First song and title track from an album that might be a little more slowly forthcoming now, but it’s coming. In celebration of the birth of my little girl, and in full solidarity with occupations everywhere. I’d be joining you, but we’re going to be occupying our house for the next little while. Meantime here’s a song to rally the troops. Let’s do this.

John, I see your Billy Bragg cover, and I raise you one Minutemen cover. Not exactly a union song per se, but a call to arms and the song that’s been in my head on continuous repeat for about the last two years. Feel free to download, link, share, whatever. Power to the people!
Download audio file (themselves.mp3)

all these men who work the land
should evaluate themselves and make a stand
can’t they see beyond the rhetoric
the lies and promises that don’t mean shit

and all the men who learned to hate them

they keep themselves hidden away
they keep themselves upon the hill
afraid of the day they’ll have to pay
for all the crimes upon their heads

and all the men who learned to hate them

Side note, just as a heads-up: anyone disappointed with the lack of activity on this site is urged to check out the tumblr at right, easily subscribed to via rss, which I update almost daily and has become my kinda default hub for internet activity. See you over there.

Pictured above with the fruits of his labors is illustrator nonpareil Marty Davis, perhaps the only person in the world capable of generating persuasive likenesses of both myself and Juan Manuel Fangio, from memory, and without question the only person capable of morphing them into the iconic visual punnery you see here. These are the records; this is the album. They turned out fucking amazing. They look and feel ridiculously great. So stoked! Go to Fayettenam and get yours! (The shirt is a prototype. Stay tuned.)

So yeah, as I’m sure many reading this are aware, it’s July now. But I only called it a “target date,” didn’t I? Not every shot is a bullseye.

New and final release dates, and to quote Scott at Fayettenam, this is a “hard deadline”:

7″: August 10
LP: September 7

That’s the cover of the LP above. The vaunted video will be up when the single drops. Yet to come: an exhaustive listener’s guide, a Fangio timeline, downloadable posters, Fangio: the Novelization, a feature-length film. Better not to hold your breath on the last two, maybe. Seriously though, we’re putting together a full-on assault. When it’s over, people who google “Fangio” will see pictures of Saabs. I am bending the fabric of reality to my will!

Meanwhile: in the fine tradition of Inland Empire tribute albums past comes Smooth Sounds: The Future Hits of Wckr Spgt, the Shrimper 20th anniversary compilation. Thirty-six Shrimper alums—including the likes of Refrigerator, the Mountain Goats, Lou Barlow, Franklin Bruno, Simon Joyner, Charlie McAlister, and Jad freakin’ Fair fercryinoutloud—interpret Wckr Spgt songs penned exclusively for the purpose. The one I was assigned afforded me the opportunity to make real a long-threatened idea for something called Joel Division: Spgt songs sung in the manner of Ian Curtis. You need this.

I know it seems like I’ve been talking about this forever, but cut me some slack: it was only this time last year that the songs even started getting written. And now? Well look at that shit, will you?

Fangio—the album-length sequel to a song I wrote for my Casio-powered solo project, Party of One, in 1987, a song that imagined five-time Formula One World Champion and Argentine folk hero Juan Manuel Fangio piloting a Saab 900 Turbo SPG across the Andes mountains on a covert mission to assassinate Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet—currently sits in pit lane, crew scurrying about, final preparations being made before advancing to the starting grid.

There are ten songs, and their titles are as follows:

01 Operational Detachment Juan Manuel Fangio
02 El Narcoavión
03 My God Is An Angry God (Juan Manuel Fangio Castiga los Pecados del Mundo)
04 La Consciencia Intranquila de Juan Manuel Fangio
05 Edwardian Gray
06 Bebe’s Song
07 El Hombre Mas Macho
08 Compared to Their Predecessors, Today’s Politically Motivated Kidnappers Are Total Dicks
09 Los Viejos
10 Beat Your Halfshafts Into Swords (The Radicalization and Redemption of Juan Manuel Fangio)

That’s too much music to fit on a single LP, so Fayettenam will release the album in two parts: the first two songs as a 7″ single, the rest to follow on a 12″ LP; all of the songs will be available as digital downloads as well. The single and album sleeves will be silkscreened and gorgeous, you have my word.

Also gorgeous? The insanely, pants-shittingly awesome video I just made with former Jalopnik contributor, Bob Mould backup singer, fugitive from Albanian justice, and all around cars-and-music Renaissance man Davey G. Johnson, during the shooting of which the above photo was taken. It’s for “My God Is an Angry God,” and we’ll be putting it up around the same time the single is ready to go (with a sneak preview possible earlier if you’re paying attention here, hint hint).

Target date for all of this ridiculousness: June. Official countdown starts now.

In the meantime: I’m playing a stealthy show here in Rochester tomorrow night, at Casa del Awesome. Contact Brian for directions and info!

Big news: Fangio has a home. Look for vinyl and online releases forthcoming from Fayettenam Records this spring. Totally stoked about this. More details soon.

Also notable:

This has been up for a little while now, but here’s an interview I did with our old friend Anisse Gross where I’m asked about Facebook, Auto-Tune, and what kind of car I want to be when I grow up.

Speaking of the last, my Saab and I got briefly famous on the internets a couple weeks ago when we went to Detroit to participate in this. Full report over on Firebird Man, or watch me try to sell you a 22-year-old car over at Autoweek.

In Mountain Goats news, the Cemetery Gates session we did at the end of the last tour is up now and it looks and sounds kind of amazingly great.

Finally, if you’re up late tonight and you have a TV (or if you have the internet any time for the rest of eternity after that), we’re gonna be playing on Jimmy Fallon. If you miss it and you don’t have the internet, don’t worry: I’m pretty sure my mom will be taping it.

I was reminded of, and exasperated by, this same songwriting brilliance more recently when I headed down to New York City to play bass on a bunch of new Human Hearts songs, the moniker Franklin’s adopted as his 21st Century nom de rock. The thing about Franklin’s songs, and perhaps the thing that’s kept them from reaching the audience they deserve, is that they conceal much of what makes them amazing, both lyrically and musically; they’re like ingenious puzzles, seamless on the outside, wondrously complex on the inside. Working up my parts I realized again that this was truly the only way to fully appreciate them: to sit down and actually learn these songs, figure them out, bring their secrets to light. If you’re a musician, try it. If you’re not, ask a musician friend, watch as he’s driven crazy trying to figure out what’s going on, then behold the look of admiration and satisfaction that spreads across his face when he gets it. Or she, of course. Franklin’s an equal opportunity enigma.

On the drive down I reacquainted myself with maybe my favorite Franklin album ever, band or solo, 2002′s A Cat May Look at a Queen. In its seeming simplicity and directness it defies much of what I’ve said above, but here’s the song during which my girlfriend, Patricia, not a huge music person and one not generally given to overstatement in any context, turned to me and said solemnly: “Your friend is very talented.” That he is.

Download audio file (05%20Tired%20Of%20The%20West.mp3)