Ten years ago, Jim Ward was rocking out in At the Drive-In, happily fulfilling his title as “that other guitar player, you know, the one who isn’t Omar.” After that group’s sad self-destruction, Ward moved on with two-thirds of his former band to form Sparta, a band that put out one pretty awesome EP and three inoffensive albums, never getting the same press/buzz/respect/whatever of his former band’s other splinter group: the monolithic and often stupid Mars Volta. [more]