JANUARY – IT’S A DRAG...
A Drag City month, that is! What do you think we do here all day long? Sit around and get depressed? Nope – that ain’t what this city was built on. What we do here is work constantly, around the clock sometimes even, waiting for the day when new releases are, yes, released to distributors and record shops around the country. To put it concisely, we want everyone to have our records! The case in point is January, 2001. While the rest of the country sinks further into their desperate 20th-century hangover, we plan to be releasing and re-releasing a few records. Ever heard of Chestnut Station, Papa M and Smog? Oh, you will! Starting January 29th of this very month, you will be exposed to the fruits of our labors. Drag City – we don’t just release records – we free them – through an innovative anklet-tacked work-release program, natch!
So then, January. We’ve settled on a release date for the long-promised Chestnut Station LP. And In Your Living Room will deliver! Most of you kids (20-30-year-old, educated-and-gainfully-employed "kids") today still party to records all the time – but you don’t really go out and buy a party record, now do you? Chestnut Station took notice of this little oversight and have provided to the marketplace the first and best party record of the 21st century. It’s not quite garage, not really country, and not entirely comedy. And since “good old rock n roll” isn’t quite back in vogue yet, we’re not about to saddle Chestnut Station with that moniker! (note to self: cut this sentence in proofreading) The good times won’t stop flowing – as long as you hit the Repeat button on your CD player, or flip the vinyl over and over again.
Also fun, fun fun is the newest member of the Sea Note family – a l’il CDEP from the man you have learned to fear as Papa M. If prisons had back porches, this is the music you might hear wafting through the fecund, swampy breeze on steamy, hopeless summer nights. Yeah, “Papa M Sings,” has a different approach to musical entertainment than anything we’ve called M has shown in the past. And that might be why it’s on Sea Note (though we couldn’t tell you for sure, nobody tells us anything around here anymore...). But rest assured, on “Papa M Sings,” Papa M sings! And once you hear his caterwauling, you’ll sing too. It’s going to be a singalong, folks! Or somebody’s gonna get wacked.
January 29th, 2001 will also be remembered as the day Smog’s early opuses Sewn to the Sky and Forgotten Foundation came back into the digital lives of analogue people who’d never really experienced them before (despite the frequent 1000+ word essays).
TAKING IT IN
At our annual meeting on New Year’s Eve, we decided the only way to sell more records was to have more records to sell! And so, by hook or by crook, we’re getting more records in the house each and every day. A few months back when we put out The Fucking Champs IV, we reached out and grabbed all The Fucking Champs side projects we could and now the world has one more place to obtain their Concentrick and Weakling records (hint: they're on our Special Offers page). When Neil Hamburger came to town, we “borrowed” a few (boxes) of his tour single “50 States, 50 Laughs,” and things just got better. Then last month, we added Movietone to the gallery of direct only titles. And plus, we’re still selling those odd bits of Ghost ephemera – the Batoh releases, the Cosmic Invention CD...and David Berman’s Actual Air, the Papa M souvenir coin, the last Stereolab LP – all rare titles! But wait, there’s more. With the titles we mentioned above, we’re also ready to offer up some Palace Records back stock. That’s right – you mail order and retail customers alike will be offered those elusive Bonnie 'Prince’ Billy and Anomoanon records that you’ve been striving to buy for the past year. Look for them – on our website and in any shop that has the good taste to peddle Drag City records.
In short: we’re primed and ready – bring on the sales!
COMING TO A HEAD
We got records on the schedule and then we got records in the can. Which are more exciting? It’s so hard to tell, especially when among the forthcoming are fantastic albums from U.S. Maple, Edith Frost, and Jeff Tweedy 'n' Jim O’Rourke (together at last!)!
ACRE THRILLS
We just finished listening to the new U.S. Maple – what a ride – and we’re coming down with a case of acre thrills! Yes, it’s a new kind of illness (a new kind of ill); the shakes that occur when you hear the new U.S. Maple album, Acre Thrills, and you fall in love all over again and then get wild. It’s that good. And no, we don’t have an advance copy you could hear...yet.
WONDER WONDER
Just behind the U.S Maple record (in the general scheme of things, that is) is the brand-new Edith Frost record. It’s not all the way together yet, but it’s going to be called Wonder Wonder and it too will drive you into a fever that only more listens will drive you back out of again. Edith’s tunecraft has only grown over the last few years and coupled with her heartrending lyrical delivery and the backing of a small orchestra of musicians, it’s fairly overwhelming. We don’t expect to hear from anybody after this hits the streets – it’ll create a whole new generation of shut-ins. Look forward to your immanent hibernation...
FEBRUARY’S PARADE
We’re looking through to the Spring, but believe me, we haven’t forgotten about February. The Appendix Out and Neil Hagerty records slated for release at that time are still exciting, but we’ve been talking a lot about them over the course of the last few newsletters. Look for the exciting return of the descriptions of The Night is Advancing and Neil Michael Hagerty next time.
COMING ALIVE
So yeah, now that we got some records coming out, we’re going to get a little action going. Groups are taking their musical message to the road, where it will come alive once again for the faithful gathered there. It’s not just the usual culprits; in addition to U.S. Maple, Jim O’Rourke, David Grubbs (for our purposes, the usual culprits), there’s also dates to look forward to by the Bonnie 'Prince’ himself (accompanied by Papa M). If that isn’t enough, then what about the awe-inspiring return of this nation’s #1 Party Band, King Kong? That’s right, they’re playing down in Louisville early in February. What are you waiting for? Check out the tourdates page posthaste!
THERE’S MORE!
Of course there’s more, there's always more. And we’ll be telling you more about it next time.
