the attendance was much MUCH less. :'(

I also want to send some mad propers to The Kung Fu Girls -- I really enjoyed the vocal mix when I was listening at the back. I hope they enjoy their stay here in Florida...they must be at Pembroke Pines (or beyond) as I write this. It's rare for touring bands to go all the way to South Florida, so I wish them well. And I finally am glad to see Sweet City Action's set. They, are, hmm, um, how you say, quite interesting? It's hard to pinpoint their style of music, and I mean that as a compliment. For one thing, they play their instruments really well; I had the same feeling of amazement afterwards when I see Select Start...it must be the violins.

As for us, we'll be concentrating on new stuff and continue tightening our set. No shows planned yet, but you can subscribe to our Shows Listings RSS feed for that. See you all next time!

-George Ryan

Ska show synopsis

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 23:28:57 -0700

First of all, to those of you who caught the show on the live webcast: OUR BAD!! We somehow missed the power supply for the camera, so we ended up using the backup (a low-quality webcam/mic). This backup plus the non-3G internet connection equals: hella shitty webcast!

We'll do better next time; I've already set in motion a way into using an EVDO card for the webcast, which I've used before as a trial run, and it turned out to be the best option possible (while also being fairly reliable). Sure there's free wifi in 1982, but what of the times when we don't play in 1982. WHAT THEN, INTERNETS?!?

So, ho-kay, if you saw the show through the shitty webcast, you probably missed how lively Royal City Riot were, or how awesome The Set-Back were, or how good Chupaskabra sounded, or how energetic The Duppies were. (Angry Banana had to stay put in Louisiana coz of the hurricane.) Every band we played with that night were sooo good, and the crowd too! And the latter was clearly evident in how soaked in sweat the floor was afterwards. It felt bittersweet to leave that cauldron of happiness that night, but then my aching neck was saying otherwise.

Much love to everyone who managed to catch us live; don't start a mini-riot next time, ok guys?!?! Also: if you have taken pictures of us, please let me know! Or maybe you can post it on your flickr account and you can lead me to them!

-George Ryan

Six bands on Saturday, early show!

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 13:05:36 -0700

I am totally stoked about this Saturday's show coz (1) it's on the first weekend of the new school year, (2) it's after the first football game of the year, and (3) ska ska ska! Man!!

Given the sure awesomeness of this show, we're gonna eschew with our TODO list's usual practicality. Instead, we're gonna keep it simple:

Guys! Let's, um, let's try to be awesome?
And, yeah, don't forget: let's poison out the suck!
However, if we do suck, that's ok! If we perform the same suckiness again two measures later, no one will notice :P

So come out come out this Saturday, August 30th at 1982 to see Royal City Riot, The Set-back, then us, Angry Banana, Chupaskabra, and The Duppies. It's an early show so be there around 7 (bands start at 7:40). Or, if you're out-of-towne, you can watch the live webcast at our usual page.

Bring your dancing shoes!!

-George Ryan

On the cover and a new home page

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 00:36:57 -0700

[Update 07/12/2008] Cover and article scans were replaced with the original jpgs!

If you happen to stroll through the UF campus this week, go pick up a copy of The Student Beat to catch a glimpse of three familiar dudes on the cover. I wanted to link to the article, but the googles didn't turn up anything. So I had to scan the article, but I had to cut it off coz the paper was too wide. You can view the scan of the article here. Here's my favorite line from the article:

After a handful of bassists and several drummers moved on, the current trio is more like Murphee K 4.6. And it's just now being released without any bugs or glitches.

A programming joke! Hah!

In website news, I've re-coded Murphee dash K dot com to show the latest photo and latest comic on the home page. There were other backend upgrades like ensuring that each thumbnail image get rendered in smaller download sizes, but I won't get into that. The main obstacle with putting the latest photo on the home page was keeping the resulting download size small, and I did that by first saving the large, original picture into a cache so that it doesn't overload flickr's servers, and then rendering that picture into a smaller picture by a small ASP.NET function, and oh look I just broke my promise of not talking about it.

-George Ryan