Happy New Year! OUT join Comedy Minus One! Second Mint Mile 12″ out now! Christmas songs! Shows! A favor! More!
Comedy Minus One is delighted to let you know that Kalamazoo, Michigan’s OUT have joined our family.
OUT’s debut full-length “Swim Buddies” (cmo040) will officially be released on February 17, 2017 but this record is available for pre-order right now. You can hear the record’s first two songs below.
More on OUT and “Swim Buddies”:
The fist-pumping debut full-length record by Kalamazoo, Michigan’s OUT is an emotional wallop culminating a year of fizzy water, cold basement practices, h.o.t. basement practices, Yahtzee with Buddies, trips to the beach, broken gear, tea, fixed gear, MRIs, bike rides, walks and a metric tonne of good vibes on the regular.
OUT is Issac Turner, Chafe Hensley and Mark Larmee – also of the acclaimed Michigan rock/roll band Minutes – joined in this new endeavor by TJ Larmee on the bass guitar.
The anthemic-yet-intimate album’s title “Swim Buddies” hints at the pull that Lake Michigan (and Lake Superior, when they can get there) has on the band. TJ and Mark were married on the shores of that gorgeous beast, and it’ll forever be connected to the band and this record in all the right ways. You should really swim at sunset sometime to get the full Technicolor panoramic trip.
OUT’s music is all about the interplay between seemingly simple lines (vocal blurts / guitar riffs) that come together to make a whole larger than parts. Water, and the lack of water, worms its way into the songs: dust and silt covering the Earth after we’ve finally ruined it; flood waters rising to consume the entire town (it’s something we did, pretty sure); the water we need to fill us up after foolhardy endeavors. The water is always there, and its absence will be crucial.
Man, it’s like Dune up in here all of a sudden!
The record isn’t all that dire: Mormons and LBJ and White Bison get their due as well.
Limited to 300 vinyl copies, “Swim Buddies” will be released in February 2017 on Comedy Minus One.
For press / promotional copies, please contact Jon Solomon at Comedy Minus One – [email protected]
The second Mint Mile 12″ “The Bliss Point” (cmo037) is in stores!
Digital files can be downloaded / streamed from locations such as the following:
iTunes : Bandcamp : Amazon : Google Play : eMusic
Physical vinyl (limited to 500 copies) can be ordered directly from Comedy Minus One here.
The record was made in Chicago with some crucial bits applied in Portland, Oregon.
We like four-song EPs because we cannot bury a song in the middle of Side B. Nothing is transitional. Everything either leads off or finishes an experience.
We are on an endless search for the optimal conditions of existence. Comfort, companionship, warmth. Gentle insistence. A lack of manufacture. To convince ourselves that we are alive and we make the most of our time. To fail to regret, to avoid the sense on our deathbeds (if we’re lucky and have them) that we spent too much time focused on the wrong things. To be not always distracted, not always preoccupied, but if lost to lose ourselves in love and joy. To take in the world raw, as wide and wonderous and ugly and terrific as it is.
So that’s what this record is about.
Hope you enjoy it.
Tim Midyett
Chicago 2016
MM on this record is:
Tim Midyett (Silkworm, Bottomless Pit) – vocals, baritone guitars electric and acoustic, piano, bass on Youngold, ARP, writing, some engineering and mixing
Matthew Barnhart (Tre Orsi) – bass except Youngold, most engineering and mixing
Jeff Panall (Songs: Ohia) – drums
Andy Cohen (Silkworm, Bottomless Pit) – regular electric guitar
Howard Draper (Tre Orsi) – lap steel on Speed/Bellflower/Park, organ, that burbly broken synth on Youngold
Justin Brown (Palliard) – steel guitar on Park/Youngold
For TV / Film licensing, please contact Lyle Hysen at Bank Robber Music – [email protected]
For press / promotional copies, please contact Jon Solomon at Comedy Minus One – [email protected]
Speaking of Mint Mile, there is one additional MM track not found on either “The Bliss Point” or the group’s debut 12″ “In Season & Ripe.”
Mint Mile’s cover of Silkworm’s “Punch Drunk” is exclusive to the “The National 4-Track Compilation” on Sump Pump Records alongside Mike Watt, Franklin Bruno, Joe Jack Talcum and other noteables. The collection is limited to 200 copies and we don’t expect these LPs will be around long, so order quickly here!
Upcoming shows:
Saturday, January 14
Shakespeare’s
Kalamazoo, MI
OUT with Stomatopod, Santino Jones and Pariah
Sunday, January 15
Township
Chicago, IL
OUT and Mint Mile with Stomatopod and Photo-Curio
Sunday, January 29
LangLab
South Bend, IN
The Rutabega at Stand with Standing Rock benefit
Wednesday, February 15
Cactus Club
Milwaukee, WI
The Rutabega with Body Futures and WORK
Thursday, February 16
NMU
Marquette, MI
The Rutabega with The God Eaters, Conan Neutron & The Secret Friends, The Portraits
Friday, February 17-19
Terrace Bay Inn
Gladstone, MI
The Rutabega at PRF Thundersnow
Friday, February 24
Mercury Lounge
New York, NY
SAVAK with Fruit & Flowers, Monsterland
Saturday, February 25
Cafe Nine
New Haven, CT
SAVAK with Monsterland and Creature Did
For full details on the above shows, click here.
Touch & Go has re-issued the Silkworm LP “Lifestyle” and we’ve got copies available for you! “It’ll Be Cool” SKWM vinyl re-stocks too!
Originally released in 2000 and out of print for over five years, “Lifestyle” is Silkworm’s seventh album (and third for Touch & Go). These songs show Silkworm presenting their clearest and most polished visions. To the beat of Michael Dalquist’s drums, Andy Cohen’s razor-wire guitar and Tim Midyett’s baritone guitar snake around one another like twin brothers with a common soul. And, when the last strains of “Lifestyle” fall away, there is hope – hope that reasonably well-adjusted adult guys can turn the boredom and disappointment of the everyday into glorious art-rock.
If you have not read Paul Duffus’ track-by-track essay series at PopMatters about “Lifestyle,” now is the perfect time to start.
“Silkworm hold an accomplished spot between the likes of CCR and the Minutemen. Not as famous as the former, and not as wild as the latter, but as fresh and timeless as both.” – AllMusic
“Euphoric, downtrodden, abusive, and rocking, will do more to your head than a full night of drinking.” – mauricerickard.com
All of us at Comedy Minus One hope you had a nice holiday season. SAVAK (“Wonderful Christmas Drone”), The Rutabega (“Empty Holiday”) and Joel R.L. Phelps (“The Devil Wins”) each contributed new recordings for Jon Solomon’s 25-Hour Holiday Radio Show on 103.3 fm WPRB and they’re all well worth checking out!
Can you do us a favor? Through some digital wizardry, the “old” CMO Twitter account is now @jonsolomon, so if you want news / updates from the label, please follow @comedyminusone instead. Or better yet, both!
Comedy Minus One also has a Facebook page and a relatively new Instagram page for those of you who dig such things.
Stores and distributors are welcome to contact us about stocking these titles. Comedy Minus One is distributed directly in North America through Revolver. European customers can contact Day After for our wares.
Canadian, UK and Australian distribution sought.
Thanks!
Jon Solomon
Comedy Minus One
comedyminusone.com