Or Live! Live! Live! Live! Live! It’s up to you — that’s your choice. Here at Drag City, we’re choosing life. We’re choosing choice. It’s our choice to make. If you wanna know why, keep reading...

We stood in the shadows and watched the people watching the people onstage playing the music. They packed the club in their efforts to get close to the sounds they loved and the people that made those sounds. They bought LPs, CDs and occasionally just a t-shirt — but they spent their money because they have eyes and ears and the tools to facilitate another four senses, which is what it takes to love music, lyrics, images of all kinds and, at the end of the day, meaning.

With this research under our belt, we repaired to the ghetto and descended the ladder to our ivory bunker, justified in our decision to spend another fortune on new LPs, CDs, DVDs, books, t-shirts, stickers and whatever else our artists want us to invest in. There’s not never nothing else we’d ever rather do more!

Here’s what we’ve got for your eyes and ears — if you can get them to believe...

In the world today, Loose Fur Born in the USA is an option for every young woman and young man to have and to hold, to share and share alike if they want to. We put it out there in the numbers required by the mini-masses — that’s all we can do. Oh, we can do one thing more — tell you again how awesome it all is, the music of the trio of Glenn “Mobile” Kotche, Jim “Ruling Class” O’Rourke and Jeff “Wilco” Tweedy, aka Loose Fur. Ahem —

You like music? Then you owe it to yourself and your closest music-loving friends to give Born Again in the USA a spin! This is a fun and funny pop music record for people to enjoy. They had fun making it, so why shouldn’t you do the same listening in? And what’s more, among other things, Loose Fur make music for people who dig messages in their pop music — like subliminal messages, for instance. This way, whatever you draw from the music is a conclusion of your own making. You’re thinking for yourself — the way Loose Fur wants you to, ironically enough. But who cares? Their new rock and roll is some of the best new rock and roll around these days — and you won’t ever see them play it live. So do your new music tooth a kindness and bite down on the new Loose Fur album, Born in the USA. Available all around the world in every record shop that counts.

Smoking Popes, Anti-Flag, Loose Fur - the protest sounds of today!
Thanks to the folks at Waiting Room in Normal IL for the sweet pix.

The Red Krayola Introduction. With the release of this new album, The Red Krayola have been around longer than most of us in the bunker here — not to mention all of you out there in the world that the rest of all of you live in. Oh, sure — rock and rollers come older than The Red Krayola — but our point is, they don’t come fresher. Part of the secret formula is that Mayo Thompson, founder and leader of the band, has recruited a new-era Red Krayola every decade or so — and so, new-phase Red Krayolai were trotted out in 1978, 1980, 1983, 1994 and so forth — but in the case of Introduction, the Red Krayola are largely the group they’ve been since 1994. Maybe a few members lighter this time around — but with a couple of new players in the fold, Mayo and co have made the most fantastic Red Krayola record ever. All things being equal, and with a dozen or so albums behind him, Mayo won't like such a statement, but we’ve got to say it anyway, Introduction is just that good of an album! Besides, we can always take it back or rephrase it later — but we’ll burn that cross when we come to it. The point is, Introduction is a generous, fifteen-song trip through The Red Krayola, past present and future that never dwells on nostalgia, never panders to the present-day and is never less than cutting-edge on it’s own terms throughout. And yet, there’s a thread that’s very "now" running through this record. Plus, it’s tuneful and streamlined with great production sounds that pare The Red Krayola to bare, beautiful, lush-at-heart essentials — a true tour de force. Bravo, Red Krayola! People of the world, this is your Introduction.

Or, as some of you jaded pukes would have it — NEXT! There is no "next" in our world, only "new." Yesterday’s dead and tomorrow is blind — so we, the people who are Drag City live in the new every month. And fuck the rest.

So, what’s newer than new? Our May releases qualify, methinks — Espers II and Faun Fables The Transit Rider. Espers hail from Philadelphia, but with records like their first album and this one, they’re gonna belong to the world soon, if they don’t already. Mythic and epic, II journeys through far-flung sound worlds in support of the folk-based roots of the Espers sound, building up periodically to dizzying heights — for us, the listener, that is — Espers’ ride out their reverie like true musicians, playing through the waves with an emphatic vision. This is purple pop music, dark like the sky through the trees in the forest at night, no matter how the pieces are rearranged. This is borne out by the sequence of the LP, which differs almost completely from the sequence of the CD! Vinyl fans, don’t trip over the CD fans on your way to the other side of the street. But no matter what you do, get Espers II.

If, like us, you’ve been lurking in the shadowy confines of your local tavern, eyeing the minstrels as they pass through with suspicion and hunger, then you’re familiar with Faun Fables. They’re one of the most widely-traveled of all the musical entertainers out there, and with their new album, The Transit Rider, they’re going even farther! It’s not just that the album has a traveling theme, nor that Faun Fables is hitting the road in extreme support of their latest musical gem. There’s also this: The Transit Rider is a gem of musical theatre, and so Faun Fables will be augmented by theatrical troops to realize this material live. On the CD, the music is pretty, and pretty frightening at times too, but the drama is implied. Onstage, the drama will be brought to audience members with a hand-made charm reminiscent of Johnson, Moliere and the rest of their tent-performing brethren through the ages. This is can’t-miss entertainment, so don’t you do it!

What’s newer than Espers and Faun Fables? Well, there’s our June releases. Heard about Six Organs of Admittance? Yeah, who hasn’t? Well, have you heard about the new Six Organs of Admittance record? If you’re a regular reader of this organ, then you have — but if you’re not, hey! New Six Organs record! It’s called The Sun Awakens and it’s a firey-hot trip to the burning core of Six Organs of Admittance, always hinted at but never fully explored on previous Six Organs excursions. Fortunately, it’s Ben Chasny’s style to bring sweetness into whatever he’s doing — and that counts here, like a spoonful of honey in a cup of fresh lava. You’ll see what we’re saying clearly when The Sun Awakens in June.

As new as June is also the written word of Ian Svenonius, known to this point in time as the sharply-dressed spiv fronting cultural touchstone rock and roll groups such as the Make Up, Scene Creamers and Weird War (to name but three). Having contributed essays and journalism to counter-cultural periodicals over the years, it wasn’t too far of a stretch for Ian to compile a whole book of observations dissecting the world at large in easy-to-read pieces with titles like “A Warning to Swedish Girls” and “Eat the Rocument”. Packaged for the hip, young, on-the-go types who like to read as much as they like to pretend they like to read, The Psychic Soviet is poised to take the literary world by storm! And the rest of the world by flood. Prepare ye the way of I. Svenonius.

Click here to examine the evidence...

The news is burning up the academic newswire — the Foundation for Contemporary Arts (er, founded in 1963 by Jasper Johns and John Cage) has awarded their grant to Drag City’s own David Grubbs. Now that David’s five figures larger, he’s expecting to get a lot more play in the art world — but before all you freaks and drop outs descend on David, hoping to turn Blue Chopsticks into a latter-day Apple Records, he’s decided to do something smart with his grant money. Something to do with creating a musical flying machine modeled along the lines of the Zeppelin — a craft, according to David, done grievous harm by the tides of history. Just kidding, kiddies — David’s going to do what he’s always done — get deeper into the culture of music and continue to make some of the most searching, beguiling sounds out there. Congratulations, Mr. Grubbs. photo: Magda Blaszczuk

As the smell of Baby’s Breath permeates our underground headquarters, we’re reminded that spring is in the air. And spring is of course is a time when our young-at-heart fancies turn to...well, among other things, Moikai! It’s been almost four years since the last release, but looking back, every artist that came out on that 13-title imprint is a winner. And the one in particular we’re thinking about right now is Aki Tsuyuko. She’s got a new record out right now on one of our competitor’s labels, but the warm springtime air has us in the mood for M10: Ongakushitsu. Aki’s manipulation of electric piano and organ sound is almost like bird-song after a long winter — try it, you’ll see. Now on sale, from Moikai/Drag City. And distinguished competitor.

To give the Red Krayola the hardest working award, but they wouldn’t take it! It doesn’t jibe with their socialist work ethic. They believe that every musician on the label and probably in the world is equal, and works equally hard and is equally deserving of press and praise and sales and royalties — and love and hate and everything else there is. So that’s their stance and we’re not gonna argue. We’re not gonna change our minds, either — as their new album Introduction hits the streets, nobody is harder working here in the month of April than Mayo Thompson and The Red Krayola! There’s the work of being a band situated spread across international boundaries (Mayo currently resides in Scotland, while Tom Watson is back in LA, John McEntire is tending to Soma Studios in Chicago and Stephen Prina is teaching at Harvard), plus the hectic schedule of interviews set up to promote the record, plus the set of live shows just about to go down in LA and San Francisco, make The Red Krayola a very active concern — and therefore, the hardest-working in recent memory.

This spring into summer, as we’re feasting on the clear and present delights of new releases such as Loose Fur, The Red Krayola, Faun Fables, Espers and Six Organs of Admittance, the far-away machine is spewing out the next in line! Neil Hamburger, High Llamas, Ghost and King Kong (plus...shhh! Joanna Newsom. There — we said it) are all busily toiling away, soon to surface with records we’ll pitch to you in the future. Will it be 2006 or 2007? Who knows! The path to post-production is a long and tangled one and although we are the gambling sort, we’ve long since given up trying to guess when the art’s ready to come out of the oven. As the old saying goes, it’ll shine when it shines!

These records are designed to color your world and help you mark your place as you glide through time and ultimately, history.

Lean on them,

Rian Murphy
Drag City Inc.