Album Notes

JoDee Purkeypile knows what it means to produce music. This one Austin musician has recorded hundreds of songs, all original, and many all by his lonesome. His works have also been featured in the critcally acclaimed 2008 film 'Splinter', awarded as National Pubic Radio’s song of the day, and lauded in major entertainment reviews across the U.S. Certified as an audio engineer, Purkeypile has recorded a vast collection of his tunes with the same band mates, accomplished multi-instrumentalists themselves, since they were in middle school. And now, for the first time in his career, he has completed a collection of songs that he deems worthy of being called his first official solo album, October House, which displays a combination of musical styles that the 29-year-old prodigy stitched together mostly while on vacation in rural England in the Summer of 2010.

JoDee was born in Lubbock, Texas. He began writing songs at age 12, mining the influences he grew up listening to, such as the Beatles and Bob Dylan, through his parents Joanna and Dee. In 1997, at age 15, he began creating music with his longtime bandmates Sean Crooks and Chris Sensat. In 2001, they formed The Alice Rose, and with the arrival of Brendan Rogers, released their first album, Phonographic Memory, in 2006. JoDee's song "West" was featured as NPR's Song of the Day a week after the album's release, and the album garnered much critical praise. KUT's David Brown has called JoDee's songwriting "strangely familiar yet utterly new". In 2008, The Alice Rose were named as one of Austin Monthly's Artists to Watch, and in a rare distinction, JoDee was awarded the same honor in 2011's issue as a solo artist. While his band The Alice Rose is working on their third album, JoDee Purkeypile's first solo album October House was released July 28, 2011, the same day the City of Austin has proclaimed as his own day.