American Idle is the second song to be released from Schwervon!'s Memphis sessions with Doug Easley (Pavement, Sonic Youth, Cat Power). The song was originally called American Idol. While in the studio, Easley half-jokingly suggested changing the spelling from "Idol" to "Idle" to avoid any future copyright infringements from the popular TV Show. Legal issues aside, Nan and Matt liked the alternate spelling better anyway.
You can check out American Idle as well as their previously released track (Truth Teller) at the Schwervon! website here: http://www.schwervon.com/
Spreading the good news all across the land
Nan kind of put it pretty well on her blog already. But I figured I'd spread the word that we will be moving to Shawnee, Kansas on April 2nd. As of that date, this will be our new home base and the home of Olive Juice Music. It's going to be quite a change and I'll try as hard as I can to keep people updated about our progress. One of the main reasons for this move is to enable our band (Schwervon!) better access to touring other parts of the US. Of course we will miss all of our good friends in New York but we are also a bit excited about discovering new parts of the country and seeing a few more stars. Needless to say it would be very difficult for me to maintain the "Distro" part of Olive Juice Music. As you may or may not know, aside from some summer intern help from my friend Soléna 2 years ago, the distro part of OJ has been pretty much a one person operation. I've contacted Dibs, our unofficial OJ site manager, and asked him if there is a way to only shut down the store section. He's on the case. I'm sure I'll talk more about this in future blogs but the idea is to keep the store open until March 1st. This should allow time to sort out the warehouse before we hit the road in April. Of course I'd love to be able to bring the store back some day, maybe even with more cool bands that we meet from other parts of the country. But for now this is how things will be. The OJ Open Blog, Calendar, and Forum will stay and hopefully continue to keep us connected to all our friends around the globe. I've started a thread on the forum about this and I invite people to comment and share any thoughts and/or ideas in reference to the news. Read more »
Comedy, New Schwervon! Stats., WTF
My friend Soce asked me to perform for a "First Timers" comedy hour this Monday night. I will be performing 5 minutes of original comedy material. It should be interesting. I've always been fascinated with Comedians. I have a lot of respect for them. I've been doing these "day of" poems at my Major Matt shows so in a way I feel like I've been feeling myself moving in that direction. I'm not saying that I'm going to be making any career changes anytime soon but I feel like preparing to entertain a room full of people for 5 minutes with nothing but your brain has been kind of therapeutic (and kind of terrifying). Should be interesting to watch at the very least. There will be a handful of others performing. It's at: Bedlam
40 Ave C, New York, NY 10009. Here are the FB details: http://www.facebook.com/events/274809825914868/
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Toby Goodshank & Phoebe Kreutz are going on tour in Spain, Germany, Switzerland, and France soon! Phoebe will also play a couple of shows in Italy in March. Please spread the word about the tour and invite your friends.
Tour dates:
02.02. Granollers - Anònims
03.02. Barcelona - Luchador Records (daytime in-store, 1pm)
03.02. Vic - Jazz Cava
04.02. Torelló - L'Eclèctic
05.02. Castellón - Tanned Tin Festival
06.02. Figueres - secret show*
07.02. Sant Feliu de Guíxols - Punt Jove
08.02. Palafrugell - Mediterrània Espai Fòrum
09.02. Deggingen - house show*
10.02. Tobel-Tägerschen - Komturei (w/ MoreEats)
11.02. Genève - Le Cabinet
12.02. Lyon - Le Périscope
13.02. Paris - Pop In (w/ Frozy)
14.02. Köln - Die hängenden Gärten von Ehrenfeld
15.02. Mainz - Ventil Verlag (w/ Boo Hoo)
16.02. Darmstadt - Gute Stube/Hoffart-Theater
17.02. Marburg - Café Trauma
18.02. Berlin - Weserstr. 58 in Neukölln (8pm sharp!)
19.02. Potsdam - Nachtboulevard @Hans-Otto-Theater
22.02. Hamburg - Aalhaus
23.02. Hannover - house show*
24.02. Leipzig - Kaffee Schwarz
25.02. Magdeburg - Nachtschicht @Theater Magdeburg Read more »
Fishermen 3, A Brief View of the Hudson, Red Gretchen
Simon (of the Wowz) solo project Fishermen 3 has just released the song "Up Here" on a split 7" with the awesome band the Black Swans of Columbus, OH. To celebrate the release of the 7", they're going on tour later this month on the west coast with The Black Swans.
1.20.12 - Sacramento, CA: Fox and Goose Pub
1.21.12 - San Francisco, CA: Hemlock Tavern
1.24.12 - Oakland, CA: Stork Club
1.26.12 - Olympia, WA: Guest House
1.27.12 - Seattle, WA: Spin Cycle (afternoon in-store show)
1.27.12 - Seattle, WA: Josephine
1.28.12 - Portland, OR: Kenton Club
THE CITY DARK, with music by The Fishermen Three + Ben Fries + Raphi Gottesman, gets its theatrical premiere at New York's IFC Center on January 18 and runs through January 24! The more folks we can get to come out, the more likely the run will be extended. This beautiful film was awarded best documentary score at the 2011 SXSW Film Festival.
Last summer, Schwervon! took a break from the hustle and bustle of their home headquarters in New York City and headed south to the land of Elvis and Stax Records (Memphis, TN). Their mission was to record with legendary indie rock engineer Doug Easley (Pavement, Sonic Youth, Cat Power). Truth Teller is an early taste of Schwervon!’s summer session with Easley.
Additional chorus vocals are by Frances McKee, of legendary Glaswegian band The Vaselines. Schwervon! befriended McKee after opening for The Vaselines on their European tour in 2011.
Goodbye Southern Death Swing - (CDR) by Major Matt Mason USA
Catalog #: OJD-0321
List Price: $5.00
Lofi bootleg recordings from 2011. Recorded by Mike Rechner (Prewar Yardsale). Mastered by Nick Nace (A Brief View Of the Hudson). (Yardsale Records)
Fuff #0 (Come To My Show) - Comic by Jeffrey Lewis
Catalog #: OJM-0064
List Price: $5.00
A 72-page square-bound giant comic book written and drawn by Jeffrey Lewis, color cover and b & w interior (on glossy paper). Cover price $5. Each one includes an individual fortune-cookie fortune!
This special edition collects all of the 4-page concert-announcement minicomix stories (and cassette-art minicomix) that Jeffrey created in his early performing days (1998-2001) plus brand new comic book explanations of the who/where/what/why/when/how behind all of this crazy stuff. Packed with divine insanity, rhyming doggerel, surreal adventure, and more than a couple characters who will be familiar to readers of Fuff, this is a Jeffrey Lewis magnum opus featuring material which has been long out of print (old edition original copies have gone for nearly $40 on ebay). Read more »
Along with a new website, Schwervon! is finally ready to release some of the flowers that have blossomed as a result of our recent recording tour down south this summer with legendary sound engineer Doug Easley (Sonic Youth, Pavement, Cat Power) in Memphis, Tennessee. The plan is to digitally stream a new song every other week, starting on Friday, January 13th, throughout the months of January, February and March. As if that wasn't exciting enough, the first week of each new song will be available as a free download. So, stay tuned and check in here to stay up to date with Schwervon! and check out some new tracks starting January 13th: http://www.schwervon.com/
In the mean time if you are in the Baltimore area you can catch Schwervon! live this Saturday, January 7th at The Metro Gallery helping to celebrate a new album release for our friends The Degenerettes. Read more »
2012 Love and Friends
Welcome to the new year! For the past few years I've been consulting my internal crystal ball to come up with a theme for the year. I can't explain the process. It's usually something like the first thing that pops into my head. 2010 was: The Year of Enchantment and 2011 was: Something is going to happen. 2012 is: The Year of Love and Friends.
There is something about adversity that inspires us to discover love in all sorts of new places. Nan and I are fully into the guilty pleasure that is "Friday Night Lights" right now (a TV series that centers around High School football in a small town in southern Texas). Read more »
Submitted by Prewar Yardsale on Fri, 12/23/2011 - 11:03pm
picture:
So I'm in the used record store on 81st and Broadway looking at records. I like this store because everything is relatively cheap, especially the post 60's stuff, and there always a lot of Bob Dylan and Lou Reed records for completist fallback. So I'm in the store and I'm looking through records and another record buyer starts complaining that a budget copy of Abby Road costs 15 dollars. So I'm thinking to myself well were surrounded by a Starbucks, a Barnes and Noble, a Best Buy, and a McDonalds.... I mean I would pay more taxes to keep this store open or at least pay $15.00 for a copy of a budget Abby Road, I'm also thinking if you haven't listened to Abby Road 14 thousand times already you probably have very little interest in music let alone used records and if you were you would gladly pay $15 if you never listened to it before, because it's going to blow your mind, your gonna listen to it 14 thousand times, and your going to memorize every line, a bargain at $15. So then the used record complainer complains that he could get that in philadelphia for $10, and I'm thinking I'm getting tired of listening to this guy complain so thank god Jon walks into the store. Read more »
