History is meaningless! No matter whether your ancestors came across the water in a boat or booked an e-ticket that just flew them closer to your present locale — it’s the Now that matters, Cleveland. Just like Vietnam couldn’t prevent Iraq, our past, collective and elsewise flickers like dust in beams of sunlight: pretty, but what does it help? So (with a tip of the quill to our very own Alasdair Roberts), join our carousing bunch; let the music be your master and seek the thrill-ride that can only be had right here today. We the people of Drag City are outfitted to make it fun for you, we promise.

Blob-like, Drag City has spread out over the countryside, leaving little traces that, like parasites, threaten to leap up and grab onto you, eventually becoming a contributing part of your life that can only take inasmuch as it gives. See, entertainment is a two-way street — and that’s the business that we and our parasites are involved in. We call these parasites “records.” We’re not reinventing the wheel here, people — just giving it another spin to provide the ride of a lifetime. And in doing so, we have literally reinvented the wheel!

Before we go on, let us examine for one tiny-but-hot minute this concept we so-boldly call entertainment. It takes loads of forms, as perhaps you've noticed. Entertainment of a musical nature alone is split into all the genres you've already heard of (blues, classical, hip-hop, etc), and even the realm of rock and roll and popular music has a thousand little sub-phyla or whatever. And that’s what you gotta consider when Drag City rolls up — we like artists and musicians who are going to take that wheel for a ride down lots of roads at once. Anyway’s the only way when it comes to what they do and how we like it. And the only other thing we tend to regard as something sort of like a rule is that there’s got to be some evidence of soul in our Drag City brand entertainment — and here, think in terms of meta-soul — call it commitment, if you must! For even when there’s no autobiography or personal truth or anything conventional like that coming from Drag City records and tapes, there's still this thing we’re calling soul. It’s as simple as desire — if the makers of music and art aren't committed to coming from within, how can we commit to them from without? How can you?

If you ever wondered before today about the Drag City thing, there’s your answer, hot-shot. Until next time, anyway. Not!

What’s that smell? Fresh product, as we well-tanned industry veterans say. We've laid it out to get cool (or perhaps we should say, cooler?) and now we’re drawing a crowd. And flies! That’s what we want for our product: a crowd. And flies! And with new releases from Six Organs of Admittance, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, The Valerie Project, Major Stars, RTX, White Magic, Ghost, Randall of Nazareth and Fred Armisen (and that’s just since October!), how could we not draw a crowd? And, uh, flies.

Out today, and forevermore, are the following titles of intrigue and exaltation:

---

Six Organs of Admittance Shelter from the Ash
New from Ben Chasny and his crunky-bunch, a pre-apocalyptic parabola of darkly ecstatic visions and deep moods that re-tie Six Organs of Admittance to this Earth, with burnt wing-tips from their flight so close to the Sun. The musical menu pairs electric and acoustic guitar textures over a granola-like backdrop featuring drums, percussion, vibes, electric keyboard, piano innards, Amazon field recordings (the river, not the site, webhead!)...resulting in, as in all the greatest Six Organs of Admittance music, a natural feeling throughout. Song-wise, five of the eight tracks are lyrics-borne and feature singing of fresh beauty and unprecedented control from Chasny, who is accompanied by Elisa Ambrogio, giving extra-worldly presence to the harmonies. It is a wondrous, moving thing, confronting the fragile existence we live today with eloquence and a stoicism that guarantees universal empathy among all who listen. Count yourself among them – seek Shelter from the Ash.

And PS – the LP package is tits. You'll pick it up if you know what fine artworks is good for you...

---

The Valerie Project self-titled
Honoring a semi-unknown film from the heady days of the 60s is something that everyone has had a go at during one phase or another of their vida loca. It’s fun to draw parallels to that faraway time and play dress-up in your mind; would you have been mod or rocker? How would you have stuck it to the establishment? What would your sign have been? For Greg Weeks and the rest of The Valerie Project, that semi-unknown film is Jaromil Jires’ Valerie and Her Week of Wonders – and the fun they like to have with it is by playing their own original soundtrack to the film! Fortunately, Greg and co. are all heavy-hitters from the Philadelphia scene, and when they get all their way-out, days-of-yore musical gear up on stage and roll the film, it’s something to see and hear. Even when the film isn't running, you can now have fun all by yourself at home (or, if you're crafty, in the empty movie theater) with The Valerie Project —a double-album length soundtrack excursion into the depths of the film. It’s fun – and scary too on just a musical level, even without the eerie Czech vampires and creepy priests running around. The artwork is by Tracy Nakayama, respected gallery artist and winner of our recent t-shirt design contest — so you know that’s gotta be good too! Ring the bell-bottoms! The Valerie Project will get you stoned — even in these progressive, non-judgmental times we live in.

---

Bonnie ‘Prince Billy “Ask Forgiveness”
“Better to ask forgiveness than permission” it reads in the CD booklet of this fine new release — and who are we to disagree with a fine new release, much less a dubious aphorism? This EP’s eight songs strong, and they’re all previously unreleased performances from Bonny, unattached to any album (like the parade of short-play Bonny records that have preceded it over the past year). The material was cut over the summer at Hexham Head in Philadelphia and features the songs of a number of talented writers. Who? That would spoil the surprise if we told you! Besides, we told you in the last newsletter — how much more repeating ourselves do we have to fucking do? I swear, our mind is just about numbed as it is...but anyway, “Ask Forgiveness” acts as sweet balm on our poor benumbed brain with its combination of fluid soundings from guitars, voices and cello. With these elements and his own intuition as divining rod, the Bonnie ‘Prince’ has located sweet juice beneath the surface of all these tunes — and indeed, our very existence! Remember, “Ask Forgiveness” is a nice long EP of all-new recordings, none of which have appeared on Bonnie’s records before and all of which will bring pleasure over the course of time. “Ask Forgiveness" — buy it, but don't you dare ask it!

---

Major Stars Mirror/Messenger
No matter how far they go out of style, electric guitars will never go out of style. There’s something about rock that connects to our primal urge as well as the childish desire to do nothing but have fun and play. Wayne Rogers and Kate Village long ago tapped into this impulse and have been measuring out the days, months and years of their career with massive guitar solos and songs that can barely contain them. They put out four Major Stars albums as a quintet and one previous album as a sextet, but this sixth one captures the sound of the triple-guitar-headed Major Stars beast best. With lead-singer Sandra Barrett leading the non-side-length tracks with her brassy pipes (and threading fluidly through the epic songs), Mirror/Messenger is spin-ready classic rock at the ready — and if you don't believe us, check out one of the tour dates coming down fast in the east and midwest in late November and December. If ever a group was meant to be seen, heard and generally experienced live and LOUD, Major Stars are it.

Back from the banned is RTX, fighting corporate power with their fingers in the air! What fingers, what air? Doesn't matter — the point is, they’re fighting. To help them in the cause, we’re reissuing our most-celebrated banned release of earlier this year, , under its new corporation-friendly title RaTX (cause the rats won this round, yo), but the same old artwork — so don't overthink this thing or sell it short! It's the same record! A helpful sticker on the disc will aid both wheat and chaff alike in the record aisles — but we'll expect everyone to buy another copy anyway — sympathy for the banned, doncha know...Further making the picture awesome is the addition of a vinyl edition of RaTX, where the wild frenzy of RTX rock pounds with the fury of pure granite in the deep grooves of the LP. Why didn't we think of this the first time? Oh, that’s right — the MAN (me) wouldn't let us...

Thinking about next year and drawing a blank? Not us. We've got a few tricks up the old wizard's sleeve – and those tricks have got a record or two they've been working on. In January comes Baby Dee – her album Safe Inside the Day is already beginning to work its wonders on listeners around the world, so prepare to hear a lot more about it and about her — it and she are amazing! Then in March and April come another couple of top-shelf artists with heavy-hitting new titles of their own...probably — and that's why we're not naming names here, because our projections have been proven wrong before. But assuming everything works out well, stay tuned for Earthshakingly awesome news sometime in the unknowable, unpredictable future.

In and amongst these major new releases, we'll have equally big-big-big! new releases from Language of Stone (Ilya Monosov and Ex Reverie) and Yaala Yaala (TBA!). Plus, we intend to have some serious fun on vinyl with LP reissues of two of our greatest reissues ever: Mayo Thompson Corky’s Debt to His Father and Gary Higgins Red Hash. They'll each come with a little 7” of extra material for those of y’all who thought you'd only ever have those era-redefining titles on CD — or worse yet, as downloads!

Along with these titles will come tours, television appearances and loads of press — plus a few sales-and-promotional things we haven't even laid on you because we haven't even envisioned them yet! All this plus some record projects in the air that we can't speak of without crossing our fingers (so as not to jinx ‘em) — and since we’re typing this in the old-fashioned ten-fingered way (sans thumbs — do the math!), we can't do it as yet. But stayed tuned, fucking won't you?

Hey everybody — did you know that MTV the video channel still exists in some form relevant to videos? It's true, apparently — though now it's all done through their second channel that they call MTV2. And not only do they occasionally sometimes show videos on that channel on a show apparently called Subterranean but they also have a year-end contest that their viewers (whoever they are) can vote in to determine the best "indie" videos of the year. Instead of asking "what other kinds of videos are there?" just go to the http://www.mtv2.com website and to the Subterranean page and vote for Bonnie's "Cold & Wet" video (which was our personal choice for video of the year already). He's up against...well, a number of people who aren't going to get any ink here. The results will be shown on December 17th on MTV2's Best of 2007 countdown, starting at 1:00 am EST. Well what are you waiting for? Find out about this alleged cable network! And vote for Bonnie!

The Drag City T-Shirt Contest is over! After many submissions of marvelously varied qualities, we've come up with a winner. Here’s what your casualwear attire for 2008 will be highlighted by:

As we mentioned just a few scant paragraphs above, this is the work of Tracy Nakayama, a fine-art maker whose cover for The Valerie Project’s new 2xLP/CD is so beautiful! Now we got a beautiful T-Shirt from her too — and it’s gonna make your body look great, especially at Christmas.

Notice how nobody ever talks about overpopulation anymore? That shit went out a long time ago! The thing we ought to be worrying about now is all this inner space everyone’s got going. There may not be the great wide open around us anymore, but people sure are insulated inside their stupid fucking selves. Fortunately, Drag City is among the millions who've ridden to the rescue, providing downloads of the music in our catalog for reasonable rates, all of which are there to put space between you and the world at large, dummy! It’s old news, really — sometimes we feel like we cascaded down the music industry’s uterine tract offering downloads, but it isn't so: we were born selling vinyl! And we still do...and according to newspaper reports, we’re selling more vinyl than ever (this is how we know the music business isn't dead) — but that’s beside the point, which is: you can flood your ear buds and fill your you-pod to the gills with the variegated sounds of Drag City artists — when not playing them on your personal home stereo setup. We've spent the last decade-plus assembling enough titles to wall you off — and now that the grand isolation is all the rage, we’re ready for you. It’s time to get alone — with the Drag City Collection. Surely you don't have all our titles yet? Go impulse-download a few more. We wanna get inside you. Deep.

Seems to me like every time I pick up a phone around the office and someone isn't complimenting me on one of our records (thanx, gang!), then somebody is saying, Gee whiz, there’s so many Drag City bands on the road right now. Well duh, bitch! It’s a proven sales-driver, having bands out on the road (this is more industry jargon for all you innocent, uncorrupted record buyers out there. Or as we industry vets like to call it, indestroy gargle) — and if you check the efil4zaggin tour page, you’ll see that we got bands all up in everywhere. Go! Look! We got White Magic, Alasdair Roberts, RTX and Major Stars all on Major Tours around America! We got High Llamas playing some exclusive French dates (are there any other kind?)! We got Neil Hamburger In Residence at Spaceland in LA! Bill Callahan just back from Australia! Joanna Newsom playing with orchestras everywhere (a few good ones, even)! Baby Dee in New York and Copenhagen and God knows where else (if only He knew)! And lots more in the works for good ol’ next year. There’s always next year — until…

There isn’t. Well we’re not waiting to find out. And neither should you. Chaaaarge it!

See you on the other side.

Rian Murphy
Drag City Inc.