Izzak Opaz & Devin Champlin

Like many of his favorite songwriters (John Hartford, Lucinda Williams, Jeff Tweedy), Izaak Opatz is an ungulate in life’s winter pasture, chewing on and metabolizing disappointment, heartbreak, and the other tough stuff into enjoyable musical carbohydrates. A compulsive metaphorager (and inveterate wordplayboy), Opatz breaks it all down with enzymes of wry humor, thoughtful simile and close observation a therapeutic process of narrativizing his own life that, almost as a byproduct, turns out savory nuggets of literate, confessional pop.
IDevin Champlin: “Why does Devin Champlin so badly want to be emptied? To ditch his brain and keep his head?
The man who can kickflip an over-easy without breaking the yolk. The guy who puts a fiddle in his elbow and a guitar on his chin. The dude that can catch and release a whale from a park bench. The one that stares off places. Emptied? Yes, emptied. But only to be fulfilled anew. You see, that’s the Champlin way. Willing, and wanting, to change. To turn your outsides to your insides and be filled with something else. Marbles. Smoke. And someone like that never gets bored. Someone like that remains filled with a wonder most of us lost with our baby teeth. Someone like that is the Champ.” Chris Acker, from the liner notes, How To Change From Blue To Green