Attention all you flash young rock and roll gutter-dwellers: you’re stuck here in the long tail with the rest of us, so suck it up and take a bit of advice from old Drag City: respect yourself, bee-yo! Start living right and letting the music be your master, the way you always claimed it was (poseur)! Forget the way you’ve lived and climb into today. And grab a few Drag City records on the way in, would you? Subtly they’re carrying a message for you that’ll open up your eyes and ears (if you can believe ‘em), brighten the colors of our gray world and tease your brain into new calisthenics you never before thought possible. Like these —

We’ve been strutting their stuff for months now, and finally it’s time for the world to share in our un-secret pride: Silver Jews’ Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea is out there, people! You can have it on oh-so-fashionable LP or bastard stepchild CD — if you haven’t ripped that shit already, that is! And yes Virginia, there is a download — you guys are sooo predictable! But hey, that’s why we love you — you keep coming back to buy the new Silver Jews record, no matter which way we try and sell it to you. It’s making us think that an Actual Air audiobook might actually be a good investment! But hey – today’s not about us. It’s about Silver Jews and their utterly great new-phase Silver Jews album Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea. David Berman has rallied the troops to a promised land beyond Tanglewood Numbers – a sonic landscape cluttered with detail and yet somehow stripped to bare essentials, glittering metallic but with a beating heart glowing within. Like we said, this is new-phase Silver Jews – not your old weird uncle’s alt-country/indie-pop Silver Jews, but a bulked-up (yet still super-literate) hybrid of the blue-collar, white-collar and no-collar Silver Jews we all remember from albums gone by. Because what is life without a bit of HGH-style growing and changing? Using the Tanglewood Numbers outfit that toured the world in 2006 and 2007, DCB has forged a fantastic new collection of tunes where the song is the thing, and the rest of the world passes through the song on its way into our soul. This is the secret to that thing called The Great American Songbook – but fortunately for us, Silver Jews are dwelling in a different realm than the universalities of Gershwin, Rodgers and Porter. It may be the same realm as George Strait and Craig Morgan though – this is music for today’s people! All of ‘em.

Spiritual note to spiritual self: today you are closer to The Source. The Source Family, that is. Over the past year, they’ve generated a lot of press for themselves with a tell-all book about their wild early-mid-70s LA-to-Hawaii communal living trip in the service of self-proclaimed holy man Father Yod. Then there’s the records released by The Source folks under the name YaHoWa 13 — a wilder bunch of quasi-religious proto-new age prog garage rock has yet to be uncovered! Today, there’s another, different musical artifact from that era that goes under the nameof Children of the Sixth Root Race. The album is called Songs From The Source, and it’s a stone-groover of hippie pontificating, white-gospel vibes, apocalyptic vision-questing and the sound of a collective working together to play a really great show! The tape of this 1973 recording was recently discovered after several decades off the radar and it has all the strange magic of that very strange time. It was a heady period, and now you too can sing along with the other heads. Dig Songs From The Source!

Don’t look now, but you’ve got two new languages to learn – Language of Stones, that is. Everytime you turn, we’re turning around too – with a couple new releases from the neo-hippie folk label that could, Language of Stone. If you haven’t heard any of their discoveries so far (Orion Rigel Dommisse, Mountain Home, Ilya Monosov, Ex Reverie, Festival and Lights), the new titles on this date might be a good place to start – take your pick from the dark psychedelia of Silver Summit (on extra-rich, extra-limited vinyl as well as CD) and the singer-songwriter folk tunes of Noa Babayof. Then go backwards – there’s an old world of acoustical mind-blowers there for you to discover!

A year ago, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy capped off a furious eight months of live shows around the world by playing a benefit concert in Louisville KY. Then — nothing. Sure, there was a covers EP (“Ask Forgiveness”) a live CD (Wilding in the West), a demos CD with Dawn McCarthy (Wai Notes) and a new album (do we need to say it again? The ineffable masterpiece Lie Down in the Light!) – but no live shows! What’s up with that? I guess even a ‘prince’ needs a year off every once in awhile…anyway, that’s all behind him (and more importantly, us) now. Bonnie’s back on the road way out east in Europe through July 12 with dates in Finland, Czech Republic, Macedonia, Serbia and Croatia (got to — you can’t give one of these guys an edge over the other, think of the children!) as well as Germany, Denmark, Austria and Italy, with festival dates in Ireland and Portugal (and Rothskilde back in Denmark!). And that’s cool — but when’s he gonna tour America again? Shit, Bonny, we’re people too.

There’s nothing but more magic ahead – a magic of a decidedly darker tone than the high-flying rock and roll, psych and experimental stuff we’ve been pumping on you in May and June. Yeah, we’re flipping the script and bringing the darkness back into the equation. A bit of ancient folk, blues and some relocated Red Krayola mixes from ten years ago — just what you need when you’re tripping down to the pool, right? Well, some wear long pants – long black pants – all summer long, people!

Ah, but we can all get along — especially once we absorb some of the peaceful vibrations emanating from the Masaki Batoh & Helena Espvall album. It’s the debut duet from the Ghost frontman and Espers cellist – but they sound very comfortable and happy in each others presence. You know Batoh’s feeling relaxed when he rolls out instruments like ocean drum, grass chime, bird whistle and wind machine — but he gets some sweet licks in on the acoustic guitar as well. Helena plays a bunch of acoustic guitar and sings a few Swedish traditional songs from her childhood memories. Batoh takes the lead on a truly haunting rendition of Son House’s “Death Letter,” and the two of them do some free improvising together on a few numbers, one of which is an epic trip into the void. But a peaceful trip! Keying on a state of nature, Helena & Batoh have made a perfect record together. Amazingly, they put together a tour around the U.S., a run of dates that is almost over as of press time, but which will include an appearance at Terrorstock on June 20th. Fly, don’t run! And catch their highly spiritual concert together.

Also on the dark yet spiritual tip is Faun Fables, who — at last! — have new tunes to offer us. And these are no burnt offerings, no way! Their new things is an EP called “A Table Forgotten” – but it’s one of the meatiest EPs we’ve heard in some time. The titular table is a symbol of family life, an axis deemed missing in this deadening modern world. This is the theme of the album, but in no way does it stop the rhythms of “With Words and Cake” from causing us to get up and dance (check it out for yourself on YouTube). Clocking in at 17 minutes, these four new songs are rife with life, lovely little details in the mix like the flickering of a theremin, the breath of a harmonium, lots of harmonies and a fat bottom rocking it all along. Joining Dawn the Faun and Nils Frykdahl in this outing are Meredith Yayanos and Kirana Peyton, along with special guest Matt Waldon. Dawn’s siren vocals are peerless as always — it’s such a joy to have new Faun Fables music in the house!

Then the Fingerpointing. You know, ten years ago we released an album by The Red Krayola called Fingerpainting. Now we’ve got an album by The Red Krayola called Fingerpointing. Coincidence...or design? The world will never know. Ah, we can’t keep a secret — it’s design, baby! Do you actually think The Red Krayola would ever do anything without thinking it out first? It just doesn’t happen. That’s what keeps the quality so elusively high. In the case of this music, Fingerpainting was not only high-quality, but elusive as well — a reconstruction and present-time commentary on the methodology behind their 1967 debut, The Parable of Arable Land. Despite a landslide of wild sounds and a fantastic set of vintage songs drawn out of the well for the occasion, Fingerpainting was out in front of the listening audience in 1999. What would they have thought of Fingerpointing? We’ll never know, but what you can know is that this is an alternate mix of the same material made by Jim O’Rourke (Fingerpainting was mixed by Albert Oehlen). Fingerpointing has different inflections and a different flow while rolling down the same path as its other self. There’s a droning, incense-wafting quality to it that may be more equitable in today’s listening bowl. Hear for yourself on July 22nd.

We told you that the Bonnie ‘Prince’ was touring – but what about the rest of the Drag City yobbos? Yep, them too. When you live for music, what else are you going to do? No self-respecting non-asshole would just churn out record after record in an narcissistic frenzy! There’s a special push-and-pull that has to happen between music-makers and their audience: put out the record, tour (or don’t), let time pass and people change, then make another. Drag City artists dig that concept – and that’s why they’re always crawling the face of the planet, criss-crossing paths as they take their own personal entertainment further and further into the country, crusading as it were for the existence of an inner light! But not in a creepy way, just for a cut of the door. As summer is upon us, we’ve got an extra-heavy bunch of musical art-friends out on the road: check out the tour page and see for yourself.

Whoops — we already told you about next month! But next month, we’ll be back here telling you about the next month after that – a little thing we like to call August. But we'll let you enjoy the summertime a bit more before we get into Bud Billiken Day mode. And enjoy you some of these hot new records from our hot little hands too –

Peace be!

Rian Murphy
Drag City