1998

NEW ALBUM PLANS
We're in the midst of writing new material for the second album. Right now we're probably going to go into the studio to record it come mid to late February, with hopefully a release date sometime during the summer. I'll post more details as they become available.

BAND LIFE UPDATE
First, happy holidays to everyone. If you've got the bandwith, download our audio holiday postcard (WAV file, 1.2 M). This year has been a wild and crazy ride -- things have changed so much from a year ago, and many heartfelt thanks go out to all those who have supported us along the way.

Next, we're planning on taking a short break for the holidays, and then we will be starting an intensive writing phase, with an eye on heading into the studio to cut the new album sometime in mid-February. Hopefully we'll have a new album out in stores sometime this coming summer. We will be working again with Mighty John Goodmanson. We're all very excited about this, since it will be our first "real" album (remember that Merrymakers was bascially a bunch of demos recorded on the cheap).

Hopefully we'll be able to be more ambitious while still focusing on the songs (instead of letting all the new studio resources cloud our judgement).

RINGING IN THE NEW YEAR, VIA TELEVISION
The band will be appearing on "Almost Live," a "Saturday Night Live"-style sketch comedy show produced by KING-5, the Seattle-area NBC affiliate, on New Year's Eve. The show will be broadcast live from 11:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m., and the plan is to perform two songs. For those who are interested, the station does offer free tickets for those wanting to be in the in-studio audience.

"PRIVATE HELICOPTER" VIDEO DEBUT
The video for "Private Helicopter" will make its debut this Sunday, Nov. 29 on MTV's 120 Minutes. Check your local listings for exact show time. It has also been added to the M2 playlist.

11/7/98
"PRIVATE HELICOPTER" VIDEO FINISHED
The video for "Private Helicopter" has just been finalized, and yes, there was a helicopter involved in the shoot. The video was directed by John Flansburgh, whom you might know as a member of They Might Be Giants (he's also shot videos for Soul Coughing, Ben Folds Five, and Frank Black, among others). I am happy to report that we are all really excited about this one. MTV should be getting it pretty soon, so hopefully they'll begin airing it....

BAND AS DJS
If you're in the greater Seattle area, you'll be able to catch us doing our best impressions of our favorite radio personalities as we host KNDD (107.7 FM)'s "Young and the Restless" local music show on Sunday, Nov. 8, from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m.

NEW SINGLE RELEASED
Private Helicopter is the new single off of Where Have All the Merrymakers Gone?. Actually, it's not like there's an actual single that people can buy, or that everyone hasn't had access to the song for a long-ass time, but it's just that in the record "biz" that now it's "officially" released on the radio so that everyone can call their radio stations and request it. (yes, that was a hint--nudge nudge, wink wink...)

TOURING PLANS
With the exception of a few shows here and there, we are not going to do any extensive touring for a while, as we hunker down and begin writing material for our next album.

10/16/98
CHRISTMAS ALREADY
We just wrote and recorded a song yesterday for the KROQ Christmas Album. The title is "Sometimes you have to work on Christmas (sometimes)." No word on release date or anything other info -- yet.

VIDEO PLANS
We will be shooting the video for Private Helicopter Oct. 20-21 in New York City. John Flansburgh will be the director.

LETTERMAN APPEARANCE
We will be playing one song (just guess which one) on the David Letterman show on Tuesday, Aug. 11.

MOVIE STUFF
If you hadn't seen the trailer already, "Flagpole Sitta" was used in many trailers for the film "Disturbing Behavior," and the song is also used during the movie itself. "Flagpole Sitta" is not, however, on the movie soundtrack CD.

NEWS FROM THE OLD WORLD
In the U.K., London Records has released the single for "Flagpole Sitta" (which also contains the album version of "Wrecking Ball" as well as the heretofore unreleased version of "Pity and Fear") any day now, with the album to follow at the end of July. In France, the album will be released July 27 on Barclay Records.

MTV APPEARANCES
We'll be on 120 Minutes on Sunday, July 19 with the ever-knowledgeable Matt Pinfield. We've also taped the thing for the show Artist Cut, but I'm not sure when that's running.

6/15/98
MAILING LIST PLANS
If you've sent e-mail or regular mail, but haven't received anything, it's because we've been so swamped with just keeping up with regular "life" that we haven't gotten around to figuring out what we're going to do with the mailing list. Rest assured, though, eventually you will start receiving stuff. Then you'll be sorry.

6/15/98
U.K. SINGLE
Well, plans are to release the "Flagpole Sitta" single in the U.K. sometime in July (i think). The plan right now is for the single to contain "Flagpole Sitta," "Wrecking Ball," and most likely an alternate version of "Pity and Fear," which has not been released. Funny thing about that is that the regular version of the song has yet to be recorded....

5/20/98
VIDEO UPDATE
Well, the video for "Flagpole Sitta" debuted on MTV last Sunday. We actually led off the show! Also, MTV has decided to add it to their regular rotation as well, so hopefully you'll be able to catch it sometime....

4/27/98
TOUR UPDATE
We're in the midst of a U.S. tour, which should take us through parts of the South, then up the East Coast, through the midwest, then down into the Southwest and up through southern California before we go to Europe (tentatively) for two weeks at the end of June. I'll post dates, cities, and venues when they're finalized, so check back regularly for updates.

VIDEO UPDATE
We'll be shooting the video for "Flagpole Sitta" at the end of the month in Los Angeles. Hopefully it will be finished within two to three weeks or so, then it can maybe go to wherever it is that videos go to....

4/12/98
CDS!
Well, the re-released CDs (on Slash/London Records) should be in stores now (in the U.S.). You should also be able to find it in Canada, too (the release date there was April 7). These are the jewel box versions with the Slash logo in the lower right hand corner of the back cover. It's the exact same album (same recordings, same order) except it's been remastered (overall it's not quite as bright, but a little more evenly-balanced all around)....

3/12/98
NEW CDS ARE IN, RE-RELEASE GETS A RELEASE DATE
So the first bit of news is that a sizable shipment of the third printing hit stores today (at least in Seattle). This is the printing that is in the regular jewelbox case. You should be able to find it in stores like Tower Records. The more perceptive among you will notice that it is technically still an Arena Rock Recording Co. release, but the sticker on top says "Slash/London/Arena Rock." Actually, the London/Slash re-release is officially slated for a March 31 release date.

3/3/98
HD FINDS A HOME
Okay, okay. After weeks of rumors and gossip and all sorts of erroneous information flying about, yesterday we signed a record contract with Slash/London Records. Moving to a major label and was a long, stressful process, but in the end I think we made a good decision. Slash has a long history and a pretty varied (and may I add, excellent) roster, which includes: The Violent Femmes, X, Los Lobos, Grant Lee Buffalo, Faith No More, and more recently, Imperial Teen and Soul Coughing.

The first thing this will result in is a re-mastered and reissued version of "Where Have All The Merrymakers Gone?", which people will then hopefully be able to A) find and B) afford. The "official" release date of the re-release is set for April 7, though hopefully more CDs will be available soon. The other thing this will result in is the opportunity for us to tour the country and play lots of shows, which is something we've never been able to do.

There are many reasons why we chose to move to a major label and also why we chose London/Slash and avoided a bidding war. For those who are even remotely interested, in the next couple weeks we'll write something outlining our thought process and reasoning and put it here for all you to read if you wish. Hey, believe you me, I hope we didn't make the wrong choice -- but I think Slash/London will be a good fit.

2/18/98
T-SHIRTS!
Yes, we finally have T-shirts! I'm working on putting up pictures of them on the merchandise page where so you can look and order them if you want. Or, you can come to a show and buy them from us then.

2/13/98
STAY ON TARGET...
We're right now working on making a version of the album that fits in a jewelbox (the traditional plastic CD cases). We all love the current cardboard versions, but they take so long to produce (every single copy is hand-screened by Brian Ralph, an artist in Rhode Island--we kid you not) that we can't produce as many as stores want/need. So what we're doing is taking the current design and "porting it over" (as they say) to a mass-production process. Hopefully we'll then be able to get this version into more stores (and at lower prices!). I'll post updates on our progress.

2/13/98
WE'RE VERY HONORED
In a bizarre twist of fate (not that we're complaining, believe you me), "Flagpole Sitta" has been the most requested song the last few weeks or so on KNDD 107.7 FM ("The End"). To everyone who's requested to hear us, thank you!

2/5/98
BACK IN STOCK
The second (limited) run of the album has reached stores in the Northwest again. This time, in addition to the stylin' hand-screened orange and black version, there's the so-very-hip and just-as-stylin' hand-screened olive green and black version. Complete your collection! So far albums have reputedly been sighted at: Orpheum records (Capitol Hill), Sonic Boom records (Fremont), Cellophane Square (Seattle), Easy Street Records (west seattle). Eventually they'll be at Tower Records, too, but they'll also be $17.99 there for some reason.

2/5/98
SCALED BACK...WAY BACK
Due to recent developments, we've decided to postpone (or scale back, however you want to look at it) the proposed West Coast tour in early March. We're still planning to play in San Francisco on March 12, and at SXSW on the March 21, however. It does look like we'll get the chance to hit the road for a good long while later on this year, though. More on that to come as we finalize matters....

WE'RE FRESH OUT!
The label has apparently sold out of its first pressing of our album, and we're getting more made as you read this. So hang on, those CDs will start arriving in stores again in the next couple weeks.

THANKS TO EVERYBODY!
Well, those "best of the year" lists have all been compiled and posted, we made some appearances this year: Our album "Where Have All the Merrymakers Gone?" was No. 10 on The Rocket's 40 best Northwest albums of 1997. We also came in at No. 20 in KCMU 90.3 FM's top 90.3 songs of 1997, and were selected one of the favorite local bands of '97 by listeners of KNDD 107.7 FM ("The End"). I'd just like to say on behalf of everybody in the band a big thank you!!! to everyone for your support.

COMING TO A CLUB NEAR YOU
We're thinking of doing a one-week West Coast tour in early to mid March, right before South by Southwest. More details will be added as they come.

FUEL
The compilation that has the heretofore unreleased version of "Carjack Fever" from back in tha day has been released. It's called the FUEL compilation (also on the Arena Rock Recording Co.) and features tracks from Mitch Mitchell (of Guided by Voices), Helium, Varnaline, The Softies, and Eric Bachmann from Archers of Loaf as well as many other fine tracks. Our track is notable only because of the funny (funny ha-ha as well as funny weird), warbling toy horn sound we put in at the end. Other than that listening to this track makes some of us cringe sometimes....