After all the catch-up news & email of the week before last, we’ll keep this as short as can be (which is to say, merely mind-bendingly long instead of actually divided into Testaments). More details to follow as each of these actually come to pass. In no particular order…
- First, in our ‘one new country a month or so’ plan, ‘the meadowlands’ was just released in Australia & New Zealand on Etch n Sketch Records.
(howdy to everyone there, hope to meet you…):
- we’re gonna be streaming most of our back catalog (that’s about 100+ unreleased songs) reaching all the way back to 1989. We’ll be posting in batches of four songs every day or so, probably on myspace, for about a month and blogging our way through whatever we can actually remember about them. Should start within the next week or two. We’ll keep you posted.
- speaking of blogs, that should start later today or tomorrow, as well:
- 5th wren. There are a bunch of songs we either don’t do or don’t do all that well only ‘cause there are simply too many parts on the record and we can’t figure a way around not playing the parts live and can’t cover it with the four of us. The solution? The 5th wren.
Essentially, we’re gonna write out the TAB/standard notation for the extra parts for a handful of songs – could be a guitar part, could be a baritone, could be a piano – and post them on the site. Anyone who cares to, will be invited to learn the part, there’ll be an email sign-up form to reserve that part for that particular song when we’re playing at a venue near you, and then come on up and kick out the funk, motherjammers. Should be fun. Will start this week in time for the Ohio-area shows and then should be adding another song/part every week or so.
- a 7” single for the really nifty Hamburg, Germany label Fidel Bastro. For a fall/winter release.
- A super-limited edition split with a yet-to-be-figured-out band for the equally nifty Olympia, WA label, People In A Position To Know Recordings:
PeopleInAPositionToKnow Records
- time permitting, a possible remix of another band’s song. Their name starts with an ‘x’. More later, as it develops.
- a split w/ Western Keys for Post-Parlo Records’ Home series:
- charles is doing a split single with Will Sheff from Okkervil River. Charles covers ‘it ends with a fall’ done live w/ loops and Will’s doing ‘ex-girl collection’. A funny little story how it all came about, but one probably best told another time. Probably winter maybe.
- we’re doing some music for Michael Levine’s documentary film on suburban sprawl in New Jersey called ‘Losing Ground’. At current rates, NJ will become the first state in the country to have developed every acre of unprotected land (and in one estimate, that could happen by 2020). Here’s the link to the film:
- as always, the tour dates keep coming, (in batches of two, roughly twice a month) including our first show in Spain in December at a big foncy ponts festival with some famous-y bands like Cat Power, the New Pornographers, Teenage Fanclub and Jackie-O Motherfucker.
Charles & Kevin will also be playing a set of guitar, loops, piano & singing for an evening that the wonderful magazine, ‘Esopus’ is putting on at the fabled NY performance & arts space, the Kitchen, on Oct. 24th. The theme of the night is ‘Collaborators’ and will feature a number of visual artists & filmmakers (we provide the noisy part).
The specifics:
the Primavera Club '06 Festival
- Our Vice President of Merch Shipping and Sales (a/k/a Greg, the guitar player on the left) is newly a father. Pictures of her royal cuteness to be posted later this week.
- WOXY cheats death a second time!
So we’re doing another on-air when we’re there next weekend. To be broadcast the next week (Oct. 17th or so). More details later this week. But in the meantime, check it, youngin’s:
-we’re gonna be cleaning our basement and selling some equipment, some of which we used on the meadowlands, some of which we used on tour, some of which we used on albums & tours gone by. Think we’re just gonna sell it outright rather than pit one bidding wren aficionado against another in some kind of hellish ebay equivalent. Probably by month’s end (Oct., that is) or early Nov.
- all this musical stuff here & there is a good warm-up for the partial re-do, total remix of our Abbott 1135 ep. By late fall. And of course…
- a next album…ditto, more or less. Then again, it’s a young millennium.
Thank you everyone...now go play outside.