Platinum Tips and Ice Cream (scenes from the water park) is new from Royal Trux. The songs were written over a span of time as wide as eagle's wings - but the recordings are new, live, unrehearsed and were presented in real time to a few thousand people in California and NYC. Performance art? Yes! But only because, unlike so many other aural "content providers," Neil Hagerty and Jennifer Herrema are true artists writing their own futures into the present. This was, and will... (read more)

Ladies and germs; a sweat-stained, celebrity-obcessed, phlegm-spewing representative of world class entertainment is our midst! And, no, we're not talking about our commander-in-chief - it's just Neeeeeiiiillll Hammmmmburgerrrr! For a (mercifully) brief stint, the world's hardest working man in showbiz will be making stops in big name cities such as LaCrosse, Wisconsin and Des Moine, IA in April! Those little red dots are the backbone of this country, folks. Once he gets run out of those towns, he'll drift up to  the northwest to... (read more)

Don't let the global warming fool ya! Through the early days of spring, the Pangs train is motoring on, with delectable blasts of spindly folk guitar steaming from every old-fashioned valve. Alasdair Roberts is conductor of this sonic perambulator, which is set to embark on a second leg of touring through the United Kingdom this week! Alasdair and co. (dude's going full power trio on this one, wi' Stevie Jones on bass and Alex Neilson on drums, ye olde jam heids!) get things moving in... (read more)

Assterpiece Theatre
by Ty Segall
Opening Reception on Sunday March 26th
4pm-8pm
Musical Performance by Rian Murphy with DJs Hippie Whorehouse
Refreshments provided by Land and Sea Dept.
 

Regarding the feverish splash of Ty Segall's paintings - a raw blurting of acrylics in the service of static figure work and portraiture - it is hard not to feel the urge to kick and scream. This is what the paintings want of you, to regard life... (read more)

With Best Troubador, Bonnie 'Prince Billy pays homage to a long-time and forever hero, the late Merle Haggard. A singer who, some 25 years previously, first performed in public by playing a Merle Haggard song, Bonny has often cited Merle's work in performance, on records and in conversation with anyone who was around, even talking to Merle himself for Filter magazine (RIP) in 2009.

Merle's body of work was considered by Bonny for a record such as this for some... (read more)

Find Me Finding You, the forthcoming album from the Laetitia Sadier Source Ensemble, is bound to be a deeply appreciated expression when it drops on March 24th - not only does it present a fusion of new and familiar collaborative elements that strike the ear with scintillating freshness, but the songs that are sung survey all the energies that are surging athwart the globe in these troubled times. In Laetitia's experienced activist hands, these ambitious propositions and dire proclamations give inspiration to... (read more)

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THE TOWN AND THE CITY

Welcome to hard times! Everywhere you go, people gots they hand out - "hey brother, you got a world to spare?" We know it! It's enough to make you believe in space travel and the potentially game-changing relief that might lie only 40 light-years away! But it's a big, bad world that's waxing and waning out there, and we've found that regardless of federally-instituted regulations (or a lack thereof) life flows on within us and... (read more)

On the cusp of two full decades of music-making, Six Organs of Admittance has ridden winds and waves spanning passion and logic and myth. The brand-new full length LP, Burning the Threshold, exudes a warmth not always found in Ben Chasny's music - but that's how life works, taking us up and down over time. Ben's records have charted that passage, making his arrival at this seemingly sweet moment a special pleasure, and as always, a magic and musical one as well. It is... (read more)

Sometimes the stars align and beam a molten beam of light towards one destination; such is the case when Drag City descends onto the Big Ears Festival next month in Koxville, TN! Let's examine: in one weekend, the field is stacked with talent for all the punters to enjoy - Six Organs of Admittance, Laetitia Sadier,Sir Richard Bishop, and Rangda all suit up for musical pleasantries. And what perfect timing, with new records by Six Organs of Admittance (Burning The Threshold) and... (read more)

As Piero Scaruffi puts it, "Royal Trux established themselves during the 90's as one of the greatest rock groups of all time. Not only did they give us the masterpiece of extraordinary scope Twin Infinitives (one of the albums that required decades to be completely assimilated) but they also reinvented the concept of a rock group, a concept that was born with the Rolling Stones (a group that had inspired the duo but just as importantly provided them with a definitive example on which to... (read more)