Hey and hoya to all fans of musical excitement and life in general from all the gang here at Drag City Enterprises Inc. What’s going on? You get one guess! Yep, it’s the molten-hot center of July and everything’s slowed to a crawl all around us. That’s right — nobody’s getting shite done and everyone’s gone to the movies to pass a cool couple of hours. And who can blame them? Anyway… what’s new with you? Nothing, huh? Yeah, things are tough all over. Bitch not, baby — as usual we’ve got an ace or five up our sleeves to enliven your daily grind and our bank account. Who cares if you’re spending almost all your money on gas? For a few dollars more you can buy yourself some carry-away music or a ringside seat to a touching local display by a Drag City artist of your choosing, thus ensuring yourself a lifetime of experiences. And as all us long-time users can tell you, music will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no music!

You’re a class act — you care about the people around you — and you care about what they think of you! Hoo boy, if you cared any more about what they thought of you, you’d be the god damn wicked witch, with your narcissistic “mirror, mirror” bit and “how does this affect me” and whatnot! Dang, weren’t we just talking about how great you were? What happened, dude, you used to be so righteous! Never mind your ego trip, here’s some new Drag City releases that are bound to advance your standing among your so-called peers. Memorize the following names so you won’t be lagging behind during the heady discussion tonight at the brew house…

Could we have begun with more of a mouthful? Sure we could have — but we started here, so just thank us later. And when you think about it, you already know lots about Helena and Batoh. Think! Straight out of Sweden, Ms. Espvall’s been jamming around with jazzers for several years now, playing free improvisation on her instrument of choice, the cello. More recently, she’s smashed her head against the neo-folk-rock with groups like Espers, Fursaxa and The Valerie Project, as well as touring with Vashti Bunyun and others. She’s even released solo recordings under her very own very Swedish name. In fact, she’s even toured the U.S. with Batoh already, setting the stage for this release (in June, when barely anyone knew about it) at which time she played at Terrastock with Batoh! See? And Batoh’s been putting out records since the early 90s with the formidable and inimitable Ghost, each album of another sonic treasure-hunt with distinctive individual psychic properties. Then there are his tripped-out solo recordings, collected under the deep-orange cover marked Collected Works. He’s produced Damon & Naomi too, just ‘cause he liked ‘em. His records are dug by people you know, people whose work has inspired other people. So chances are you've shared some space with Helena & Batoh, whether you knew it or not.

And now Batoh and Helena are together again for the first time on record, collaborating on an all-natural self-titled debut album that’s out there now, to mellow your mind and sharpen your hidden wits about you. On this gently powerful new album, Helena and Batoh play some traditional songs of Sweden as well as some pure improvisations. They play a medieval song, an original song or two and they cover Son House with a definitive version of “Death Letter.” The music is sweet and simple and complex and beautiful, ranging from the sonic pictures painted by two transcontinental pickers on the back porch of the universe to sonar of the exploration of space itself. And all wrapped elegantly in a jacket of yellow and brown, organic and pure, the work of human hands in love with life. If you want more out of your existence, invite Helena Espvall and Masaki Batoh into it.

In the past five years, the world’s been blessed with an increased outputting of new and archival music from The Red Krayola — and this July, we just keep the tempo rolling with a round of Fingerpointing dating back to 1999 — and, actually, 1967! It’s a long story, but we’ve got nowhere else to be but here, so have a listen…The original Red Crayola are remembered for their special take on the psychedelic music — one that contrasted smartly psyched-out pop tunes with “Free Form Freak Outs.” Their first album featured three of each per side — and having made a definitive statement in the fabled realm of paisley, they moved on and haven’t stopped moving to this day.

Moving forward doesn’t mean you can’t look back as well — and thusly on occasion, The Red Krayola have referenced their history while rolling the bones in whatever present day they find themselves in. One such occasion was in 1999, when an album called Fingerpainting was released. Borrowing the song-freakout-song-freakout structure from their famed first album as well as a set of (mostly) unreleased songs from way back then, the latter-day band rendered the material in a manner that befitted it – which brought new sounds into the mix and presented a sonic canvas as potentially controversial as the one they debuted with over 20 years earlier. But way back in the 1960s, there were two versions released — the mono and stereo mixes. As it transpired, two mixes were made of the 1999 album as well — and since we’ve sadly lost the habit of mono/stereo releases, they were both stereo and only one was released. The other one was mixed by Jim O’Rourke, it was real nice and all…but at the time, the mix was placed in the vault with a promise made to reexamine it at a later date. And nearly ten years later, that date has arrived! Fingerpointing has a stonededer air than Fingerpainting, more of a droning lift to its drift. It is separate and yet of a piece with its older brethren – and as all Red Krayola output, a record album for its time. And that time is now. Get in on the Fingerpointing! It feels so good.

Thank God the old days of the traveling musician are over! Back then, if you wanted to hear their song, they needed to sing it right in front of you — which sounds wonderful in principle, but there weren’t any hi-fis! All the renaissance fair kids who want to go back to that time would be stone out of luck once they got there and couldn’t make all the wonderful music into mp3s, you know? Anyway, don’t tell Dawn the Faun we said this, cause she loves to troubadour — but if it were olden times all over again, we wouldn’t have this lovely new Faun Fables EP for you! It’s called “A Table Forgotten” and even though it’s only an EP, it has a theme! Which is, what a world we live in where communal rites such as cooking and dining together are slowly slipping away from us. The rituals inherent in the family meal once bound us together in a sacred (but often secular) fashion. Today, what does it all mean? I’m paraphrasing here, and of course, the four new songs on this EP all communicate themselves in a non-preachy fashion that recalls pagan traditions in their liveliest, most colorful fashion. This is the first-ever Faun Fables EP, and one that signals a return to recorded action for the first time since March of 2006. Good news, Faun fans! There’s an album on the way — and sometime in 2009, we’ll be talking about that too. Meantime, pull your chair up to “A Table Forgotten” — Dawn’s got some tales that’ll tantalize you.

What makes a mail bag start fires? Letters like this one:

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Dear Drag City :

I am a fan of music. I like all kinds of music, I got the rhythm in my soul. Lately, I have been enjoying different things that I never heard before, like music from other countries. They’ve got it too! Now it’s all I want to hear, but the world is large and I am small. What can you tell me?

Young But Daily Growing

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Young One,

You’re in luck! We feel like you feel, the music touches us too. And lately, we’ve been hawking some of the world beat around and we like doing it. So what we think you’re telling us to tell you is, check out the label Yaala Yaala, they’ve got some super-low-down Malian jams — but most of all, you’re asking to know about our latest new release, August 19th’s Fajar Di Atas Awan by North Sumatran sensations Suarasama. They explore the traditional sounds of their people…but when you consider that Sumatra is a part of present-day Indonesia, this expands the concept of what their people are somewhat. Ethno-musically trained as Suarasama are, they’ve expanded their range beyond even that, to include aesthetics from all kinds of world music, like African, Indian, Eastern European, Indian, Middle Eastern and back to Southeast Asia. All these inflections are played in an elegant amalgam that is native to Suarasama alone — a sound that is meditative and yet pulsingly rhythmic, created with several continents worth of instruments played with brevity and care plus spiritual vocals and stingingly international guitar licks sharing space and creating a sense of planetary wonder. What kind of people are we! Ah, youngling — thanks for your question. We only hope we’ve been of aid on your quest.

Drag City International

Also coming out in the mellowly blazing month of August is a recording that’s been waiting nearly twenty years for its moment — and the moment is now! Jim O’Rourke created a lot of music in his formative days, some of which was released (and re-released — have you heard the Tamper reissue?) and some of which was set aside, too problematic to consider at the time (a condition not unfamiliar to later works as well — witness O’Rourke’s aforementioned mix of The Red Krayola’s Fingerpointing that is now coming to triumphant light after nearly ten years on the shelf). Like this long night, for instance! Streamline are showing the way on this recording, which is two hours and thirty-eight minutes, all in! Do you realize what that would have been in 1990 technology? Either three LPs, at least — or as many CDs! Today, we have CDs that are longer, and two of them can contain this epic work. It’s a single drone, one that morphs itself into subtly different shapes along the way. Put both CDs into your multi-disc player (why is all of this sounding so archaic?) and let it play…two hours and thirty minutes later, you’ll be a changed human, the same way that massage or acupuncture or drugs change your chemistry. Can’t wait for the change? Wait until August 19th for your long night to commence.

…Silver Jewgust and Silver Jewtember, we mean! And don’t get us wrong, we’ve got other things going on in August and September, like the aforementioned Suarasama and Jim O’Rourke releases, but also like the as-yet-unmentioned new hotties from The Howling Hex and David Grubbs as well as the Silver Jew DVD. But oops, I said it again! It can’t be helped. So let’s get down with it: Silver Jews are going to be all over the United place starting the last week of August. First, they launch their Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea North American tour in on August 28th in Columbus Ohio, after which they rock and roll across the landmass until October 12th (often with Drag City’s ultimate party band Monotonix opening the show) with loads of Jews Heads in tow, determined not to miss a show. During this time, we release their Silver Jew DVD on September 23rd, a look inside the world of David Berman as he leads his band through their 2006 trip to Israel. And meanwhile, LOMLOC (as it is known among Jews-heads) continues selling like Old Testament bibles (they never stop selling. Never). So there’s a lot of action on the Silver Jews coming your way in the next couple of months. And then…maybe nothing? Who can tell? So make your plans with the Jews for August and September.

Check it out dudes:

That’s right — blood. And all over Jennifer’s favorite t-shirt. It’s what can sometimes happen when RTX hits the road. All those long hours traveling and waiting to play…and all those beers! It can really kind of sneak up on a person – and when that person is RTX’s own Jennifer Herrema, it may also add up to a situation not easily explained or understood, such as the night in Nashville recently when Jennifer appeared on stage during the opening band’s set screaming and yelling about stuff that nobody could really agree on later. She took the mic from the singer and sent him offstage, yelling a bit of abuse along the way, only to be engaged in a clinch with him moments later that sent them both sprawling to the floor — and him with his arm already in a sling! Eyewitness reports indicated that this poor man got the worst of it, but Jennifer banged her head somewhat definitively — and if it wasn’t a concussion, it was at least enough to require that loose blood be blotted on her shirt, which is now in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame™. If you weren’t there, you missed it! Plus there was some good rockin’ that night. When RTX tour for their forthcoming new album JJ Got Live RaTX, make sure you don’t make the same mistake again.

It's happened before and it's going to happen again soon — we're going to run out of something before everybody gets their shot at it. It happened with the Corky's Debt to His Father and Red Hash vinyl reissues and it's happening with all sorts of vinyl items that will come back — but when? Until that time happens, you sweat and moan and don't know your ass from a hole in the ground (the difference: a hole in the ground should never have a dildo sticking out of it —that's a waste of a fine pleasure-giving item!). And us! We're losing sales — you know what that does to us! More damage than a dildo, I promise you that...Anyway, we've been inaugurating a new feature on our home page whereby you can preorder the next date's release (in this case, the Suarasama Fajar Di Atas Awan 2LP/CD and the Jim O'Rourke long night 2xCD). This gives us a view towards interest in advance. And frankly, that's in all our interests, isn't it? Sure it is! It's going to make the world that's coming that much more awesome, and you'll have lots more of the stuff you need. So go ahead — have a trot around the website and see what the new stuff is. And maybe add a few old LPs or CDs as well.

And there’s good cassettes available too, people.

Au revoir, not adieu,

Rian Murphy
Drag City