Want to step out on a limb? Go crazy and never come back? Do it. Do it! Here at Drag City, we’re in support of your inalienable right to freak — and freak now. We’ve seen many a career play out in such fashion. Just make sure you freak friendily — don’t take any bodies with you when you go — and if you’re smart, you’ll do what we do, and freak in the marketplace. That’s the best place to do it, yo — the compensation can be steep, and it's much preferred to freak and stay out of the clink. Drag City — backing true expression, extension and intro-spection since 1989!

As 2005 approaches the toilet, we’re flying that old flag high — let us count just a few of the ways...

...and it’s called It’s a Game. As we’ve already told you time and again, Edith Frost is back in the game after an extremely pregnant pause (that actual physical pregnancy had nothing to do with). Her new album is the first since 2001’s Wonder Wonder and kicks off extended Frost activity for the first time in several years. Starting here in Chicago, Edith is going to fan out, touring first in the U.S. and then in the U.K. and Europe, playing in places she’s been and places she’s never been. It’s a good time to do this, since It’s a Game is her deepest record in maybe ever. In order to create special focus on the songs, Edith had fewer players with her in the studio than she’s had since Calling Over Time. Still fewer players didn’t mean she couldn’t have the best so in addition to her longtime bassist Ryan Hembrey (also of Manishevitz), Josh Abrams (Town and Country, Prefuse 73) plays double bass, Lindsay Anderson (L’Altra) plays electric piano, Jason Toth (The Zincs) plays drums, our very own Azita plays acoustic piano and other fine local talents such as Mark Greenberg, John Hasbrouck, Emmett Kelly and Dave “Max” Crawford contribute to the spareness of it all. But hey, all props to these people, but so what? Proof’s in the pudding, as they say, and Edith had delivered a bloody great pudding with It’s a Game. Fans of romantic music are invited to queue up for this one. Edith Frost is back.

In 2004, The Howling Hex was introduced to the world with a trio of limited-edition, vinyl-only releases, all of which are long-since sold-out. Then in February of 2005, The Howling Hex was reintroduced to the world with a CD called All-Night Fox (good copies still available). Each time out, minds were blown, heads were cleared — but for The Howling Hex, it was two down, one to go — there was still another great format to etch their signature “New Border Sound” approach into. Now, with the release of You Can’t Beat Tomorrow, they’ve realized this aim — you see, You Can’t Beat Tomorrow is a double-disc release: one a CD, the other a DVD. This allows The Howling Hex to further communicate their vision to our world. As the press release from their world HQ goes, “You Can’t Beat Tomorrow” is the pilot episode for a suggested variety show featuring Neil Michael Hagerty, The Howling Hex and The Theater Fire in musical performances, short sketches and animated shorts. The press release doesn’t mention how completely insane it all is, but that’s entertainment — and as far as entertainment goes in our increasingly permissive society, you can’t beat what The Howling Hex have to give. Furthermore, You Can’t Beat Tomorrow is a double-disc priced as a single disc and you can’t beat that, neither! For the most unique in contemporary entertainment, You Can’t Beat Tomorrow is your best bet.

Time was when a Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy couldn’t release a record or even sing a note without being called out for extensive morbidity. His songs were sad “sad” and his records were “heartbreaking”. Well now he’s got a record that’ll break your nose, too! That record is available to one and all today — rush down to the sounds shop and make your score. The record is called Summer in the Southeast which sounds sweet enough, don’t it? Sure it is — but it’s the kind of sweetness that only comes out after dark. Yeah, the live show sweetness! With the help of an all-star group of players (we won’t name names, for everybody is a star in this band), Bonnie recreates seventeen B’P’B classics tricked out in all-new duds — duds of silver, duds of pink, duds of bright blue velveteen! Together with the audience, Bonnie & Co. make these songs sing and soar as though they hadn’t previously (which they did, but nowhere like this!). Another word for the alchemy of this record is called rock and roll, hard and heavy — with no prisoners taken. Don’t worry, all you pussies — he does a bit of balladeering as well, and sure, it’s sensual and gets us hard and makes us cry. But why cry when you can scream? Find out for yourself with your very own copy of Summer in the Southeast — in silver-lettered CD format or pink-lettered double-vinyl.

(Right) The Bonnie army spreads the word —Summer in the Southeast is a monster!

Silver Jews fans, turn on your televisions! The video for “How Can I Love You If You Won’t Lie Down” is going to be broadcast over MTV2 on Sunday November 20th, at the very top of the Subterranean broadcast. That’s midnight EST, punters — be there, or better yet, have all your rowdy uneducated friends tune in also! The world at large is being given a window to the Silver Jews Tanglewood Numbers moves — and we dig it.

Tanglewood Numbers is just a month old now — but business is booming! The CMJ charts are crumbling and falling around it (#15 this week), the press is growing faster than Berman’s beard hair and now this MTV2 caveat! If you haven’t heard the record already, you’d best run out and get it. You don’t want to be left behind when the hype machine rolls over that yellow streak down your back...

And what else? That’s it as far as giftable items are concerned until January, when we roll the gears again and push out something new and exciting for this world. That would be Pearls and Brass, with their Drag City debut, The Indian Tower. You’ll be hearing a lot more about these guys, but just to get it started, Pearls and Brass are three really heavy dudes united for heavy blues and more. It’s been awhile since we’ve heard something this organic and yet, this electric — but Pearls and Brass have it.

So what if they don’t have a new record? The Fucking Champs are gearing up for another attack on the world. The lynchpin for this dramatic turn of events is an invite to the annual All Tomorrow’s Parties festival in Camber Sands, UK. They’ll be there, with a lot of other (and lesser) bands — but The Fucking Champs aren’t the type to just fly over and do the show and fly back. No, they’re going to fly over and plow their way down from the north, with gigs in Liverpool and Leeds, then go back north and fight their way back down again, with shows in Edinburgh, Birmingham (the home soil of heavy rock) and London. Then once they’re back on good old American soil, they’re going to level New York with a pair of shows on both sides of the Hudson before returning home to San Francisco for a New Year’s Eve show at the Bottom of the Hill club, where they’ll share the stage with Trans Am, Trans Champs and The Fucking Am! Ghod what an incredible night of rock that will be. And then, come the new year, a new Fucking Champs opus will begin to be rocked on — steady, Fucking Champs-ites, your time is coming!

It’s been a crazy, sometimes rewarding year for Neil Hamburger. His recent return to Jimmy Kimmel Live, where he’s just about a regular at this point, was exciting for Neil’s fanbase — those who have televisions and remembered to watch, that is! Then there’s the shows he’s been playing. Opening for Iron and Wine and Calexico last month, Neil gained a whole new audience for his classic jokes and routines. It wasn’t a happy audience, but it was a new one, anyway — and that’s what counts. Meantime, we keep selling the odd Hamburger title here and there (it’s not hard, they’re all odd) and counting the days until the next release. Word is, it’ll be a career retrospective-slash-documentary film due sometime next year. We can’t wait...for another Hamburger!

With two records released this year and one on the way for early 2006, is it any wonder we’re pushing Neil Michael Hagerty as our hardest-working artist of the month? Ever since The Howling Hex stepped to the fore in 2004, Neil’s been the unsung hero of that “New Border Sound” bunch. But behind their scenes, he’s been working hard all year long. He could have gotten the HWDCAOTM award in September, when he drove across the country for a pair of shows that changed, warped and rippled witnessing minds in both Chicago and New York. For those shows, Neil recruited an all-new Howling Hex from a combination of past alumnus and new faces, rehearsed them into shape and took to the stage in two of the most discerning marketplaces the world’s got to offer. He could have gotten honored in August too, when he turned in a new Howling Hex album a mere six months after the Howling Hex debut All-Night Fox, hit the streets. And not just an album, but a combination DVD&CD as well. But since that DVD&CD just hit, and since he just played another show in Austin, and since he’s just completed work on a CD compiling “hits” from his limited-edition series of 2004, we’re giving him hardest-working honors right now.

Pearls and Brass, AZITA, The Howling Hex and The Red Krayola are on the slate for early 2006 — with exciting others to come! We hear tell of a new Faun Fables record — and of a long-awaited P.G. Six record as well. Meanwhile, White Magic and Joanna Newsom are settling down for a long-winter’s record session, in hopes of each of them also contributing to the big parade of ’06.

And that’s it for this time around. We’ll have the last images from the end of the big parade that was 2005 when next we meet — next time!

Rian Murphy
Drag City Inc.