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Upcoming shows: NEW Japanese Website! Damon & Naomi's MySpace page
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January 2010
Introducing naomivision -- a new website where Naomi will be posting her photos for viewing in optimal online quality, and making them available for purchased download. The site is launching with galleries of photos taken during our most recent tours and trips to Japan, Italy, Portugal, Morocco, Greece, Austria, and through the USA. There is also a collection of portraits of people met along the way (the portraits are not available for download). Naomi will be updating this site frequently, adding both older and newer work, so check back often. In other Naomi news, the US importers of her fabulous red Nord keyboard have added her to the shortlist of artist endorsers on their website, alongside the keyboardists for David Archuleta and Britney Spears. Can mainstream success be far behind? (Well don't blame Nord anyway!) You can hear the sounds of Naomi's newly updated Nord Electro 3, and preview our new direction, at the two special shows we will play this month: January 30 in New York at the 92Y Tribeca, and January 31 in Cambridge at the Brattle Theater. Each evening will feature a theatrical screening of Naomi's tour diary film, Song to the Siren, followed by a Q&A moderated by Haden Guest, an opening set by singer/songwriter Sharon Van Etten, and then a trio performance of Damon & Naomi with Michio Kurihara. Tickets are now on sale. Hope to see you there! + + +
That's right, it's the return of the power trio! In Japan last month, the three of us had so much fun playing songs this way again, we've decided to bring the show to the US as well. In other news: the website has been updated with more reviews of The Sub Pop Years, including a lovely Best of 2009 pick in ArtForum; and the DVD 1001 Nights, in both its regular and limited editions, can now be ordered directly from our merch page. + + + November 2009 - Lost Gaijin Tour, Japan
The owner of "Live House Garo," Misawa Japan, modeling our custom Damon & Naomi tenugui on what was maybe the most lost day of our "Lost Gaijin Tour" of Japan. We travelled from this far nothern town in Tohoku all the way south to Hiroshima, riding the trains, eating box lunches, and inviting our musician friends from the different regions we visited to join us on stage -- Ogino on crumhorn in Misawa and Sendai, Fuji on congas in HIroshima, Giant on flute in Tokyo -- and of course Kurihara on electric guitar, who not only played with us in his native Tokyo but travelled to Kyoto and Nagoya as well, where we played as a trio again for the first time a number of years. Thank you to all our friends who made this tour not only possible, but a great adventure. And the tenugui sold out! + + + October 2009 - We're in the midst of a very fun US tour with A Hawk and a Hacksaw, lovely people who play a brand of music you have to hear to believe -- an Albuquerque-Budapest hybrid that is as authentic as any music we've found in our travels. Come out and see a show, if you can! Our tour is promoting two new releases: The Sub Pop Years CD (see reviews here), and 1001 Nights DVD, copies of which are now in hand and which look spectacular -- the limited edition, which comes with an LP of our live trio album with Kurihara, is an especially elaborate production.
Thank you Factory 25! Speaking of Kurihara, not to mention all our friends in Ghost, we're extremely happy to announce that next month, we'll be returning to Japan. This time we will travel further north, and further south, than we have ventured there before. See the tour dates page for details, and/or consult the new Japanese language website. Ja matta ne! + + + September 2009 – We hope to be coming your way, wherever that may be, in the coming months – we'll be in England and France the first week of September; touring around the US for the month after that; and then it's on to Japan (more on that next update)! All this travel is in support of two new releases: The Sub Pop Years CD, and 1001 Nights DVD. And you can order both starting right now, from the brand new, super hi-tech Damon & Naomi digital store. Here's the concept: download our new comp, The Sub Pop Years, with or without a physical copy on CD, and you can add for just a few more dollars a download of any one of the complete original Sub Pop albums. Choose your favorite Sub Pop album -- or one you never heard -- or take the lot of them, by ordering the deluxe packages we've put together. We've kept the price low on all these options, because let's face it -- digital media doesn't cost much to spread around! So let's enjoy what it makes possible: we can release both a new, remastered, repackaged comp; and the complete albums it is based on, simultaneously. + + + August 2009 – In support of next month's release of The Sub Pop Years CD, and 1001 Nights DVD, we'll be playing shows throughout the fall -- first up is a brief trip to England, where we'll play Manchester and London together with Amor de Dias, the excellent new project from one of our favorite songwriters, Alasdair Maclean of the Clientele. We'll then embark on a series of US tours with A Hawk and a Hacksaw, featuring one of our favorite drummers, Jeremy Barnes of Neutral Milk Hotel and Bablicon. If you've never seen Jeremy and violinist Heather Trost play their gypsy-inspired music, don't miss the opportunity -- it is a visual as well as aural delight, with Jeremy playing accordian and drums simultaneously, like some mad street musician from Bucharest. You never know what's going to happen, when drummers front bands! + + + July 2009 – Announcing two new releases for September: THE SUB POP YEARS, a 74-minute CD compilation of tracks drawn from our four albums for Sub Pop Records, 1995-2002; and 1001 NIGHTS, a 172-minute DVD compilation featuring two tour films by Naomi ("Song to the Siren" and the previously unreleased "Japanese Scrapbook"), three music videos by French filmmaker Cedrick Eymenier, selections from our two limited edition DVDs (now sold out) of recent live performances in Japan, and, as part of a special limited-edition package, the very first vinyl pressing of our trio album with Kurihara, LIVE IN SAN SEBASTIAN. The Sub Pop Years will be released September 8 on 20/20/20. 1001 Nights will be released September 29 as part of the initial lanuch for an exciting new DVD label from New York, Factory 25. (Checking our record collection, we see that the original Factory 25 was Joy Division's Closer!) Download this free music video of "Song to the Siren" as a preview: And available now, just in time for the Fourth of July: the three original Galaxie 500 albums, pressed on vinyl for the first time in nearly 20 years. You can order those, together with high-quality downloads of the albums, from the fancy new Galaxie 500 online store, fierybreeze.com. You can also add a replica 1988 t-shirt for the complete indie-rock summer package. To start the fun, download "Fourth of July" for free. + + + June 2009 — We celebrated the 20th anniversary of Exact Change at the ISSUE Project Room in Brooklyn on June 23, with an event co-sponsored by the Wire magazine. Musicians and fellow publishers delighted and surprised us with a remarkable range of interpretations of texts we have published. Even the food was surprising: in an Oulipian gesture, ISSUE Project Room cooked dishes with ingredients determined by our author's names. The evening closed with a bravura performance by Joan La Barbara, who debuted a score for solo vocal based on sounds she found mentioned in Joseph Cornell's Dreams. Thank you to everyone involved and to everyone who attended, it was a very special night for us and for Exact Change! + + + May 2009 — Galaxie 500 celebrated International Workers' Day this year by seizing their means of production -- as of May 1, the group once again controls all rights to its recordings and videos. Physical reissue plans are afoot, but in the meanwhile all Galaxie 500 recordings are now available for digital download from your favorite service such as iTunes, eMusic, or Other Music Digital, and -- for the first time -- payment for such downloads will go directly to the band. We had nothing to lose but our chains! Meanwhile, over at Exact Change, we are celebrating 20 years of publishing with a special anniversary catalogue, and a special anniversary event coming up June 23 at the ISSUE Project Room in Brooklyn, NY, co-sponsored by the WIRE magazine. Details above. Come and join us if you can! + + + April 2009 — We're back from a run of shows in Italy, which proved not only fun but delicious -- we packed a Slow Food guidebook along with our gear, and ended up enjoying a lunch in the countryside that took a lot more time than playing a rock show. Clearly there's more to life there, than soundcheck. Which means we can't wait to return! But for the moment, we'll be home working on a series of reissues. Detailed announcements soon -- expect a few follow-ups to our recent rerelease of MORE SAD HITS on 20/20/20. Meanwhile, we've contributed a track ("The World's Strongest Man") for a tribute to Scott Walker, in connection with the fascinating documentary about his work, 30 Century Man. Director Stephen Kijak is curating the CD, which will be released in May by soundtrack specialists Lakeshore Records. + + + March 2009 – We'll be in Italy for a week of duo shows this month: 21 Marzo @ La Limonaia-Fucecchio(Firenze) It's not impossible that details for some of these shows might change, so if you're planning a trip you might check the promoter's website for updates. Viva Italia! + + + February 2009 – Back from a lovely tour of the UK, Portugal, Spain, and France -- the only problem being we ran out of the DVDs and LPs we'd brought almost immediately, and CDs shortly after that. To anyone disappointed at the merch table: we're back home now and can mail whatever you had hoped to find. Sorry about the shipping costs, but we'll still add our signatures if you like, just send us a message! Very kind write-ups for the rerelease of More Sad Hits continue to come in, especially from the UK, and another nice result of the reissue is that it has led to our hearing from a number of devoted Robert Wyatt fans. French filmmaker Bertrand Loutte sent this remarkable photo, taken while he was working on a program about Robert for the European television channel Arte -- it seems Bertrand brought his copy along for this very purpose. We hope Robert didn't mind too much! (Fans have asked some strange things of us at times, too. . .) You can read more from Bertrand about the situation of the photo (in French). Also now online, you can read Damon's article about Brian Eno's iPhone application, Bloom, from the February issue of ArtForum. + + + January 2009 - Happy new year everyone! We're off to the UK and Europe for a couple weeks of shows this month. Inauguration day will find us celebrating with good friends in Gijon, Spain -- come join the party if you can! The recent reissue of More Sad Hits has been receiving some remarkable reviews, especially in England -- 4 stars in Mojo, Uncut, the Independent, Record Collector, and an even bigger helping than usual of memorable turns of phrase by the hyper-literate British music press. Reach for your dictionary, kids! As Mojo put it, it's "Once more with feeling for the uxorious Bostonians' 1992 debut" . . . More Sad Hits = a "somnambulistic sense of disassociation, of lovers confided in a closed and close embrace" (Sunday Times); "a self-contained world of sound that drifts on softened harmony vocals and the fragile, almost bottomless, rhythms of sparsely strummed guitars" (Wire); "at the nexus of culture and commerce, questioning the efficacy of ambition as a spur to creativity" (Independent); "modest, honest, human, organic-sounding and riddled with some exquisite tunes, without descending into wilful amateurism or irritating wackiness" (Uncut); "a cut-glass counterpart to the musical bittersweet swirl" (Record Collector); "beautifully melancholy dissections of the human spirit" (Plan B); "eerie moments of contemplation in response to pivotal life-affirming questions" (Junkmedia); "plumbs the depths of human sorrow before soaring to the occasional vertiginous high" (Subba-Cultcha); "a watercolour background to grunge's super saturated splatter" (Artrocker); "distilled dream pop out of the indie brew" (Fatea); "shimmering beauty, gracious warmth, fragile emotion, translucent melancholy" (Organ). But all that shimmering stuff doesn't come without some risk: "True to the title though, if you make it through the whole 12 tracks in one go you might find yourself reaching for something like Steptacular for a bit of emotional redress" (The Skinny). Steptacular? That one we had to look up. There'll always be an England! + + + December 2008 - Announcing a new, limited edition DVD. This past January, at the end of the longest tour we had ever undertaken (in support of our most recent album, Within These Walls), two shows in Tokyo were filmed by Hiroo Ishihara. Ishihara, longtime subscribers to our mailing list may remember, also filmed a Tokyo show of ours in 2005 -- at the end of the tour for The Earth Is Blue -- which we released as a limited edition DVD (now sold out). He has since made two DVDs for Ghost, released by Drag City. Ishihara has now cut together tracks from those two January nights in Tokyo, to make a document of our 2007/8 live show. There is no overlap in material from our previous DVD of 2005. This new set features a number of songs from Within These Walls; but also several older songs we don't usually play, which our Japanese hosts had requested (reaching all the way back to This Car Climbed Mt. Washington, from More Sad Hits). The band features: Michio Kurihara, on lead guitar (now on tour with Boris, opening for Nine Inch Nails at arenas across the USA -- no joke!); Bhob Rainey, on soprano sax (of nmperign); Helena Espvall, on cello (of Espers); and special guest Masaki Batoh (of Ghost), who joined us on stage for a number of tunes, including a cover in Japanese of the Jacks' song, "Love." A one-track excerpt from the DVD is below. Orders accepted now. Shipping will start promptly on December 5 -- to make sure these can arrive in time for the holidays, we will send all December orders out first class at no extra charge. In other news: we're returning to Europe for duo performances, in January -- see the tour dates page for details. And you'll find articles by Damon in both the November and December issues of ArtForum, including his Top Ten list for the year. + + + November 2008 - Here's hoping this month ushers in a change of our sorry US government. We've been pitching in by volunteering for the Obama campaign in New Hampshire, the lone "swing state" in our New England bubble of liberalism. In these last days leading up to the election, please do whatever you can too, to help get out the vote and make this happen. Meanwhile, we're planning a set of European dates for January 09. And if the election doesn't go the way we hope, we're bringing our cats as well as guitars, and staying! Details of those shows will be posted on the tour dates page, as we confirm them. Over at Exact Change this month, we begin shipping a new edition of Chris Marker's remarkable CD-Rom memoir, Immemory, now revised to work on Macintosh computers running OSX. Also newly reprinted is the book John Cage published with us, Composition in Retrospect. It's an honor to present these works by two of our greatest artistic heroes! Here's some interesting news for record collectors: the Japanese label Video Arts Music has just released a limited edition set of Galaxie 500 CDs, packaged in mini-LP style cardboard sleeves. They tell us there are fewer than one thousand copies, and they will not be repressed. We have a few extra sets which we are offering at a discount from Japanese prices; see the merch page for details. And this just in, to the that-and-a-token-will-get-you-on-the-subway department: uber fan Andy Aldridge called our attention to this surprising blog post, which asserts that our album The Earth Is Blue is one of only 11 releases awarded 5 stars by Rolling Stone since the year 2000. Hard to believe -- but if true, it means we undoubtedly hold the #1 spot for the lowest selling 5-star album of the millenium! Check out the competition: 5-star albums, 2000-September 2008 Bruce Springsteen - Magic (2007) + + + October 2008 - It's a beautiful autumn in New England, but evidently musicians should steer clear of harvest activities -- the season started with Damon attempting to cut an apple, and instead cutting off the tip of his finger. A lot of blood and a long emergency room visit later, he is fine. . . but playing guitar is another matter! Nevertheless, we'll be performing a free instore show in London on Sunday, October 12 at the Rough Trade shop in Brick Lane at 7 pm. (WRISTBAND COLLECTION 1 HOUR PRIOR TO GIG, FIRST-COME-FIRST-SERVED BASIS- ONE PER PERSON.) How will Damon pull off this Django Reinhardt-like trick? We're all wondering. But coming to the rescue, fretwise, will be Alasdair MacLean of The Clientele -- he has graciously agreed to fill in for any missing fingers. Maybe the nasty accident will turn into something to celebrate? For sale at the instore will be a limited edition CD-R single of our version of "White Christmas." The song was recorded for the soundtrack of the forthcoming film, "Lovely, Still" , and features Naomi on piano, Damon on nylon-string guitar (back when he had use of five fingers on each hand), Michio Kurihara on electric guitar, Bhob Rainey on soprano sax, and Greg Kelley on trumpet. The package will include individually hand-drawn labels by Naomi. + + + September 2008 - The vinyl reissue of More Sad Hits is here! Long live vinyl -- this album really looks and sounds the way it was intended on LP. But the truth is, back in 1992, it could only sound this good in the studio. The remastering by Alan Douches, and LP cutting by Kevin Gray, do an amazing job of translating the original master tape to both CD and vinyl. Some technological advances you can't argue with! Thanks to everyone involved -- at West West Side Music, at AcousTech and RTI, at BaDaBing, and at Revolver -- for breathing life into this album again. It was a lazy August here, but we did take time out from both summer and vacation to record a version of "White Christmas" for the movie "Lovely, Still" which premiers at this month's Toronto Film Festival. That's right: White Christmas, the hoariest of hoary holiday clichés. But that Irving Berlin can pack a punch, once you tear those chord changes away from the sleigh bells. Slow it down, and it's a sad hit! And director Nik Fackler tells us that Martin Landau and Ellen Burstyn will soon be slow-dancing to it, at (we hope) a theater near you . . . + + + August 2008 - This month's issue of Uncut magazine is devoted to George Harrison, and the cover mount CD features our performance of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" from The Earth Is Blue. Says the ed.: "This 2005 version serenely sails George's flagship song into uncharted waters via Naomi Yang's ethereal vocal, an extra verse only found on the demo from The Beatles Anthology and some dreamy lead guitar by Ghost's Michio Kurihara." Also on the CD: Galaxie 500's take on "Isn't It a Pity," from all those years ago. You said it, George. Speaking of, old friend Kramer checked in, after listening to the new pressing of More Sad Hits: "Galaxie 500 was like counting to three. More Sad Hits went up to ten and beyond." He gives it an 11! + + + July 2008 – We're back home from summer touring -- this set of shows included debuts in Dublin, Galway, Belfast, Toulouse, and... Louisville. How did we manage to miss Louisville all this time? To celebrate, we ate a hot brown sandwich (see Jane & Michael Stern) and -- in an ode to our own dressing room rider -- visited the Maker's Mark factory. That invitation on the side of the bottle is for real! Meanwhile, other factory wheels turned and our More Sad Hits reissue is now ready to ship. Well, the CD is -- for the LP, we'll have to wait a bit longer. It seems that everyone suddenly wants to make LPs again, which means the few remaining pressing plants are completely overwhelmed. So our promised June delivery date has been rescheduled for . . . September? Let's hope! The good news is that the CD package turned out beautifully. It's made to look like a mini-gatefold LP, on heavy shiny card stock, and there's really no better way to describe it than, "cute." Admitedly, we have a weakness for mini-LP-style packages on heavy shiny card stock -- witness the many, many Korean psychedelic reissues in our CD collection. But could we dream for more, than to have our own CD stand alongside Shin Joong-Hyun and the Men? Yes: we could dream that Robert Wyatt blurbed our album. Thank you Robert! In other merch news, our summer tour t-shirts, tote bags, and posters are now available from the website. To avoid disappointment, order soon because once these are gone, they will not be reprinted. Finally, we should mention that Cedrick Eymenier's lovely video for Within These Walls is now up on pitchfork.tv -- and the video quality there is much better than on youtube. + + + May 2008 – There's lots of graphic excitement around D&N headquarters these days. For the upcoming summer tour, Iker Spozio has made a limited edition poster (only 100 copies, order now), and fashion designer Gary Graham has created limited edition t-shirts and tote bags (as well as Naomi's wardrobe). In addition, French photographer Cedrick Eymenier has made a beautiful video for the title track to Within These Walls; click the YouTube link below to watch it. Later this summer, the debut D&N album, More Sad Hits (1992), will be reissued by 20/20/20, on remastered LP and CD. We just heard the test pressing, and the new vinyl is the best this record ever sounded. We hope to have copies in time for all upcoming shows as well. Also later this summer, Damon's book of poems The Memory Theater Burned will be published in French, under the title "Lisez-moi," by Editions de l'Attente in Bordeaux. Since D&N will be in France to play some duo shows, there will likely be a bilingual reading or two to celebrate. And for those fans of mainstream TV -- yes that was D&N's "Stars Never Fade" you heard near the beginning of the latest episode of "Shark" on CBS. The song was used to segue from a party scene in the Playboy mansion, to a murder scene in the Hollywood hills. Not exactly what usually comes to mind for our music; but the synopsis explains that the victim is a singer, and the murderer either her producer or A&R person. No wonder! (Wait till they hear More Sad Hits . . .) + + + April 2008 – Dates are now confirmed for the upcoming tour with Masaki Batoh and Helena Espvall. Immediately following that tour, Damon & Naomi will travel to Ireland, England, and France for a series of duo shows. See the tour dates page for more info. The poetry website hosted by the University of Pennsylvania, PennSound, has added an author page for Damon, and posted mp3s of a reading he gave at the Drawing Center in New York. + + + March 2008 – Naomi has a portfolio of recent photos from Japan and Morocco and also a selection of her paintings on French website Coriolislab (check under the "Eye" section for her work). And the new issue of Giant Robot (#52) features Naomi's photos and tour diary documenting a recent show on the "Asian side" of Istanbul. A string of US dates with Masaki Batoh (Ghost) and Helena Espvall (Espers) is being planned for June, when Batoh and Helena will have a new album out on Drag City. The two duos will tour from Boston to Chicago, with a stop in Louisville for the Terrastock festival. Also in June, Damon & Naomi will play their first ever shows in Ireland, en route to a festival appearance in Toulouse, France. A couple more European shows may be added to that trip, sign up on the mailing list to be notified as info becomes available. + + + February 2008 – Thank you to everyone who made our recent tour of Japan such a pleasure. Opening sets by Shinji Shibayama (of Nagisa-Nite), Ghost improvising with Hideki Ishima (of Flower Travellin' Band), and the new duo collaboration of Ghost's Masaki Batoh with cellist Helena Espvall (featuring Batoh singing in Swedish!), were all amazing. Our own sets in Japan were -- from the band's point of view -- among the most exciting of the long tour just completed behind Within These Walls. Thank you again to the wonderful musicians who joined us on stage, and in the van, over these last several months: Bhob Rainey, the album's arranger, on soprano sax; Helena Espvall on cello; and of course Michio Kurihara on electric guitar. (It was great to see Kurihara play for the hometown crowd in Tokyo -- with Boris, and Stars, and Ghost all in attendance, cheering him on!) We're now back home, taking a breather from travel. Damon is teaching this spring at Harvard University, where he is a Visiting Lecturer in Visual and Environmental Studies -- he has a class in "Noisy Art," and another in "Word Play." Naomi is up to her usual design, painting and photography projects. Damon has been writing a "Sound" column for ArtForum lately; you can find entries in the November, December, and January issues. Naomi and Damon also contributed the "Inner Sleeve" column to this month's Wire magazine; check out the February issue for a her-and-his take on album covers by Frank Sinatra and Sandy Denny. Please sign up on the mailing list to be notified of upcoming performances -- although there are no long tours in the immediate future, there will be shows here and there. And rumor has it that it's nearly time for another Terrastock . . . + + + January 2008 – The last leg of our tour for Within These Walls takes us to Japan this month -- we will be joined for our shows there by Michio Kurihara (electric guitar), Bhob Rainey (soprano sax), and Helena Espvall (cello). Since there are two nights booked in Tokyo, we've decided to play two different sets: the first will present the new album, and the second will take a look back at songs from all our recordings. P-Vine records have released the album in Japan and arranged this tour for us, and our friends Masaki Batoh and Ghost will be playing on the bills with us in Tokyo. Yoroshiku onigaishimasu! The website has now been updated with some of the press connected to Within These Walls -- there are new album reviews, and live reviews. You can also listen to an NPR radio interview. And a portfolio of Naomi's tour photos will be posted online this month by the Wire. Not online, but well worth checking out, is the latest issue of Giant Robot (GR51), which features Martin Wong's tour diary from his travels in our van while we were on the West Coast. Martin saw us through hot water (a natural spring in Weed CA on our day off) and cold (a miserable hotel in Portland OR). He was a great travel companion, and turns out to be a very funny observer as well! It's also illustrated with lots of photos. + + + December 2007 - Home after traveling 9000 miles in the US, 6000 kilometers in Europe, 1000 miles in the UK -- thank you to all our friends, old and new, who made these tours possible! On to Japan in January -- details on the tour dates page. + + + September 2007 - The new Damon & Naomi album, "Within These Walls," is now shipping. Catch us on tour this fall. The band will include Michio Kurihara (electric guitar), Bhob Rainey (soprano sax), and Helena Espvall (cello). And there's more to see as well as hear -- Naomi has been dressed for this tour by designer Gary Graham. You'll have to follow the band to see all the outfits! + + + August 2007 - The new album is finished! It is called "Within These Walls," and it will be out September 25 on 20/20/20. It features contributions by Michio Kurihara (Ghost), the string players from Espers, and the avant-garde horns of nmperign. Preview (or download for free) a sample track. A US tour with Boris (with Kurihara playing both sets!) is being scheduled for October, and a UK /European one for November. Tour dates posted here. And recently, Damon dj'd an hour of sad hits for the Spanish radio show, La Noche Inventada. You can listen to it online, or download it as a podcast, from their website. + + + June 2007 - Recently posted on French video site "Take Away Shows" Damon & Naomi performing in a cozy Paris apartment last January after a party that went on very late. Those with sharp eyes will spot drawing on the windows and mirrors by Marc Boutavant and Iker Spozio -- that's D&N's kind of wild party antics. . . Meanwhile, Kurihara's "Sunset Notes" is garnering high praise -- we have posted some of the published interviews with Mr. Kurihara, as well as the reviews. + + + May 2007 - As previously announced, the first 100 web orders for Kurihara's solo album Sunset Notes will receive a guitar pick with a design chosen by the fuzz maestro himself . What we didn't know, is how cute that design would be! Act fast, if you want an electric mole pick to call your own. We are very excited about this imminent solo release by our friend, and so are a number of critics who have previewed it. The Wire is first out of the box, as usual, so you can read an illuminating interview with Kurihara by Alan Cummings in this month's issue, and visit their website to hear a selection of tracks from throughout Kurihara's career. + + + March 2007 - Thank you to everyone who came to our recent shows in Vienna, Mallorca & Barcelona! We are back home -- mending our equipment and planning a fall release of our new album with Kurihara. + + + February 2007 - We're back from pilgrimages to the Acropolis and the Pantheon -- in Athens, we played to a rock and roll crowd in an elegant club in Metz, and in Paris, to an art crowd gathered in a gritty corner of the 11th . . . Great combinations, both! And we came home with some new sad hit discoveries, as well -- Rebetika and Rimitti, anyone? Thank you to our friends, old and new, in both locales, for an excellent time. + + + January 2007: In a recent holiday CD roundup, The New York Times' Ben Ratliff recommended giving International Sad Hits to all the depressives in your life. He also came up with a succinct way to describe what it is we do, exactly: "Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang - musicians, book publishers, connoisseurs of international gloom." Other news: Damon has edited a "soundtrack" for a visual art show at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. The show is called Super Vision, and the audio accompaniment is called "Music Overheard." It's 2 CDs of experimental sounds and sound art: no sweet sad songs here! "Music Overheard" is available on CD from the ICA store, or you can listen to it online at the great website Ubu.com. And in January, Damon & Naomi will be travelling to Europe for shows in Athens and Paris -- see the tour dates page for details. Kali xronia and Bonne année, everyone! + + + November 2006: International Sad Hits, Volume One is out now, and it's garnering some enthusiastic reviews. The emerging single seems to be Kim Doo Soo's "Bohemian," which reputedly caused one suicide, and prevented another, on first release. Which effect will it have on you? Buy a copy and find out! Also newly released: Damon contributed and edited texts to accompany a book of photographs by Marc Joseph, called New and Used (Steidl). It's photographs of -- what else? -- books and records, and book and record stores. Other contributors include Damon's fellow musician/writers Ian Svenonius, Thurston Moore, as well as a host of literary non-singers. And as Simon Reynolds points out in his review in the Voice, Galaxie 500 makes a cameo appearance . . . + + + September/October 2006: Announcing a 20-20-20 release, International Sad Hits, Volume One: Altaic Language Group — a compilation by Damon & Naomi of singer-songwriters they admire from Turkey, Korea, and Japan: Fikret Kizilok, Kim Doo Soo, Tomokawa Kazuki, and Mikami Kan. The package includes biographical information on each artist, and translation of all lyrics into English. More information is available on the 20-20-20 website. Order here. And for those of you in the Boston area, this fall Damon is teaching a poetry writing workshop at the Harvard Extension School; more details here. + + + July/August 2006: Here is a short interview with Damon in Erasing Clouds, and a description of a reading Damon gave in NYC, from ArtForum.com. + + + May/June 2006: Thanks to everyone who came out to our shows last month — While Kurihara was here, we took the opportunity to tape demos for an album's worth of new songs, which we'll be working on further over the summer. New 20-20-20 releases are in the works as well, sign up on the mailing list for updates as they happen. Also, several of Damon's poems are included in the first issue of a new literary journal, Soft Targets. + + + April 2006: Michio Kurihara will play three shows with Damon & Naomi this month -- as a quintet with Bhob Rainey and Greg Kelley in Amherst, MA, on April 20; as an even larger group, with additional contributions from other members of Ghost, at the Terrastock Festival in Providence, RI, on April 22; and as a quartet with Smokey Hormel at elegant Joe's Pub in New York City, on April 27. The Joe's Pub show will also feature a solo set by the great folksinger Bridget St. John. (If you don't already know Bridget's albums, check out this description from Other Music: "The reemergence of these three long out-of-print albums by Bridget St. John is truly special. This trio of records ranks right up there with Sandy Denny's and Nick Drake's best work, not to mention Linda Perhac's Parallelograms and the seminal Just Another Diamond Day by Vashti Bunyan.") See the tour dates page for further information, including links to purchase tickets. + + + Damon & Naomi now are on MySpace -- come be their "friends" as they try and figure out how it works! + + + January 2006: "Sometimes the right thing comes along . . . " Damon & Naomi's song "Sometimes," from the album The Earth Is Blue, materialized in the January 6th episode of the CBS TV show "Ghost Whisperer" (Episode 13: "Friendly Neighborhood Ghost a.k.a. Ghost Next Door"). According to the New York Times, 11.35 million people tuned in. . . That same night, an audience approximately 1/100,000 of that size were at Tonic in New York City, where Damon & Naomi enjoyed an evening on stage together with friends Greg Kelley and Bhob Rainey. (Before the show, the band discovered the amazing Doughnut Plant on Norfolk Street —though it seems the nation of Japan got there first. . .) + + + December 2005: Announcing a new, limited edition DVD release. (Now SOLD OUT). Filmed in Tokyo, Japan on June 24, 2005, it features a very special line-up: Damon & Naomi with Michio Kurihara, Masaki Batoh, Bhob Rainey, and the legendary Kan Mikami. For more details click here. The DVD is available from this website only. Orders will be filled on a first-come, first-served basis. + + + November 2005: Available November 14th on Damon & Naomi's label 20-20-20: the Galaxie 500 Peel Sessions. This is the first official release of these oft-bootlegged, but now properly mastered recordings by Galaxie 500. Features covers of the Sex Pistols and the Young Marble Giants, as well as a clutch of the band's favorite originals. Also, for all your back-to-school needs, a nifty new tote-bag printed in copper ink with the popular Damon & Naomi with Kurihara illustration by Nick Pimentel. It fits LPs! + + + July 2005: We're back home after a long series of tours that took us to a lot of exciting new places (Lisbon, Istanbul, Seoul . . . ), as well as many of our favorite haunts around the world (Tokyo, Paris, Barcelona . . . ). Thank you to everyone who came to our shows, and to the many friends — new and old — who made us feel welcome in so many corners of the blue earth. + + + May 2005: The May 2005 issue of Harp magazine names Damon & Naomi's first album as a duo, "More Sad Hits," one of the "20 Most Overlooked Psychedelic Albums." Is that good? Anyway, the company is excellent - with Pearls Before Swine, the 13th Floor Elevators, Linda Perhacs, Skip Spence, Spacemen 3, Hawkwind (Lemmy-era, of course) . . . it's an honor to be so neglected! + + + February 2005: Damon & Naomi's new album, The Earth Is Blue, was released February 14, 2005, on the band's own 20/20/20 label. "The Earth is Blue" features Michio Kurihara on electric guitar, with guest appearances by nmperign (trumpet player Greg Kelley and soprano saxophonist Bhob Rainey), and Dana Kletter (piano). 20/20/20 is distributed by Revolver (USA), Forte (UK), and Stomp (Australia). In addition, "The Earth is Blue" is licensed to the following labels: Sonic Unyon (Canada); P-Vine (Japan); Pastel Music (Korea); Acuarela (Spain, Portugal, France); and Avant Garden (Taiwan). + + + October 2004: Damon's first book of poetry, The Memory Theater Burned, was published October 5 by Turtle Point Press, NYC. |
December 2009 - Our '00's touring ended on an especially high note, with the "Lost Gaijin Tour" of Japan -- and our '10's are going to start with a bang at two very special shows, Jan 30 at the 
