Tractor (band)

Tractor is a band founded in Rochdale, Lancashire, England by guitarist/vocalist Jim Milne and drummer Steve Clayton in 1971. Both had been members of a beat group, The Way We Live since 1966. They are notable both for their appreciation by John Peel and Julian Cope, but also for their longevity because as of 2007, they are still performing. The band was produced initially by schoolfriend sound engineer John Brierley.

Early history

In the early days, the main marketing tool of unsigned hopeful bands was to send demo tapes. Accordingly, a tape was sent by John Brierley to Elektra Records part of the CBS group. Clive Selwood was the CBS UK operations manager and he listened to the tape and liked what he heard. He and his partner DJ John Peel signed the band to their Dandelion Records label. Peel had a fondness for Rochdale, having worked in a cotton mill there before becoming a DJ. Clive Selwood came to Rochdale to sign up the band.

The group was booked into London's Spot Studios and finished the sessions within two days, and in January 1971 the band's debut album, A Candle for Judith was released, credited to The Way We Live. The release, named after Clayton's then girlfriend, later wife, earned immediate critical acclaim "...impeccable in both technique and emotion"... Al Clark writing in Time Out in London in 1971.

+/- (band)

+/-, or Plus/Minus, is an American indietronic band formed in 2001. The band makes use of both electronic and traditional instruments, and has sought to use electronics to recreate traditional indie rock song forms and instrumental structures. The group has released two albums on each of the American indie labels Teenbeat Records and Absolutely Kosher, and their track "All I do" was prominently featured in the soundtrack for the major film Wicker Park. The group has developed a devoted following in Japan and Taiwan, and has toured there frequently. Although many artists append bonus tracks onto the end of Japanese album releases to discourage purchasers from buying cheaper US import versions, the overseas versions of +/- albums are usually quite different from the US versions - tracklists can be rearranged, artwork with noticeable changes is used, and tracks from the US version can be replaced as well as augmented by bonus tracks.

History

Band

Band or BAND may refer to:

Science and technology

Computing and electronics

Organizations

Bandō

Bandō may refer to:

People

Other

See also

Bando (disambiguation)

Sheng Ji

Sheng Ji is a family of point trick-taking card games played in China and in Chinese immigrant communities. They have a dynamic trump, i.e., which cards are trump changes every round. As these games are played over a wide area with no standardization, rules vary widely from region to region.

The game can be played with multiple decks of cards. With one deck, it may be called Dǎ Bǎi Fēn (Chinese: 打百分; literally: "Competing for a Hundred Points") or Sìshí Fēn (四十分, "Forty Points"); with two decks, as is most commonly played, it may be called Bāshí Fēn (八十分, "Eighty Points"), Tuō Lā Jī (拖拉機, "Tractor"), Shuāng Kōu (雙摳, "Double Digging Out") or Shuāng Shēng (雙升, "Double Upgrade"); with three decks, it may be called Zhǎo Péngyǒu (找朋友, "Looking For Friends").

The article below mainly describes the Bashi Fen variant, with players playing with two decks and in fixed partnerships.

Players and objective

The game is played with four players in fixed partnerships, with players sitting across each other forming a team. Each team has a rank that they are currently playing, henceforth referred to as their score. At the beginning of a match, everyone starts at a score of 2.