News

In 2018, Ty Segall and the The Freedom Band -- Mikal Cronin, Charles Moothart, Emmett Kelly, and Ben Boye -- stormed the world in support of Freedom's Goblin, playing songs from Ty's catalog in a series of ecstatic setlists. Each night, they sought freedom for themselves and the audience, even it if was just one night of emancipation from the world's numbing chill. Then they went and did it again the next night! That blunt-force impact of The Freedom Band in full... (read more)

If good news comes in threes, what about 3 x 10? That makes 30, according to our specially-obtained higher maths skillz, and so all of a damn sudden do we too make 30 here at Drag City. All year long we'll be celebrating our thirty big ones with a series of special shows - and given that we prefer ALL our events to be as unpredictable and momentous as the sight of a rocket hurdling towards its historic cleavature of the moon, this bodes for... (read more)

Rock! It crunches beneath your feet as they shuffle their infinite pattern, it echoes down deep in the chasm when you leap across. Tim Presley knows how it feels as it crashes against him; now White Fence is sinuously tooled up to shoot out neighborhood lights everywhere. Exquisite guitar extroversion! 

Throughout the epic daze of these 20teens, we've known/loved the music of White Fence, growing increasingly addicted to their contempo-psych twisted pop tunes, all marked by a distinctive signature; the classically-informed pop... (read more)

Neil Hamburger is once again singing in front of a band with his new album, Still Dwelling! This time, instead of pandering to the US of Red States with more contempo-country rock as he did on Sings Country Winners,"America's Funnyman" is letting a song go out of his heart (thirteen of 'em, actually! (Songs, not hearts)) with assistance from the great hitmakers of the past century. Yes, Still Dwelling is a lushly orchestrated covers record, with an original thrown in for good measure!  

So does... (read more)

Fountain Fire is Bill MacKay's second solo album on Drag City. The Chicago-based guitarist's continued sonic journeys in conversation with himself follow a travel-worn map written in his own hand. Bill has followed the trail from familiar confines to unknown places, catalyzing a style equally enamored with the traditional and the avant-garde to make his most expansive and forceful music to date. 

You can hear it in the opening track; as the lava and lakes of "Pre-California" simmer to boiling, Bill assembles a bridge of guitars, layering beams of rumbling... (read more)

An album like Still Dwelling is all too rare these days! Exquisitely compiled, elegantly arranged and beautifully performed with a score of talent that would make The Wrecking Crew blush! You'd be more likely to find an album like this in the thrift shop than in the new release bins of today's record stores - until now, that is. It's about time! A perfect pop record, recorded by none other than America's Funnyman---Neil Hamburger.

Still Dwelling is still on the release... (read more)

Masaki Batoh's forthcoming solo album and title track "Nowhere" considers that when you die, you are gone from this world permanently - but if that's too existential for you, the groovy chorus with thrumming bass and wah-wah suggests that your energy ascends to something greater!

Today we gift you with a video for "Tower of the Silence", a song that utilizes full-dimensional acoustics to put Masaki Batoh's immense talent on display. Filmed and edited by Aimaiworks / Tomoco Nakatsuka, the video... (read more)

They say every journey begins with a single step, or in this case a single song! More specifically, we speak of a lone, warped, and colorfully-labeled 7" record dated 1975 from Aurora, Illinois, (yes, home of Wayne's World), stumbled upon by Galactic Zoo Dossier/Galactic Zoo Disk Svengali Plastic Crimewave. That 45---a private press single by StumpWater, featuring the tunes "White Washed Afternoons" b/w "Watcher's Brawl."

A search surprisingly yielded immediate results, as StumpWater was still active and gigging!? Peppering... (read more)

Welcome, dear reader, to 2019, where in the first few weeks of this infant year you have the opportunity to see three major players in the field of music and entertainment. It all takes place at the Tomorrow Never Knows Festival in sweet home, Chicago, where not only do you get to laugh your ass off (and your heart out) with Neil Hamburger, but you get to rock the fuck out with CAVE and Wand, the latter two on one fucking bill! Imagining... (read more)

Bill Callahan fans, frenz n' family, it's in the spirit of the holidays that we gift you some fresh BC news! Prepare to hear a lot more from Bill, in ways you never thought possible: via Twitter! That's right, you can now read ruminations straight from the Calla-mind, 140 characters at a time. Follow @billcallaman to receive his special Christmas message on December 24th!