Drag City, 2006. Like paupers, we walk the streets, homeless in a climate one might charitably describe as increasingly chilly. What’s the world of new and exciting music coming to? Where’s the next big thing coming from? We couldn’t tell you. That’s not what our glassy eyes are searching you for. And when we extend our bony, glove-less claw in your direction, remember — your money’s no good here. No, we’re in the market for rare gems!

Listen to this year’s Drag City sound so far! It’s the tri-headed beast called Pearls and Brass, with their brontosaurian stomp and stone-hipped shuffle. It’s the wild cry of AZITA, moaning deceptively simple odes to love and selfhood and water against the all-natural flow of a rock and roll combo. It’s the multifarious noise of The Howling Hex, threading the needle of their limited-edition sounds back into the public’s eye with no apology (and none asked for). It’s the double-retro return of the Make Up, bringing live love from their final phase in the now-distant year of 2000! And now, it’s the ruthless, righteous brawn of Kotche, O’Rourke and Tweedy, known to the nations as Loose Fur. Ask yourself — what does all this make you think of? If the answer doesn’t include the far-flung latter-day musings of The Red Krayola, the earthy wisdom and solar fire of Espers, the theatrical flair and timeless minstrelsy of Faun Fables, the black otherness of Six Organs of Admittance and the wit and wisdom of Ian Svenonius (in hip-pocket-sized print!) then you’re not seeing the same future-world as we are, chums.

But you will soon. Read on...

Before we get to the future (which we can only access through the present), let’s talk about the recent past. It’s part of the proud Drag City tradition to honor the hard work of our artists with our hallowed Hardest Working Artist of the Month award. Looking over the last month, it’s a no-brainer — and so, for mounting their first tour in fifteen years (not to mention their first tour ever), the Silver Jews have worked harder than everyone else! Harder than Edith Frost, who also toured (but not for the first time in fifteen years, not to mention ever)! Harder than The Red Krayola, who have prepared their first album in six years (Introduction, out next month)! Harder than Loose Fur, who overcame their incredible egos (and the even more incredible egos of the world around them) to come together again as the today’s finest supergroup (Kotche v. O’Rourke v. Tweedy) and put out Born Again in the USA (out now)! Harder than everyone we mentioned above (and will mention below anon)!

photo: Gary O'Loughlin

Yeah, and it doesn’t even matter that this is Silver Jews’ second time around winning this prize — they’ve launched a mammoth undertaking, bringing David Berman out of his performance closet and placing him in front of nearly 10,000 people (collectively speaking, that is). With the aid of his lovely wife Cassie as well as the Bright Bridge (or is it Natural Flight?) band featuring Tony Crow, Brian Kotzur, Bob Nastanovich, Peyton Pinkerton and William Tyler (with Steve West manning the soundboard), David has delighted a nation — Silver Jews nation — and done so over the course of an epic fortnight in America in which a thousand Silver Jews t-shirts and three hundred “NY Jews” caps were launched into the world, along with much love.

There’s more shows in America coming, as well as UK dates in late April and a European tour routing bubbling under somewhere too. Hardest working band of the month? Silver Jews may turn out to be the hardest working band of the year! Congrats, kids. You earned it.

Hear that ring-tone, America? What about you, Rest of the World? Loose Fur is calling, and we all have a humble duty as inhabitants (some would say masters) of a planet in the universe to respond to their call to arms. Their new album, Born Again in the USA is out now, and racked in every record hovel that matters from here to Timbuktu (here being, wherever you are right...now!), to allow you your democratic right as a human to purchase it and share in their all-too-human cry.

Do we have to draw you a picture? Born Again in the USA might just be a protest album if you approach it from the right angle (especially from the right, come to think of it). Sure, it’s an album full of pop songs and rock and roll, an album with driving beats, stinging guitars and wonderfully inventive bass playing (not to mention some rockin’ keyboards as well). It’s got catchy songs sung in idiosyncratic fashion that you don’t even really have to listen to to enjoy. But take a peek under the sleek surface of this baby and you’ve got a record with something to say -- something that any and all of us might gain from if we ever slowed down to listen to it.

Glenn Kotche and Jeff Tweedy took time out from their relentless careers in Wilco to make this record. Jim O’Rourke took time out from the Wizard-of-Oz-like backroom machinations he excels at to join them. We took time out to enjoy the hell out of it before we threw it into the blast furnace of industrial production that brought it to you today. It’s worth a minute — and a hell of a lot more. You might just come closer to saving the planet once you’ve heard Born Again in the USA.

Then again, it’s our destiny to destroy this place, right? Get Born Again in the USA anyway — it’s worth a laugh. In stores everywhere — or else!

...and anybody what’s with ‘em! Either you’re fur ‘em or agin ‘em! Durn ‘em all to heck! They’re too good, dad gum it!

Surely you can sympathize, o random world at large — surely we’ve all had to deal with that person, place or thing that was always way ahead, always forcing us to think, always stilling the tongue in our head — or loosening it into an excess of redoubt. We burn with envy, but laugh and have fun, loving what we can’t have and living with the rest.

This is your introduction to The Red Krayola's Introduction, a grand return to the record racks from Mayo Thompson and his merry bunch. After a new music drought of half a decade, they’re back in better-than-ever form. Almost spitefully, as if to prove that lightning does strike twice, and into the same pile of excrement, they’ve pulled out the stops and struck us with electrical force, creating a modern-era masterpiece of Krayola-dom in the tradition of masterpieces of former eras (The Parable of Arable Land, Soldier Talk, Kangaroo?, and Hazel — to name but a few).

Introduction finds The Red Krayola (Mayo, Charlie Abel, Noel Kupersmith, John McEntire, Stephen Prina and Tom Watson) doing what they love — playing music, making songs, having laughs. In an era where some bands spend months in the studio crafting a noise that they hope truly weirds people out, we’re astonished at The Red Krayola’s effortlessness in this respect. They are stranger than everyone when simply plugging in their amps. It’s in their blood and their bones and flows from them without premeditation (though sometimes guile has something to do with it). Their multi-hued sounds and varied approaches to songwriting are smoothed out by the naturalness of it all, making Introduction one of the great way-out, yet laid-back albums — and one full of tunes designed for your listening and singing pleasure. The Red Krayola are nothing if not democratic, and Introduction finds them at a populist peak.

May is one of most eagerly anticipated months of 2006 — and not just because of the World Cup, either. No, May’s the month we come forward with new albums from two separate talents that sound great together! It sometimes happens this way, and it’s certainly the case with Faun Fables and Espers. Two completely different acts who come from opposite sides of the country and approach music in their own ways will be united on May 16 in bringing their respective new sounds to a shared audience that knows no limit.

Faun Fables you all know — or if you don't, you should. We’ve put out three Faun Fables records in the last two years — a new one entitled Family Album back in ’04, and reissues of the first two Faun Fables records (Early Song and Mother Twilight) later in that year. Since then, Dawn the Faun has spanned the world with and without her steady accompanist Nils Frykdahl. And now, we’re delighting in a new Faun Fables album. It’s called The Transit Rider, and is the culmination of music written for a stage work conceived in 1994, realized on stage in 2002 and finally scored with extra music for release today. All the gifts and virtues of Faun Fables are on display in a pure musical outing that nonetheless remains redolent of a distinctly thespian air. Faun Fables being what they are, this is of course, a gypsy-dressed, open-air, wagon train kind of theater — music and entertainment for the people! Which is what mass transit is all about anyway, right?

Espers are new to the world of Drag City — but their previous releases have brought them to more than just our attention —verily, Espers are making their way into consciousnesses all around the mortal plane. Their new album is simply titled II — as in Espers II, you know? It’s anything but simple, though — these six kids address themselves to our bewitchery with an eclectic combination of instruments that intersect in manners both pleasing and unpredictable. A bit of balladry crosses with dark flashes of synthetic noise, which reverbs over distant guitar obbligatos...on and on it goes, flowing with remarkable seamlessness, given the deep pile of instruments Espers are playing on and deep abiding love for musics of the past, present and beyond that Espers are living for. II is a tumult of melody, an echo of something that hasn’t happened yet. Where are they coming from? The month of May will provide some answers.

And after May, who knows? Uh, we do. We’ve already alluded to Silver Jews touring in Europe in the summer — and we may do it again before this newsletter rings to a close. We’ll also be defying the Curse of the Cup over there with Pearls and Brass and Edith Frost coming across the water sometime summertime as well. But live shows are just one of the conduits at our disposal for entertainment this summer. If you’re one of those summer sales doom-sayers, we’re brewing up a little bit of old crow for you to suck down. Check it out:

June! Mid-month brings a trio of challengers. First comes Six Organs of Admittance with the long-discussed follow-up to School of the Flower. The Sun Awakens finds Ben “Six Organs of Admittance” Chasny in volcanic eruption, with electric guitar showers flowing over his trademark acoustic textures. The album is regarded as “dark” by old Ben, but we don’t live in his head — and our collective head cracks open and the sun shines in every time we listen to The Sun Awakens. Come June, you’ll see...

Ian Svenonius isn’t just a singer for bands such as Weird War, Make Up and Scene Creamers. He’s also an orator for those bands anyone who’s seen him live will attest to that (once they’ve looked up the word ‘orator,’ fuckin’ idiots!). If you’re an orator in this world in which we live in, it follows that you’re probably a writer — and Ian’s proved the same with articles, essays, capsules and other asides published in Arthur, Index, BB Gun and other periodicals over the last few years. Finally, his day of full-fledged author-dom is coming — the day of The Psychic Soviet! Over two hundred pages of wit and wisdom on all things political, cultural, historical and rock ‘n’ roll, The Psychic Soviet comes wrapped in a plastic cover for maximum street durability. Small enough to fit into the pocket of your extra-tight pants (natch), The Psychic Soviet is slated to become the bible of a generation. Set your culture-clocks for June 13th — that’s the day the tectonic plates will collide and the new gods will die with the old! Plus, this book’ll be out then too.

Smog! Remember him? Mr. “A River Ain’t Too Much to Love”? That was an awesome record! Everyone said so — and now, everyone’s gonna shit twice and die when they see that Smog has a new CD single on the marketplace that revisits those bitchin’ days when A River Ain’t Too Much to Love was on our turntables all the time. Ah, last year — how distant you have grown! How’s this new single gonna conjure such an amazing feat? Basically by having two of the songs from A River Ain’t Too Much to Love on there — and what’s more, by being enhanced to have the videos for those two songs on there too! It’s awesome...but just because we know and Smog knows too that you like new things (fickle bastids), there’s two new songs on there also! They’re in the eternal, deathless style of A River Ain’t Too Much to Love, thus serving art, continuity and Smog’s slavish devotion to what his public loves the most! It’s not too much to love — it’s just enough. And you’ll see it with those other two releases — in June.

As we write these words, Drag City acts, artists and bands alike are doing their thing, preparing to do their thing or returning back from doing their thing in venues all over the world! PAJO’s just back from Australia — and Weird War are headed down under there for their first-ever Aussie and New Zealand dates. David Grubbs is headed back from Holland after a couple concert appearances just as Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy is en route to Scotland for an incredible amount of shows. You’ve got Silver Jews in the American Midwest for a handful of dates and Edith Frost heading way out West for a couple weeks. There’s even a few Neil Hamburger shows in Texas! There’s tours for brand-new and yet-to-be-released records as well: Faun Fables will be touring the country in support of The Transit Rider in April and May, The Red Krayola will be undertaking a mini-tour of California in April and May in honor of their new album Introduction. And festivals! We got festivals: Ghost and P.G. Six will be at Terrastock later in April (Ghost’s only performance in the United States until George Bush leaves office!) while Joanna Newsom and Edith Frost will be at ATP in Cambersands later in May.

They never stop circling the globe, and we hope you dig it while it lasts. We sure do.

God bless the internet and all who sale with it. If you didn’t have an internet, your life wouldn’t be changing right now as a result of these very words you’re reading. Of course, good old cyberspace is also useful for having fun. Take Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy (please!) — he loves to have fun online. iTunes is like, his personal playground. First, he put the Superwolf album up as a temporary download. Then, he took it down — he wasn’t kidding around! Then he posted up “His Hands (Demo for Candi),” an iTunes exclusive. But that wasn’t the end of the fun and games— now, mp3 collectors can collect downloads of Will Oldham’s Arise Therefore and the aforementioned Bonny Billy/Matt Sweeney masterwork Superwolf off iTunes for the foreseeable future. But hurry and don’t wait! Who knows when Bonnie will want to have more fun with iTunes?

Meanwhile, we’re going to be placing music in an increasing number of sites in the year to come putting us in the iMix, the eMix and whatever other kinds of digi-mixes technology (and its right hand, man) offers us next!

What will it be? When will it come? When you least expect it, we’ll be there — with a hungry look in our eyes.

See you then,

Rian Murphy
Drag City Inc.