Welcome to the only day we’ve ever known — today! Sure, Drag City’s built on a solid foundation of past releases — catalog, we call it — along with projections for the future… but in between those backward and forward thousand-yard-stares, we’re trapped in today for the rest of time. And frankly, today’s a great day to be Drag City. With the stuff we’ve got planned and the stuff we’ve just finished doing, we’re chock-full of anticipation, satisfaction and an all-essential knowledge of circular time. We’ll leave it to those no-pussy-gettin' quantum physicists to prove or disprove exactly where we are — until we hear from them, today’s the only way!

It’s been nearly twenty years of achievement here in the ivory bunker we call home. From those initial Royal Trux and Pavement singles we took so much shit for way back in 1990 all the way up to the brand-new Neil Hamburger Sings Country Winners LPs, we’ve taken a special delight in following our own lights, regardless of the blind alleys they may take us down. It’s worth it, just for the ride. But every once in awhile, we find ourselves desirous of that one big hit record that would catapult one and all into financial security for the next year or so. Does that surprise, o Drag City aficionado? Hey, we gotta eat (shit?) too! And so what if we want to exclusively eat filet mignon? But don’t worry — there’s no sellout in our future — only the completely reasonable desire to see our fucked-up vision of what’s cool become America’s next musical-and-cultural pastime. And since that’s never going to happen (and thank God!), you’ll find us here as ever, determined to entertain at all (or no) costs!

I can hear it rumbling through your semi-washed mini-masses now — where’s that leave me, Mister and Miss Drag City? Like I said above, it leaves you stuck here in today for the rest of Earth-time (who knows how they count it off-planet?)! Fortunately for you, today rules because of a nice, tight set of "releases" we’ve just sent curbside for your street-wise pleasures. Here’s the pitch —

April – and the world threatens to live again. Who are we to stop it? Instead, we’ve got a pocketful of mulch with which to grow tall upon!

The Mister Lonely soundtrack album offers edification amid hazy sonic delights from the minds of Jason Spaceman and Sun City Girls. Each entity was tapped from friend and fan Harmony Korine who desired their sounds for his new film. Once submissions from each had been toted up and added to the film, it only seemed natural for a soundtrack album to follow. And damn, what a soundtrack album it happens to be!

Monotonix have been rocking the nations with their minimalistic approach to classic rock and their punk-rock approach to playing live. Moving their audiences by literally moving them, and asking their audience to literally move them, Monotonix have made a name for themselves as the most entertaining rock band of 2008! Their debut EP "Body Language" is an entertainment unto itself — a rock record with aesthetics and values as well as the boot-shaking quality that makes each one of their shows such a pleasure.

Neil Hamburger has been one of our favorite comedians on the label for years now. When we heard he had a new record coming up, naturally we were thrilled! Now imagine our disappointment when we discovered that this new comedy album was anything but! Sings Country Winners is the first-ever musical foray for “America’s Funnyman” — and frankly, what was he thinking? Neil doesn’t have the greatest singing voice — and judging from the finished album, he’s got a tin ear when it comes to pitch as well! Then there’s the songs. If he wanted to sing a bunch of classic country weepies like the title of his album implies, there's hundreds of solid-gold standards to choose from. But what does he do? He sings his own songs! And they’re horrid! Plus songs from people we’ve never heard of. John Entwistle – who? Mark Eitzel – sounds like the studio janitor who always wanted to write country songs but could never sell any of his crap material until Neil Hamburger showed up at the studio. Jesus! Fortunately, the music itself is hard-edged, good old-fashioned honky-tonk country picking. At least the musicians don’t embarrass themselves. And the songs here are definitely not the routines he’s been flogging for years — well, not all of them anyway. And so that’s it, that’s the new Neil Hamburger album. If you’re a fan, you might enjoy it.

Yaala Yaala is back and with a new CD of sounds from deepest Bougoni, Mali. Yoro Sibibe is the name of their latest freshly discovered new talent — and naturally, he’s an older fellow who’s been singing for years and years. He specializes in hunter’s music — songs to psych the tribe’s hunters before they head out in search of food. The lyrics of the material communicate strength and power, but for our money, the grooves are as uplifting as any pep talk could be. They’re low and hypnotic — and after an hour of them shaking and rattling, you too will be loose and ready for what may.

On Language of Stone, another two debuts from fine young American artists living in the greater world today. Lights are a group of girls (plus a boy) from Brooklyn, and their self-titled CD finds them working with raw rock beats, non-stop harmony vocals and acidic guitar leads and finding the sweet spot where all three of these divergent techniques meet. Festival are girls and boys from all over — and so is their music, a combination of different eras of folk music and different kinds of production that keep the ear constantly entertained over the course of their fresh new CD Come, Arrow, Come!.

That’s what! But that ain’t all…

We’ve got a great sales plan for May — and if you’ve been paying attention, you know we’ve been bragging about it: Jim O’Rourke reissues, the likes of which ye’ve seldom seen! Seriously, the Osorezan Mimidokudesuka CD didn’t get too far out of Japan back in aught-five, despite an all-star free-power-jams lineup of O’Rourke, Darin Gray and Chris Corsano. And Mimidokudesuka was never pressed on vinyl — until now, motherfucker. Then Tamper goes all the way back to 1991, an age where either you weren’t born already or were carrying on as if you shouldn’t have ever been to begin with! Man, it’s some tasty stuff bro — instruments for the sake of instruments, music in purest sonic form. So pure, you don’t even recognize it! Plus, there’s Blue Chopsticks’ reissue of Circle X’s incredible Prehistory album, which goes even further back, to 1981–83, when post-rock was young, and was called post-punk or no wave or just simply “punk”. Man, were people stupid back then — except for Circle X! And Prehistory may just be the greatest album of all time.

Doesn’t all this sound like exactly what you want to be listening to in May and June and for the rest of your life? Yeah, us too! But the best-laid plans, I tell you. We put together a sales slate of perfect balance, and then we go and add something else to throw the whole GD thing out of whack! It’s the Drag City way — and besides, who are we to not release a fantastic new Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy album that we feel super-strongly about? It’s called Lie Down in the Light and it’s coming along on LP and CD in May with these other records that I just described. You heard it here first. Did that just happen?

Don’t know if they celebrated down in Antarctica, but here in the U.S.S.A., we had a little thing called Record Store Day that celebrated the retail industry we’ve all known and loved since music was invented over 100 years ago. Record shops everywhere paid tribute to their customers, who in turn paid tribute to them, and the subsequent love-and-spend-fest proved that we’re not dead by a long shot just yet. The internet may be a bottomless resource, but it can’t replace the thrill of rifling through LPs, CDs, magazines, books and the occasional t-shirt in a social (and therefore, sensual) environment where your money still counts for something and you’ve got something to win or lose. And don’t tell me you can do that on Second Life! Records (and maybe even CDs) will be around for a long time — at least until the bomb hits. Until then, we’ve still got a good thing going. Keep loving music and don’t fuck up!

You don’t get a nice poster display
like this on the internet! Oh, wait...

Thanks to the good people of Waiting Room Records for hanging ‘em high.

We were just talking about Monotonix and how incredible their live show is — but that’s the way it is with musicians. Before there’s ever a record, the music is live — and after the record, it lives again, on the road. As ever, April, May and so on find us with a bunch of explosive acts fixing to blow the roof off wherever they roam. I’m not just talking about Monotonix (though they do have a stunning run of European dates coming up under Silver Jews’ silver wings) — there’s also Meg Baird (both stateside and on “The Continent”), Baby Dee (a residency at Wilton’s Music Hall in merry old London opening for Marc Almond), Six Organs of Admittance (all over Europe), Faun Fables (in western American states), Bill Callahan with Ali Roberts (exhaustively in the UK and Europe), Helena Espvall & Masaki Batoh (pre-touring the U.S. in advance of their self-titled album), David Grubbs (dates scattered around America and Europe, also in advance of an exciting new album), Major Stars (at Terrastock and elsewhere; who can forget Mirror/Messenger?), Singer (on tour now through June all around America), Silver Jews (all over Europe, as mentioned above), The Howling Hex (in New York city!), Gary Higgins (Albany!) and last and least, Neil Hamburger, with his incredible country music revue (and no comedy!), playing select honky-tonks around the good old U.S.A.

Yessir, they’re gonna blow it up! Get all the details here on the wildest live entertainment money could ever hope to buy.

…came and went a long time ago, an unknown consumer. Due to the complexity of the record business in the 90s, with all the many thriving channels that stock poured back and forth through, it’s impossible to know exactly how it all went down. Whotta relief that we don’t have to deal with all of that any longer! Actually, if we count mailorder customers only, there may yet be a little bit of a race to this hallowed sales mark. And what prizes we’d offer! What an achievement it’d be for some young fan girl or boy!

Drag City Mail Order: Join the Family. Win a Prize! But mostly, Place an Order. Now Better than Amazon!

No we spelled it right. This year, the sixth month is all about Silver Jews. We’re gonna run ourselves ragged if we keep it up at this pace, but what can we do? A new Jews revue demands immediate release! Their latest is called Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea. Absorb it, take it in — the first Silver Jews album with more than two words in it (Yes, we know — but the “The” in The Natural Bridge doesn’t count, according to the grammar dictionaries we have down here). As a matter of fact, it’s got twice as many words as the prototypical Silver Jews album title — a symbol of twice the power and energy and excellence of a Silver Jews record? Only time will tell, loyal fans and uninitiated friends…but early reports are ecstatic and we’re thrilled – a new Jews sound and another brace of classic Berman lyrics!

June also promises the unveiling of Songs from the Source, a previously unreleased recording from Children of the Sixth Root Race, aka Spirit of ’76, aka YaHoWha 13, the house band of the YaHoWha cult. It’s a groovy, soulful departure from the proggy jams collected on many of the Father Yod albums – upbeat churchy testifying with loads of choral voices, all recorded on a 1/4” tape during a rehearsal for a show at the Whisky back in ’73. A great addition to their weird, wild canon and an all-round fun n’ funky listen.

Also in June are more Language of Stone releases from Silver Summit and Noa Babayof. Your introduction to these kids is coming with our next newsletter, which will also contain the exciting news of July and beyond.

Our next newsletter! What a day that’ll be! A day like today — a great day!

See you then,

Rian Murphy
Drag City Inc.