THE YEAR IN PREVIEW
2005 as it appears today will include the following: Bonnie “Prince” Billy & Matt Sweeney, Six Organs of Admittance, Neil Hagerty, The Howling Hex (featuring Neil Michael Hagerty), Bastro, Bastro, RTX, Alasdair Roberts, Ghost, Weird War, Smog, Pajo, and August Born…and that’s not including albums-in-the-works from White Magic, Loose Fur and Silver Jews (we mean it this time!) and who knows, maybe a little deep psych-folk reissue by the name of Red Hash?

That’s your taster — now dive in for the deep cuts…

A HARP DAY’S NIGHT
Didja see any of the year-end lists? Didja see how Joanna Newsom was on like, every last fucking one of them? Didja see her in concert? Didja notice how you couldn’t see her because either everyone was straining their necks to see her so you couldn’t or you just couldn’t find a ticket ‘cause the show was sold out? That’s been the way it’s going for Joanna Newsom. Since last March, she’s put out an album and a CD single and toured all over America and Europe a couple times — but it’s not enough! The world wants more — and we’re scrambling to keep up. On February 25th and 26th, she’s playing at the Noise Pop Festival in San Francisco — but right before that, she’ll be taking it on the air when she plays on The Jimmy Kimmel Show Live! on February 24th. Check your local ABC affiliate — because if you haven’t seen Joanna yet, you’re in for a visual-aural treat that’s quite sumptuous. Who’d have thought that a girl and her harp could go so far? I mean, other than us?

FIRST THINGS SECOND
Already out and in stores, CD players and other holes now is the Superwolf album from the dyamic duo of Matt Sweeney and Bonnie “Prince” Billy. The short story on how it came to be — Bonny challenged Matt to write music to a series of song lyrics, which was done over some months, and included live shows in London, New Orleans, Brooklyn, and Baltimore. The two retired to Paul Oldham's Rove Studios to lay the songs down. They enlisted the help of drummer Peter Townsend, and vocalist Sue Schofield dropped in for a brief cameo. They hope you enjoy it!

Bonny and Matt have toured clubs and theatres, countries and other kinds of places. As a matter of fact, they’ve just finished playing some shows out west where everyone was left high and square by the entertainment. Before the year is out, they’ll probably play somewhere nearer you (or farther away, if you were at one of those shows out west).

As a first shot to the year, Superwolf can’t be beat. Let it all come back to life!

THE FLOWERING OF SIX ORGANS
…and once it’s alive, let it flower! Six Organs of Admittance has been on the tips of many tongues over the last couple years — and now they’re on Drag City! Specifically, the brand-new Six Organs of Admittance album, School of the Flower is on Drag City — with many more releases coming, we hope! Fans of Six Organs have grown accustomed to the pristine sounds obtained by Mr. Six Organs of Admittance, Ben Chasny, on his home recording equipment — but School of the Flower admits them into the deep, rich recesses of Six Organs (yuck!), all accessible by virtue of contemporary studio equipment. In other words, this is the first Six Organs of Admittance record recorded in a studio! Also featuring the drumming of free-jazz wunder-kid Chris Corsano, School of the Flower is a diverse offering, ranging from tangled rock-outs though signature virtuoso displays of finger-picking and balladic, ether-blown vocalizations. It’s pretty awesome. Word on the street is, it’s one of the best albums of the year! And since this is just January…that’s really saying something.

Ben is already playing over in London this month (both with Comets on Fire and as Six Organs of Admittance) and will resume his tour that never ends back here in the Lower 48 as soon as his feet touch ground again. In the meantime, be sure you enroll — in School of the Flower.

WRITEOUS!
Sure, we put out kick-ass records from kick-ass artists — and we don’t kiss ass doing it, either. Plus, we’re strong enough to hear that you don’t give a fuck. The only thing that bothers us is — why don’t people celebrate our versatility more often? Ah, they’ll have another chance again soon. See, since 1997, Drag City has been a multi-media incorporation — the producer of not just great fucking records, but great f***ing books as well! Who can forget How Bluegrass Music Destroyed My Life by the late John Fahey — not to mention Vampire Vultures by the same great, dead man? You don’t have to forget, because Drag City is keeping it warm and in print for you! Ditto for New York scenester Alan Licht’s treatise on 80s-90s rock n culture, An Emotional Portrait of Martha Quinn. It’s changed lives, and we’ve got some more in a box, like a bunch of grenades, also ready to change lives — except that our art-grenades don’t kill — well, not in the traditional sense. Case in point — Warm Voices Rearranged/Anagram Record Reviews. This hilarious tome is a funny book for the rock of ages! Making anagrams out of an A-Z of rock album titles is one thing, but making them kill is another. It’s funny stuff — but we’re not joking around here. Drag City publishes books as a sincere effort to join the literary tradition that includes books, magazines, comic books, fanzines, and who knows what’s next?

Um, we do. What’s next is Public Works, a collection of short stories and essays from the feathery but razor-sharp quill-pen of Neil Hagerty. Over the years, Neil’s been known for his axe-wielding rock and roll chops in a variety of bands (including his new band, The Howling Hex) but he’s also built himself a reputation as a published author of, among other things, the very first Drag City book Victory Chimp, and the one and only Drag City comic book release, The New Adventures of Royal Trux. Public Works strides purposefully away from the sci-fi action adventures that both those former titles trafficked in to confront the real world in an engaging series of pieces celebrating the unheard and seeking the unseen around the many corners of latter-day America. Along the way, Hagerty takes time to muse on popular culture (in the form of syndicated television sit-com reruns) as well as a quasi-Foucaultian examination of “The Passive-Aggressive Dynamic.” Neil’s not above genre pieces either — but short stories with noir, western and spy stylings are turned inside-out in the quest for a fresh expression. Indeed, Public Works is bound to be one of the most unique books you read all year.

TRUCKIN’ WITH RTX
With the release of Transmaniacon late last year, many Jennifer-heads were all abuzz — with rumors this time, and not just the usual medicants. Would she tour or wouldn’t she? The answer is, she did. With two guitars, bass and drums (and two vocal mics to capture Jennifer’s trademark rasp and squall), RTX rocked from east to west, capping off a series of monstrously heavy appearances with a New Year’s gig in Portland. Now RTX are through with America! Their hard-rock gospel is needed all around the world. And so, off they go. First stop — London, Paris and the other capital cities of Europe. They’ve got three weeks of dates over there. Then, once they get back again, it’s going to be America’s turn again. You can’t stop the rock — you can only hope to not contain it!

Also on the RTX beat is the release of Transmaniacon’s poppiest jam, “Speed to Roam,” along with a few bonus tracks on a limited CD-single, slated for release at the end of February. For those who’ve seen RTX live, a familiar roar will greet you on the single as RTX tackle a couple songs from the album in an unhindered liver-than-anything setting. You’ll think a bear is breaking through your stereo, I swear! Then, once the carnage subsides, a merry bit of insanity called “Kitty Grom” blasts forth. The term ‘bang for the buck’ comes to mind. Then you black out. A quintessential, mini-RTX experience — don’t miss it!

THE HOWLING HEX OPEN ALL NIGHT
In May of 2003, Neil Michael Hagerty unveiled an album entitled The Howling Hex. As in “Neil Michael Hagerty and The Howling Hex.” It turned out to be exactly that — the name of his new band, and late in 2003, a limited-edition LP entitled Introducing The Howling Hex appeared and disappeared — like we said, limited edition. Two more such vinyl-only releases from The Howling Hex appeared in 2004, Section Two and The Return of the Third Tower. All three of these records purported to be diary-entry style musical excursions — but if that’s true, they’re the trippiest diaries we’ve read since Go Ask Alice! Truly wack — and all long gone — but they established The Howling Hex as a band to be reckoned with. As the press release goes, “Introducing some very entertaining goodtime music and audio performed in the New Border Style pioneered by The Howling Hex. A world-wide campaign of the quilted big-screen combining high-country music and rhythm and blues with up-to-the-minute indications.”

Now the time has come to release a Howling Hex that lasts — and that record is All-Night Fox. Featuring a triple-headed vocal attack, lead-rhythm guitar licking and a density that never denies dancability, All-Night Fox is everything it claims to be. We’re frankly breathless with anticipation to see this Howling Hex that’s recorded this record. It sounds like a wooly bunch. Neil’s guitar-playing is as blinding and beguiling as it ever was — but would you believe that he doesn’t take a single solo on the record? Well, maybe one…but mostly, the solos have been lashed to the riffs, with no time for traditional verse-chorus-solo forms on All-Night Fox. It’s definitely something new — check it out!

BACK TO BASTRO
2005 is shaping up to be quite a year — and not just for us! The name Slint suddenly means a real band again, as well as that dreamy embodiment of early, pre-monikered indie-rock that nobody actually saw but everyone wishes for all over again. That’s fine with us — last year, our Red Krayola Singles compilation proved that we Y the 80s-90s, just like everybody else. And now we’ve got something even closer to the sweet country home of Slint — their older brother, Bastro! When little Britt Walford and little Brian McMahon made their first splash in the record business, it wasn’t with Slint, it was with David Grubbs’ Squirrel Bait! It was only after the band broke up and he formed Basto with fellow Squirrel Bait-er Clark Johnson that Slint came into being. Early on, it looked like they were taking their cues from Bastro as well. You can hear for yourself on Sing The Troubled Beast/Diablo Guapo, which chronicles the third and second year of Bastro, respectively. Grubbs’ Bastro rocked rather raucously, but his flat-toned monologue vocals will have you recalling your favorite numbers from Tweez. Listed by many as a favorite record of the early 90s, Sing the Troubled Beast is a welcome blast from that past, fusing Wire-Minutemen type-minimalism with a more roaring type of hardcore punk and even a bit of pre-post-rock in “The Sifter.”

Accompanying this wonderful retrospective disc back into the marketplace is a Bastro recording never heard outside the stinking clubs in which it was originally played. Antlers: Live 1991 captures some of Bastro’s last gasps before the morphing into Gastr del Sol took place the following year. It’s a striking difference from both the before and after poses, with heavy-electric trio instrumentals, less the hardcore tempos (for the most part) but also without the manicured Gastr delivery. Antlers is exciting and fun, a truly phenomenal revisitation that captures the best qualities of that time period, all of which vanished or became something markedly different shortly thereafter. Bastro, Oi!

SPRING FORWARD
All that, and we’ve only described the releases of January and February! Before we get through the Spring, we’ve also got releases from Alasdair Roberts, Ghost, Weird War and (Smog). Briefly then…

ONE EARTHLY MAN
One of the best parts of the last five years for us here at Drag City has been the continued work of former Appendix Out frontman Alasdair Roberts. His last few records have topped themselves, one after another — and he’s done it again! No Earthly Man is a record collecting some of Alasdair’s favorite death ballads — but it’s really so much more than that! Ali's poured his own heart and soul into the stories of other people’s untimely demise — and come out with a deep album that doesn’t at all sound anachronistic, despite it’s traditional trappings. Produced by Will Oldham, coming in March.

VISIONS OF GHOST
Ghost rules! Anyone who’s ever seen them will tell you that — the only problem is, who’s ever seen them? Their tours, though well-attended, are few and far-between and only in select locations around the globe — and even in their home-country of Japan they’ve displayed a penchant for playing in such out of the way places as ancient temples and other deserted locations. But no more — a DVD called Metamorphosis will change all that for everyone. Collected on the DVD are nearly three hours of footage from twenty years of Ghost, everything from the earliest days of musical protest, through the temple days and nights and all the way to more recent happenings such as their Terrastock appearance in 2002 and a set from early 2004 remarkably similar to the sets they played in America later in the year. PLUS! A CD with recordings from the 80s — in other words, before Ghost had a single record out. It’s all freaky improvised stuff, jams and otherwise. Ghost fans, rise from your opium mats in April.

WWIII
Coming in April is the third coming of Weird War! They’ve been hard at work in wedding another set of rock and funk grooves to a socio-political libretto — and by Jove, they’ve come up with their greatest record to date! Yes, greater than the dark (but danceable) If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Bite ‘Em. Greater too than the hit-filled Scene Creamers outing I Suck on That Emotion. And greater than their self-titled debut. Yes, we’re fairly sure — Illuminated By the Light is their greatest record yet. Come April, you’ll find out for yourself.

AZITA-DAH!
Quit your wondering — here’s the news. AZITA’s been keeping plenty busy, with tour dates all around the Midwest happening right now! Apparently, nothing can stop her — not even Minnesota in early February. Nashville and Louisville may have balmier climes to offer — but even if they don’t, AZITA’s going to be there anyway, with what she says is her best live band ever! Her mutant r’n’b is bound to get some frozen asses a-shaking. For additional entertainment, wait until a song or two in, then heckle her. You’ll get more than you bargained for in return.

Additionally, AZITA made her solo debut in London at the beginning of January, sharing a bill with the elusive Plush. ‘Twas a night to remember around Denmark Street…

AND YEAH…
As we said above, we’ve also got amazing new releases from some of your freaky favorites on the label — guys like Smog, Pajo and Silver Jews. Smog and Pajo will be breaking the surface in May and June probably. But that’s the future, don’t fuck with it. In the meantime, other arse-warming entertainments will be offered live and on the run from a plethora of Drag City recording artists: AZITA (as mentioned above), Faun Fables, The Fucking Champs (again, at last!), King Kong (at ATP and elsewhere), Joanna Newsom, Alasdair Roberts (in Spain), RTX (all over Europe) and Weird War.

All over the world, you have a chance at a night to remember — it’s up to you.

Back 'atcha soon,

Rian Murphy
Drag City Inc
January 2005