I discovered Owsley through a Ben Folds Five fan site, in a thread along the lines of “If you love Ben Folds, you’ll probably like this guy too.” Their sounds weren’t very similar (Owsley’s instrument of choice is the guitar, for one thing, while Folds has almost always recorded without one) but I did recognize a similar vibe and sensibility.

In their early days, Ben played drums in a band Owsley started called The Semantics, before leaving to form his trio. Several websites report that Ben wasn’t actually a member of The Semantics, though he did record with them… just semantics, I guess (my apologies for the weak joke).

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