drag city
TRACK: Bill Callahan makes it seven over ‘Breakfast’
DRAG CITY aren’t too far off the mark when they say that “over the past month, we suddenly love Monday … the best part of waking up is a new Bill Callahan song. He’s given us “Breakfast” today, a song with the ghost of Bill Fay’s “I Hear You Calling” preserved in amber somewhere down in its …
TRACK: Bill Callahan – ‘Let’s Move to the Country’: Bill out-smogs himself
BESIDES being a songwriter we should grasp close to our chests, we’ve seen time and time again this summer that Bill Callahan has an incredible capacity to surprise. First he goes and pulls a whole new LP out of the hat, Gold Record, laid down quickly and announced unexpectedly. Then – ka-bam! – he starts …
SEE: No Age – ‘Turned To String’: new video from low-slung noise rockers
SO LOOK, it’s not even news anymore: 2020, and the world is busy going to hell in a handcart. So just what is a scuzzily excellent, guitar-totin’ US alt.rock band to do? There ain’t no gigs; there no signing sessions. Hell now even the goddam pressing plants are backing up like bad plumbing. The answer? …
ALBUM REVIEW: Box of Chocolates – ‘Fearful Symmetry’: early Brooklyn stirrings from Will Oldham, et al
EVERY era of music has those great, lost nuggets which slip out, are adored by the knowing few, lost to the many; are whispered about and traded for ever-inflating sums until they break cover once more. It’s a cycle that can sometimes take a generation, as the actual chaff falls away to leave little beauties …
TRACK: A quintet from Bill Callahan with ‘The Mackenzies’: not a dry eye in the house
IT’S become a lovely little start-of-the-week tradition through the dead centre of this mournful summer: the Monday teasing of another new Bill Callahan track ahead of September’s Gold Record. And today he brings a tale of “The Mackenzies”: the sweetness of the chance encounter with a neighbour never met after his car gives up the …
TRACK: Bill Callahan makes it a Monday quartet with ‘Protest Song’
BILL CALLAHAN’S ongoing Monday afternoon pledge to gift us a song from his September Gold Record reached its fourth instalment today, with the downhome and evocative porchside “Protest Song”. Today’s is a bluesy, spontaneous and raggy fragment, with the meta-theme of being a protest song about a protest song on the television. “Somebody must stop …
SEE: No Age – ‘Smoothie Kings’: abstract shapes and lofi beauty
UNORTHODOX former Sub Pop noiseniks No Age have got through some virusy distribution teething troubles and finally their new album Goons Be Gone, their second for new housekeepers Drag City, is out in the world. And in celebration the duo, Randy Randall and Dean Allen Spunt, have released a rather lovely, abstract and colourful video …
TRACK: It’s Monday, it’s a beautiful third from Bill Callahan – ’35’
IT’S MONDAY: we’re in the groove now, and we know to expect a little nugget from Bill Callahan, as he previews September’s Gold Record track by track on a weekly basis. The third to be released in this way has everything you need from him. “I can’t see myself in the books I read / …
EP REVIEW: Magik Markers – ‘Isolated From Exterior Time: 2020’
CONNECTICUT’s foremost ragged, slacker squall-rockers Magik Markers have descended from their years-long recess and deigned to bless us with the benison of a new four-track, download-only EP for Drag City, Isolated From Exterior Time: 2020, their first release of any kind in five years. The band, Elisa Ambroglio, John Shaw and Pete Nolan, said: “The …
TRACK: Bill Callahan reveals second from ‘Gold Record’
AS GOOD as his word, “just like the responsible, trustworthy father you wish you always had” (it says here), Drag City’s premiere gravelly voided heartbreaker Bill Callahan has released the second Monday song from his forthcoming September album, Gold Record. “Another Song” is a wistful call for the real heartwork of love. “Why dontcha come …