Hey! Over here! It’s us, in the cultural lifeboat that is Drag City, floating free in the marketplace, the country, and ultimately, the very cosmos itself! It’s been a while since we dropped one of these little messages in a bottle into the surf, but we’ve been busy anyways — believe it! Those of you holding tickets to the Silver Jews shows appearing across the international map know this. Those of you down at the record shop around the corner know we’ve been busy too, with your fresh new copies of Pearls and Brass’ The Indian Tower LP/CD in hand. A more select crowd knows also, with the arrival of secret advance copies of the forthcoming Loose Fur and Red Krayola CDs. It’s a simple fact, but one known in many different ways and many different places: we’re busy assembling fun new events, products and other forms of entertainment for you, you, YOU!

So that’s why it’s been a long time since you heard from us in our inimitable newsletter style. How could it have been anything else? The real question on our minds is why haven’t we heard from you, dammit? It’s clear we rule — but if we’re really so awesome, how come we weren’t deluged with “I Miss You,” "Come Back Soon" and "Ready to Take a Chance Again" cards over the course of this last, long and lonely winter month? Christmas is vanishing in the rear-view and all the cookies and candy are gone — but Valentine’s Day is right around the corner. Where’s our heart-shaped box, bitches?

It’s true then, what I heard remarked around the office a week or so back — Drag City gets no love. Well, love is a two-way street, kids — and we’ve got a super fuck-load of love packaged in a multitude of styles and scheduled for release here in the year of your non-denominational, all-gender, multi-creed higher power (and ours), 2006. So get your shit together for a brand new game — and pony up!

We caught you with your pants down, didn’t we? With your arms open to receive, you didn’t take the time to stow a little gift in between your fingers or in your armpit or your bellybutton, did you? We don’t ask for much, people — just that you remember us every once in awhile. And when you do, that you buy the new releases — mindlessly, if need be. It won’t hurt either of us if you do it without thinking. But then once you’ve done that — think a bit, would you? It always helps...just a bit, not too much. And...if we’ve said it before, we’ve said it a zillion times — buy both formats, please. And then go to the shows. And check in with us nice and regular here at the mother ship.

Is that too much to ask?

It was a matter of weeks ago that the Drag City Hot Stove League met for annual off-season remonstrations. We looked with shock at the bare shelves marked ‘2006’. Somewhere, someone in our network was harvesting the rich fields of their imagination — but until we see the produce, the very fruits of their labors, there can be no jam. It’s the same thing every year. We unscrew a bottle of last year’s white lightning and sit around the fire, wishing and dreaming about the year to come — if only the lousy talent comes through, like they’re always promising! A few phone calls are made, an urgent email or two sent as well. And before long, we have one, two...a few things more to call our own in this new year. What happens next is what's happening now — we’ve got some monster names on the calendar and we spend our days sliding them to and fro, charting a course to rock us all and roll through this damn year like the super-men and women we were born to be.

That’s how the days pass around here: awesomely.

The task — take Pearls and Brass, AZITA, The Howling Hex, The Make Up, Loose Fur, The Red Krayola, Ian Svenonius, Faun Fables, Six Organs of Admittance, Espers, Smog, White Magic, High Llamas, P.G. Six, Bonnie “Prince” Billy and Joanna Newsom and juggle them with whatever else we hear of along the way — a few releases on the Streamline label, perhaps? A new Ghost release? Another Howling Hex release? Anything is possible! But how to organize ourselves...

To sort it all out, we created graphs of various kinds — bar graphs, line graphs, pie graphs, area charts, x-y formulations. We labeled them with headers like “Fun”; “Funky”; “Fresh”; “Hot”; “Heavy”; “New”; “Newer”, etc. But that was even more confusing. We threw a tarot down — no help. What do you do to your schedule when you draw a straight flush with the Ace of Cups high?

Finally, we just took whatever was done and put it on the schedule first. It came out looking like this:

January brought the electrical ice storms of Pearls and Brass. Their Drag City debut, The Indian Tower (which is actually their slump-free sophomore record) is buzzing out into the marketplace now. It seems like after a season entangled in the strings of a Spanish guitar, the world is ready to rock again. Pearls and Brass bring a heavy dose of heady rock on The Indian Tower, courtesy of their incredible inter-group chemistry. Young but daily growing, their sense of the blues and how to kick it with big amplifiers and drums is innate. Live shows will bear out this brash claim — and fortunately for us and Pearls and Brass and the rocker n’ you, they’ve got plenty of those coming up. Starting on January 27th, they head out onto the American road, running the country up and down through mid-March. Then they’re going to go to Europe and do it some more. It’s all we all deserve, after the folked-up times we’ve had the last year or two. Let it rock!

(left) Pearls and Brass make a quick roadside stop — those long drives don't allow for a proper bathroom break!
(photo: Micheal Withers)

On the new releases schedule for February — The Howling Hex. You say we just put out something from them? True but that was You Can’t Beat Tomorrow, a CD/DVD package of new material. 1-2-3 is a CD-only issue of previously released material. So right there, that’s an organic, elemental difference that separates these two releases. And given Hex leader Neil Michael Hagerty’s penchant for new, different and freaky horizons, the two releases might well be from different bands! As alluded to above, 1-2-3 is a reissue of material only issued on vinyl, in limited editions of 500, way back in 2003 and 2004. Since all of those have long since disappeared into the mercenary hands of collectors, the fickle hands of fans are offered this CD version, which contains almost all the material, in almost all the same versions (but definitively not the same sequence). It’s a crazy-quilt of New Border Sound action that in no way could be mistaken for the rhythm-machine relentlessness of All Night Fox or the country pastoral of You Can’t Beat Tomorrow. Looking for something different? Start the countdown today — February 21st isn’t not getting any closer!

AZITA is back! It’s just a little AZITA, but for those of us who think she’s making the best music of anyone out there, even a smallish EP called “Detail from the Mountain Side” is better than no EP at all! “Detail from the Mountain Side” was written with Chicago playwright Brian Torrey Scott, who brought lyrics from his play of the same name to AZITA and asked her to put them to music. Boy, did she! AZITA’s flair for knotty chord changes and unusual voicings rendered in smoothly rolling melodies found a terrific outlet in this task. With fable-like lyrics about the elements (earth, water, trees) and simple emotions, “Detail from the Mountain Side” has everything in microcosm — including sweet streamlines of electric bass, electric guitars and drums. There'll be another AZITA moment later in the year — a full-length moment — but for now, "Detail from the Mountain Side" is to be savored.

As everyone knows, we've been putting out Weird War records for just about five years now, and digging it all the way. Before that, we were fans of the Make Up (who begat Weird War), so having the opportunity to work with Svenonius and Michelle Mae and the rest of them has been a lot of fun and a dance party to boot, with a learning experience thrown in for good measure. Now time has thrown its usual curve (known to some as a "tesseract") and we find ourselves having the pleasure of releasing a Make Up live album. It's due to those kids down at Sea Note again — they're always coming up with something! This recording was meant to be released following the final (meant to be penultimate) Make Up album, Save Yourself — but for some reason, this never happened. The tapes were found in the attic of a house in the Port Washington community of southeastern Wisconsin and brought to the attention of the proper authorities. And in no time at all, we put it on the schedule. So coming out with AZITA and The Howling Hex is Untouchable Sound — a live document of the Make Up in their final incarnation, as a twin-guitar quintet with occasional forays into guitar-plus-keyboards/or percussion lineups. Recorded before a full house of hard-core fans in Washington DC, Untouchable Sound is the Make Up fully in their element — live, loud and freak-funked out. "Untouchable", maybe so — but "unincredible", definitely not.

Then in March, we get just what we've been praying for — a new Loose Fur record! The combined forces of Kotche, O'Rourke and Tweedy have returned from their various sojourns — and in their hands is the holy grail of the pop world, a vicious new album of hard-hitting pop n roll, with stinging guitar leads, drums and percussions galore and lotsa songs! Twice as many as the first Loose Fur, at least. The album's called Born Again in the USA and it finds Tweedy and O'Rourke at their best, singing heartfeltedly and with unabashed cynicism about relationships of all kinds — even the ones we tend to have with that Intelligent Designer up there in the sky! Over the course of a classic 40-plus minutes, the boys grind a variety of axes with friendly perversity, making Born Again in the USA one of the most rewarding records you'll hear all year long — it has everything a popular music record should have. Welcome back, Loose Fur — thank God!

All’s been quiet on the Bonnie front lately. I mean, we haven’t had a new release from the Bonnie “Prince” since Summer in the Southeast hit in November! So there’s a lot of thumb-twiddling around here. But down a hemisphere and to the right, Bonny and buddies are celebrating another summer in a different southeast. No, not the Sandwich Islands — think a little less ‘east’...you got it, New Zealand. Yeah, Mr. Billy and friends are attempting to do what was previously thought impossible — to tour New Zealand for two whole weeks! This means that in addition to Christchurch and Dunedin, there’s also whistle-stops in Leigh, Reglan, Golden Bay, Nelson, Wellington and Oamaru.

Using this tricky feat as a template, Bonnie will then take on Scotland in April, adding places like Argyll, West Highland and Easter Ross to the traditional Glasgow-Edinburgh commute. This is nice, but frankly, we’re wondering what the promoters in Dunfermline, Peterhead, Galashiels, Berwick-Upon-Tweed and the Outer Hebrides were thinking! Scotland loves their Bonnie “Prince,” and there’s going to be a lot of glum young faces (or, given that it's Scotland, perhaps we should say "even glummer young faces") in all that uncovered territory up North.

So that’s what Bonnie’s up to...oh, and there’s also this little tidbit that would make headlines in most reputable newsletters — an iTunes exclusive! Don’t get us wrong, new generation — we love the way you love us in the digital realm. Ever since we started up, iTunes sales have been fierce, for everyone except the Bonnie “Prince”! Don’t worry, that’s only because he doesn’t play that iTunes shit, except for little exclusive things like this thing we're talking about here. It’s called "His Hands," a song written for southern soul-gospel diva Candi Staton. This version here is Bonnie’s own — and for a limited time it can be yours too.

Word is, that the show’s sold out — never mind what town, the word’s the same everywhere! Two months away, and guess what? The Silver Jews maiden voyage through the clubs (and smaller concert halls) of this world are selling out faster than we can put it on sale! Why, the second New York show that they booked after the first one sold out is already almost sold out too. It’s just too much. The touring Jews crew — David, Cassie, Bobby N, Tony Crow, Brian Kotzur, William Tyler and Peyton Pinkerton — thank you for your enthusiasm and support and they’ll see you out there, wherever they’re scheduled to play and you’re scheduled to see them!

Meanwhile, back at the Tanglewood Numbers ranch, everything's rolling along. The album continues to sell in droves — we're having a hard time keeping it in print! And with the release of this record, vinyl is officially back — you can quote me on this. Though actually, vinyl never went away...

Also, the "How Can I Love You If You Won't Lie Down" video continues to pick up spins on M2 whenever the urge strikes them. It's cool. But even cooler is the discovery David Berman made of a video for "Punks in the Beerlight." Made by up-and-coming video artist Todd Lincoln, this video has been getting a lot of play on the internet and made such an impression on David that he now can't think of the song without seeing the video in his mind's eye. High praise for a guy with such a crazy look in his mind's eye! Anyway, the high production values of Mr. Lincoln's video belie its roots as a fan edit — but that's what happens when love comes to the production meeting. Check it out here.

Silver Jews is definitely the big tour news of the year — this year and perhaps any year — but don't forget the other tours crossing America in the days, weeks and months to come. Ready to roll is Edith Frost. Already rolling is Pearls and Brass. Possessed of two whole west-coast dates is The Howling Hex. Playing festival dates is Joanna Newsom. Exhaustively covering island nations in two different hemispheres is Bonnie "Prince" Billy. Appearing in a variety of diverse incarnations is David Grubbs. Providing the highlight of Terrastock this year is Ghost. Considering dates are Smog, Faun Fables, The Red Krayola and many others! You can see all the details (except the considering ones, not even we're privy to such musings) on our Tour Page.

Well that's about it for this one. But not quite — with as many exciting projects in semi-completion as we've got, we'd be remiss not to brag! And so here it is:

The Red Krayola. They’ve got an all-new full-length LP and CD set for April release. It’s called Introduction because that’s what it is, an introduction of new music and thoughts and concepts and a record and a band and a fandom waiting to be. Chock-full of tunes, words and laughs, Introduction is just what you'd expect from a band going hard into their fifth decade in the popular music world.

Ian Svenonious. Ian’s got a little red book called The Psychic Soviet which collects essays he’s been placing with various publications over the past few years and adds a few that no-one’s ever seen before! Ian’s thoughts run deep and range far and wide, always culminating in something hilarious and quotable. Perfect for the pocket of your Nehru jacket — as in Jawaharlal Nehru, that is. Who were you expecting — Ghandi?

Faun Fables. Almost finished is a new CD with unprecedented theatric proportions called The Transit Rider with Dawn the Faun and her faithful satyr Nils in a variety of roles, both singing and otherwise.

Espers. They’ve got a great new record out and an even-greater new record coming out with us later this year! They’re on tour right now, they’ll be on tour again and there’ll be lots more to tell.

Six Organs of Admittance is finishing one up that’s going to melt and fry things when people start to hear it, which they haven’t yet (that includes us). The world loves a mystery — but Ben Chasny’s determined to give them a conundrum instead!

And then everyone else we mentioned — they’re not done with their recordings yet, but when they are — boom! To the moon.

But first we’ve got to get back from the moon...

OK, the next update will come sooner than last time — this is a warning! Stay alert.

Rian Murphy
Drag City Inc.