Mavs Open '05-'06 Season with 77-62 Victory Over #24 Pittsburg State

Darnell Jones - #31 … G … Ht. 6-4 … Wt. 197 … JuniorMajor: Exercise ScienceSalt Lake City, Utah (Colorado Northwestern C.C./Cottonwood H.S.)
At Colorado Northwestern Community College: Averaged 18.2 points per game as a sophomore … Led the conference in scoring.At Cottonwood High School: Letterman … Two-time All-State selection … Led the state in scoring, averaging 21.1 points per game as a senior.Personal: Majoring in exercise science … Son of Kimberly Bravo … Known as "DJ" among teammates … Chose MSC for its players and coaching staff … Enjoys watching TV and hanging out with friends.

Golden, Colo.- Mesa State (1-0) men's basketball team opened their 2005-'06 season with a 77-62 win over #24 Pittsburg State (0-1) at the Colorado School of Mines Tip-off Classic.
Senior forward Darnell Jones (Salt Lake City) led all players with 19 points, 16 in the first half, hitting 5 of 9 from behind the arc. MSC had five players score in the victory, all five scoring in double figures. Andy Classick (Parker, CO) added 18 points and pulled down a team high eight rebounds.
MSC led 39-35 at half shooting 50 percent from the field (13-26). The Gorillas shot 47.8 percent in the first half and out rebounded the Mavs 18-9, yet had 12 first half turnovers.
In the second half the Mavericks extended their lead to double figures and led by as many as 19 points with 6:55 remaining in the game. MSC out rebounded PSU 23-11 and held the Gorillas to just 25.9 percent (7-27) from the floor in the second half.
MSC's Andre Carter (Salt Lake City) had a career high 16 points hitting 6 of 7 from the floor and a perfect 4 for 4 from behind the arc. Carter dished out four assists and recorded five steals. Stephen Soriano (Mayer, AZ) finished with 13 points, six rebounds and three assists. Senior guard Kenny Schlagel (Littleton, CO) coming off a foot injury, came off the bench for 11 points and four rebounds.
Adam Wall (Fresno, CA) recorded a game high five assists. Micky Schlagel (two rebounds, two assists, and one steal), Zane Davis (Garden City, KS) and Kurt Bangle (Garden City, KS) all contributed double digit minutes in the upset win.
The Mavericks will match up with #13 Nebraska-Omaha Saturday night in Golden.

Chris Whitley Obituary

Chris Whitley 1960-2005

Singer/songwriter and guitarist Chris Whitley passed away of lung cancer on Sunday, Nov. 20, in Houston, Texas, at age 45.
Chris is survived by his daughter, Trixie Whitley, 18, of Belgium, whose voice could occasionally be heard in the background of Chris's records over the years, as well as on stage with him. He is also survived by his brother, singer/guitarist Daniel Whitley (who contributed guitar to several of Chris's albums); his sister, Bridget Whitley Anderson, of Vermont; his ex-wife, Hélène Gevaert, of Belgium; and his father, Jerry Whitley, of New Jersey.
A man of rare poetic honesty, Chris maintained a resolute musical integrity throughout his career. His 12 albums, ranging from raw-boned folk-rock to lush electro-blues, had the thread of intense emotion and constant invention running through them.
Chris's hit debut LP, Living With the Law, came out on Columbia in 1991. His final album, Soft Dangerous Shores, came out in June 2005 via Messenger Records, the independent label he worked with most. The discs now seem like spiritual/aesthetic book-ends. Both mix roots-rock grit with heat-haze atmospherics and were produced/engineered by Malcolm Burn. If his beloved debut still contains some of his best-known songs, Soft Dangerous Shores has the elusive intertwining of organic and synthetic that Chris often held as an ideal.
Christopher Becker Whitley was born Aug. 31, 1960, in Houston, to a restless, artistic couple: His mother was a sculptress and painter; his father worked as an art director in a series of advertising jobs. As a family, they traveled through the Southwest, with many of the images the young boy absorbed finding their way later into songs. He once described his parents' music taste as formed "by race radio in the South." The real deal -- Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf -- seeped into their son's soul, eventually leading to Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix.
Chris's parents divorced when he was 11 years old, and he moved with his mother to a small cabin in Vermont. It was there that he learned to play guitar. Hearing Johnny Winter's "Dallas" was the seed for what would develop as Chris's keening instrumental style. Inspired by the naked, crying sound of the acoustic dobro in "Dallas," Chris bought a National steel dobro and taught himself how to play the blues with a bottleneck slide. He quit high school not long after, moving to New York City.
In Manhattan, Chris worked odd jobs and played on street corners in the West Village. Then, the owner of a travel agency who had long loved his playing offered Chris a free ticket to Belgium. During his sojourn there, he scored some minor success by playing dance music in a group called Oh No Rodeo (with Hélène and Alan Gevaert), even covering Prince tunes. The European experience was seminal in many ways, including his developing an abiding taste for Kraftwerk and other Euro-avatars. Belgium is also where his daughter was born.
Back in New York, Chris Whitley was working in a picture-frame factory when a photographer friend invited him along for an outdoor shoot. It was in a park that Chris was introduced to Daniel Lanois, producer of such top acts as U2 and Peter Gabriel. Lanois was a fellow guitarist, and his eclectic tastes mirrored Chris's own. Lanois helped Chris get his initial deal with Columbia to record his debut in the producer's New Orleans studio with Malcolm Burn (a Lanois protÈgÈ, who went on to work with Emmylou Harris and the Neville Brothers).
One of the all-time classic debuts, Living With the Law mines romance and regret, beauty and brooding in a vein of archetypal Americana. Cinematically produced, the album features fine detail players from the Lanois circle, but the focus rests firmly on Whitley's fallen-angel falsetto and his rustic virtuosity on National steel. "I Forget You Every Day" and the title song are aching dust-bowl ballads. "Make the Dirt Stick" whines and moans like a forlorn train whistle through the dark woods. "Big Sky Country" is a yearning plea for wider horizons, borne along by the virtual call-and-response of gospel harmonies.
Regarding his state-of-affairs when writing these initial songs, Chris once said: "The songs on Living With the Law were fatalistic, hopeless. My marriage was breaking up. I was working in a factory in my late 20s. But desperation can be a good impetus for writing songs." Those songs struck a chord. Rolling Stone magazine praised Chris as "a visionary. . . a bona-fide poet." Another admirer described Chris's songs as "haunting, like a Robert Frank photograph." Director Ridley Scott chose a song from the album, "Kick the Stones," for the "Thelma and Louise" soundtrack.
A long lull kept Chris from capitalizing completely on the success of his debut. Moreover, the four-year gap between Living With the Law and his sophomore disc sounds more like 40, as he sought to break free of any business-as-usual restrictions. With a psychosexual caterwaul redolent of power trios from Cream to Nirvana, Din of Ecstasy won Chris new hard-rock fans -- even as its mix of existential pain and poetic noise put off some listeners more attuned to the bucolic beauties of "Big Sky Country." The album's brazen masterstroke was to drag urban blues screaming into the late 20th century, conflating the spirits of Elmore James and Kurt Cobain with such riveting standouts as "Narcotic Prayer."
Chris's Sony swansong, Terra Incognita, saw his sound continuing to combust at the crossroads of Hendrixian drama and Delta soul. The album's ghostly psalm "Cool Wooden Crosses" would become a staple of his solo shows. Chris's departure from Sony could've been a defeat, but it ended up the best sort of medicine, as he stepped up to the indie challenge. The little New York label Messenger ended up selling more copies of his next album, 1998's Dirt Floor, than Sony had of Terra Incognita.
The folk-blues songs of Dirt Floor were recorded in a single day at his father's Vermont barn-cum-bike shop with producer Craig Street (known for his work with Cassandra Wilson, for whom Whitley provided studio guitar). Such sepia-toned songs as the title lament and "Scrapyard Lullaby" were powered by just the time-honored tools of voice, guitar, banjo and rhythmic boot. Recorded the next year in Chicago, Live at Martyrs' documents a great night of solo Whitley, including his sharp-edged cover of Kraftwerk's "The Model."
Around the same period, Chris also covered "I Can't Stand Myself" for a James Brown tribute disc, setting off sparks against a beat-box. But he painted a fully evocative picture of his influences with the 2000 all-covers set Perfect Day. Teamed with the earthy, empathetic rhythm duo from groove-jazz trio Medeski, Martin & Wood, Chris not only beautifully reanimated songs by Muddy Waters ("She's Alright"), Robert Johnson ("Stones in My Pathway") and Bob Dylan ("Fourth Time Around"); he also cut to the poetic heart of the Doors' "Crystal Ship" and Lou Reed's "Perfect Day" in a way that rivals the originals.
Rocket House, a 2001 release on ATO, was perhaps the most ambitious of Chris's career. Tony Mangurian's production opened new sonic vistas, from the buzzing electro-rock of the opener "To Joy (Revolution of the Innocents)" to the aching dreamscape of the closing "Something Shines." A Sony Legacy compilation, Long Way Around: An Anthology 1991-2001, not only traces Chris's Columbia years; it includes the lyrical Rocket House single "Say Goodbye" and highlights from Dirt Floor, as well as previously unreleased demos and alternative mixes.
In recent years, Chris had found romance and inspiration in Dresden, Germany. These days yielded some of his best work, with the albums Hotel Vast Horizon and War Crime Blues, as well as Weed (a set of solo remakes of early songs) and his only film score (for the German film Pigs Will Fly). In particular, War Crime Blues is a solo electric masterpiece of sympathy and antipathy by turns; such emotionally acute song suites are notably few and far between in the post-Iraq invasion era. The heartbroken title track, the raging desert storm of "God Left Town" and the Clash cover "The Call Up" serve as both salt and salve for collective wounds.
Chris recorded Soft Dangerous Shores last year with a supple German rhythm duo, bassist Heiko Schramm and drummer Matthias Macht. The album mixed deep-blues feel and rich jazz harmonies with erotic rhythm beds and electronic ambience. The idiom was the "universal blues," where the spirits of Robert Johnson and Jimi Hendrix, Keith Richards and Kraftwerk bond. "The blues sound different in different places," Chris said just prior to the disc's release. "But on a lonely, rainy night -- whether you're in New Orleans or New York or Dresden -- they feel the same."
Like most bluesmen of any era, Chris had his share of hellhounds on his trail. He chased a lot of them down in song and on stage; other times, demons got the best of him. But whether up or down in his career, Chris's sweet, generous nature and pure sensibility earned him lifelong friends and, as he put it, "guardian angels."
Although fully aware of his capabilities as a musician, Chris was a humble man, always cognizant of the standards set by his peers and predecessors. To sit with him backstage at a club or at a street-side café in the West Village, it was soon apparent that he considered each admirer and well-wisher who came up, known or new, something of a gift.
Chris recorded an a cappella rendition of the pop/jazz standard "Nature Boy" as the haunted close to War Crime Blues. The words may not be his, but his voice reveals wisdom hard-won over his time here: "The greatest thing you'll ever learn/Is just to love and be loved in return."
-- Bradley Bambarger

Chris Whitley 1960-2005

Chris Whitley 1960-2005

Words from Trixie Whitley:
My father took his last breath last night the 20th of November. I would like to make it clear that the people he needed and loved the most were with him while and when he left in peace. Those were Dan, Susann, my beloved mother Helene and me.
I would also like to ask you guys to understand there is a very fine line between Chris Whitley the legendary musician and Chris Whitley the Father, Brother, and Lover.
This was my Dad's favorite line from the first song I ever wrote, this is for you Daddy:
"Like the feather we blow away, in the thoughtlessness of words others say."
All faith and peace,Trixie Whitley

Words from Dan Whitley:
I just wanted to add Chris passed over surrounded by lots of love. The time we spent with Chris in these last days were something I'll never forget and these women whom I shared Chris's last moments with were just amazing.
Susann Buerger who was by his side nonstop (Chris planned to marry Susann) held him in his arms the moment he passed in absolute and total peace, the reason I mentioned this is I always felt being held by someone you love while you passed over was a truly special thing. Trixie my niece is one of the strongest young woman I have ever met and Chris was always so proud of her whenever we spoke, Im also incredibly proud to be her uncle and love her beyond words.
Corinne gave her home to Chris and the rest of us in this time of need and didnt stop taking care of things that needed to be taken care of the entire time, she gave us all a sanctuary to take care of Chris in and went way out of her way to help from the beginning and is still helping.Me, I pretty much just cried my ass off when I wasn't helping Susanne with Chris....still crying.
I hope you all will mourn my brothers death but more important celebrate his life as Chris was all about life and living... I started the celebration by cranking up Dirt floor in his honor...crying still.
Chris Whitley's Legacy will no doubt transcend all time.
Love and Light,Daniel

American Apparel in Center City

American Apparel in Center City: " The new American Apparel on Walnut/16th Sts is getting closer to opening. I took this shot Monday night. American Apparel has an interesting way of treating their workers. Their mission statement. The one in Sansom Commons [Sansom/36] is already open."

Go South Beach Yo!