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New Music Monday: PHOX

By Dave Sanford Aug 8, 2014 7:03 PM

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PHOX — Image used with permission by copyright holder

PHOX is a bunch of friends from the Midwestern circus hamlet, Baraboo, WI, a place where kids often drink poisoned groundwater and become endowed mutants. They make music that straddles Feist and Monty Python.

It was in Baraboo that the six unlikely musicians attended high school together, some playing on the soccer field, others on video production sets. But in a town with a drive-your-tractor-to-school day, they didn’t last.

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They did the thing that most people do when they are 18: they fled the coop, each going their separate ways (to film school, cosmetology school, a job with Homeland Security…). But promises were made that couldn’t be kept, and as they fell in unrequited love and lost their respective jobs, in spite of themselves, each simultaneously pulled the ripcord and came home.

The sextet promptly (-ish) got a house together in the Portland of the heartland, Madison, WI. As prolifically documented in their online video series, PHOX rekindled their onetime A/V production house while discovering how to live as a family (i.e. how not to berate each other about the hair in the sink).

After two years of cohabiting, PHOX beheld a demo reel of bedroom-recorded music (and home movies) that made Bon Iver and The Fray recording engineer Brian Joseph blush. Donning his producer’s cape (and occasional lab coat), Joseph cheer-led the band through its debut album at April Base Studios in Eau Claire, WI.

Joseph’s enthusiasm propelled the band through the production of more than a dozen songs that have been swimming in the think tank for two years.

Mixed by Michael Brauer at Electric Lady in NYC, their debut album is a school of simple folk-pop songs swimming amidst a chaotic eddy of rock, psychedelia, and soul.

If the goal here is friendship, PHOX is doing quite well. If the chosen path is blue collar pixel-pushing and church camp trust falls, they’re on the way. And if their only coping mechanism is to lay down their arms and, for 30 or 45 minutes a day, shut up and listen to each other, you can’t be too upset.

Order PHOX’s self-titled debut album on iTunes, Amazon, or their official site!

http://phoxband.com/

Elevate your elegance: Choosing your first cigar

Face, Head, Person

Earlier this year, I was strolling the streets of New York and ended up sitting in the Carnegie Club with an Old Fashioned in one hand and a cigar in the other while My Way by Frank Sinatra played from a speaker flanking leather-bound books behind the couch I had been using as my perch. It was my first cigar, but it led to a slight obsession that recently found me on the back deck of a lodge in Kenya, staring at Mount Kilimanjaro and smoking a stick while giraffes meandered by. Admittedly, there has been no intention in my budding hobby; I am aimlessly choosing the cigars that look good (the ones that look like those smoked by Arnold or Stallone in the movies, obviously). But I have decided to approach these in a new way, with a little help from my friends over at La Aurora, who graciously decided to navigate my ignorance with some info compiled by Brand Manager John Gaglio, with input from Master Blender Manuel Ynoa, CEO Ed McKenna, and Brand Manager Elvis Batista.

What to look for in your first cigar

FIFA’s Gianni Infantino Is Uglifying the Beautiful Game With $20 Billion Plot — But the Global Soccer Community’s Punching Back

People, Person, Crowd

For the better part of two decades, perhaps even more, corruption has allegedly run rampant within FIFA. Sepp Blatter, in particular, became the face of alleged extortion schemes, and he operated with impunity while at the helm of the organization for 17 years, from 1998 until his forced resignation in 2015 amid an FBI corruption probe. He’s banned for life from all football-related FIFA activities. If you’re new to the organization’s alleged deep connection to corruption, Netflix offers a brilliant 2022 documentary, FIFA Uncovered. In that documentary, Gianni Infantino appears in his previous capacity as Secretary General of UEFA (2009-2016) and later as the newly elected FIFA president, who vowed to root out corruption and hand the beautiful game back to the people where it belongs.

That, as it turns out, was all wishful thinking.

Escobar Cigars, Co-Owned by Nas, Drops Four-Profile Robusto House Blend Collection

Blade, Knife, Weapon

Imagine that, Nas is getting closer to ruling the cigar world. The legendary rapper’s Escobar Cigars, which he co-owns, is making waves with the launch of a new four-profile House Blend collection. The launch is in partnership with Cigar Chief, one of North America’s largest premium cigar retailers.

The Manual has not yet had the chance to do a taste review (a pack is on the way), but Escobar Cigars says the four-profile House Blend collection (Maduro, Premium Blend Connecticut, Habano, and Connecticut Robusto) “has its own distinct wrapper, filler, and strength profile,” and that “all four are rolled in 5 x 52 Robusto format using classic Cubano entubado construction.”