The Gits Live at The X-Ray is a new live album featuring recordings from the band’s June 1993 set featuring 14 tracks recorded at the famed Portland, Oregon nightclub that will be released next week, worldwide Friday, December 13th on all DSPs from Sub Pop. However, today you can secure the album one week early, along with the rest of the band’s remastered digital catalog, for Bandcamp Friday.
 
Of playing live and the song “Wingo Lamo,” guitarist Andy Kessler offers this, “‘Wingo…’ was always one of my favorites to play live. And then there’s the thing about how I’d misheard Mia’s lyrics to the chorus as, ‘Just like my father told me…’  The actual line is, ‘Immobilized by the torment…’  But I truly wondered what it was her father told her. And to this day I still do.  I always loved it when she changed the chorus and gave me a look and a laugh.”
 
Proceeds from today’s Bandcamp Friday sale of Live at The X-Ray and the entire digital catalog will benefit The Vera Project, an all-ages nonprofit space dedicated to fostering personal and community transformation through collaborative, youth-driven engagement in music and art. A music venue, screen print shop, recording studio, art gallery, and safe space for radical self-expression, VERA is a home to Seattle’s creative community. VERA’s volunteer-fueled, participatory approach has garnered national and international attention, serving as a model and inspiration for many all-ages organizations in other cities across the country. VERA successfully carved out a space for youth-driven music and art in Seattle, and has become a leader in a larger national movement that defines a culture of all-ages, participatory music and art.
 
On a related note, you can watch a fully restored and remastered live performance of “Wingo Lamo,” filmed live at Seattle’s RKCNDY. The live visual features original film footage courtesy of DC9 and Douglas Pray from his 1993 documentary, Hype!.
 
Sub Pop recently shared the news that we are the new home of The Gits, the ferocious Seattle punk band fronted by the late Mia Zapata. Their entire discography – Frenching the Bully (1992), Enter: The Conquering Chicken (1994), Kings & Queens (1996), and Seafish Louisville (2000) – features newly designed album cover art by Sub Pop’s VP of Creative Jeff Kleinsmith, and have all been remastered by legendary producer Jack Endino. They are available to hear NOW on all DSPs from Sub Pop.
 
On January 31, 2025, a physical reissue of Frenching the Bully will also be released, and is available to preorder now from Sub Pop Mega Mart in North America, MegaMart2 in the EU/UK, and independent retailers worldwide.
 
Revisit Evelyn McDonnell’s interview with The Gits’ band members Andy Kessler and Matt Dresdner in The New York Times (see November 12th story “A New Set of Gits Releases Gives Mia Zapata Her Voice Back”).
 
You can also read Tim Sommer’s extensive liner notes on The Gits reissues here.

The Gits
Live at The X-Ray
          
1. Sign of the Crab
2. While You’re Twisting I’m Still Breathing
3. Insecurities
4. Slaughter of Bruce
5. Seaweed
6. Beauty of the Rose 
7. Absynthe
8. Another Shot of Whiskey
9. Whirlwind
10. Daily Bread
11. Bob (Cousin O.)
12. Wingo Lamo
13. Here’s to Your Fuck   
14. Second Skin

Sub Pop is proud to share the news that we are the new home of The Gits, the ferocious Seattle punk band fronted by the late Mia Zapata. Their entire discography – Frenching the Bully (1992), Enter: The Conquering Chicken (1994), Kings & Queens (1996), and Seafish Louisville (2000) – features newly designed album cover art by Sub Pop’s VP of Creative Jeff Kleinsmith, and have all been remastered by legendary producer Jack Endino. They are available to hear NOW on all DSPs from Sub Pop.
 
On January 31, 2025, a physical reissue of Frenching the Bully will also be released, and is available to preorder now from Sub Pop Mega Mart in North America, MegaMart2 in the EU/UK, and independent retailers worldwide.
 
Right now, you can watch The Gits’ official video for Frenching the Bully single “Second Skin,” directed by Doug Pray. The live visual features original film footage courtesy of DC9 and Pray from his 1993 documentary, Hype!.
 
Read Evelyn McDonnell’s interview with The Gits’ band members Andy Kessler and Matt Dresdner in The New York Times (see November 12th “Critics Notebook”).
 
The Gits members Andy Kessler, Matt Dresdner, and Steve Moriarity offer this on the reissues:
 
“It’s been more than thirty-one years since The Gits played our last show. We’re rereleasing The Gits catalog now for the people who loved our music, and hopefully others who have yet to find it. And we’re doing this now for the love of our dear friend, our co-conspirator, our singer, Mia Zapata.” 

Sub Pop founder and president Jonathan Poneman says of the signing, “The Gits first knocked me out with their very unadorned, unmacho abandon. Their songs and spirit still kick, inspiring a triumphal racket.”

“Mia Zapata of the Gits was the greatest rock singer of her time. This is not hyperbole; if you ever saw her, you know it’s true. She was likely the greatest singer in punk rock history, the woman who married the 78 and the ’78. Tragedy did not make this true. Mia Zapata made this true, and the ferocious, spring-loaded shrapnel frame built around her by Andy Kessler, Matt Dresdner, and Steve Moriarty made it true.

Mia Zapata (1965 – 1993), the vocalist and front person for The Gits (1986 – 1993), was not the type of voice one usually associates with a punk rock band. She had the sizzle, sass, shriek, grace, rasp, and fury of a classic blues shouter (what if Janis Joplin had fronted Fugazi, we ask?). There was a purity and accuracy to her voice. She could simultaneously point it at the stars and scoop cigarette butts off of the venue floor. It sounded like a voice on fire, desperate and angry, pleading and commanding, all at the same time (what if Amy Winehouse had fronted Fugazi, we ask?). And her onstage persona was utterly devoid of bullshit: Mia Zapata was a rag doll, a stick figure, a sock puppet, alternately bent with sadness and arched with rage. Sometimes, she looked like she was in pain, clawing at an ulcer; other times, like a holy woman on a soapbox, testifying the joy of truth; and still other times, like someone draped in a bedtime t-shirt reading from the margins of her notebooks. The voice and the presence were extraordinary, and there was nothing like it anywhere in punk – it was like finding the missing link between Nina Simone and Johnny Rotten (what if Joss Stone had fronted Fugazi, we ask?).

Much of this story takes place in Seattle during the strange night fog of the early 1990s, but did that matter? No. The Gits were beyond era or place. Maybe that’s why they were one of the most important acts to emerge from Seattle during that time. The Gits defied any categorizations – were they ferocious post-hardcore sideways-metal screw-propellor punk rockers? Some cross between Iron Maiden and an SST band? And although Mia Zapata was undoubtedly a once-in-a-generation talent – a wrapped-tight urchin/ingenue/artist applying a shredded Bonnie Raitt blues-rasp perfect-pitched alto to tight punk rock – the band matched her and inspired her to double down. Andy Kessler (guitar – metronomic and furious), Steve Moriarty (drums – martial and explosive), and Matt Dresdner (bass – fluid, punching, beat-addicted and melodic) wrote and performed with a jaw-tightened fury, a clenched soul that shrieked and stomped with precision. The Gits were an angry, inflamed slinky fully in tune with the Bessie Patti Smith of her time, truly the only singer who could summon Joplin, Poly Styrene, Sam Cooke, Iggy Pop, and Ian MacKaye all in the same goddamn song.

The Gits were formed at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio in mid-1986. Matt, Mia, Andy, and Steve moved to Seattle in middish 1989, landing in a house on Capitol Hill where they (and fellow travelers) woodshedded and rehearsed for the next few years. The Gits put out three EPs in 1990 and ’91 before signing with C/Z Records and releasing their first full-length album, Frenching The Bully. Soon, Seattle, North America, and the world felt the kind of awe the Gits inspired when peak emotion meets peak grindage.
Now, Sub Pop is re-releasing the entirety of the Gits’ catalog, including all four extant albums (three of which, sadly, were released posthumously): Frenching The Bully (1992), Enter: The Conquering Chicken (1994), Kings & Queens (1996), and Seafish Louisville (2000). All have been remastered by Jack Endino, one of Seattle’s most respected producers and engineers and the band’s closest studio associate.

On July 7, 1993, Mia Zapata died. We leave it at that, not only because you can read the sad details elsewhere but because this is not about death but an extraordinary life. So, friends, please listen to one of the greatest punk rock bands of all time, fronted by the greatest woman rock vocalist of the last half-century (see expanded liner notes here).

 

Frenching The Bully - Loser Edition

As previously announced, today, December 6th, Sub Pop is reissuing seven titles – five on LP and digital and two digital-only – by Denver punk legends The Fluid. These releases include the band’s entire Sub Pop output from 1988-1991, choice outtakes and rarities, and their debut album, Punch N Judy, originally released by RayOn Records in 1986. None of this material has been available on digital music services before, and the vinyl versions have been out of print for decades. It sounds better than ever, thanks to extensive mixing and remastering work by the band and Jack Endino (Nirvana, Soundgarden, High on Fire, Mudhoney).
 
The Fluid holds a special place in Sub Pop’s history as the label’s first non-Seattle signing, and their astounding live show and Detroit-fueled rock power made an indelible mark on the nascent grunge scene. Soundgarden’s Kim Thayil offers this first-hand account of The Fluid’s initial connection with the Seattle scene:
 
Everything about the news that Sub Pop is reissuing the entire indie catalog of The Fluid’s recordings is exciting and long overdue! The fact that they’ve commissioned Jack Endino to oversee most of the remixing and to have him supervise remastering with JJ Golden indicates their dedication to the sonic justice that these reissues are due. Sub Pop is including The Fluid’s 1986 debut album, Punch N Judy, which was originally released on RayOn records. This is the album that put them on my radar when label founder Bruce Pavitt played it for me in their offices atop the Terminal Sales Building in downtown Seattle circa 1987. My first reaction was to interrupt Bruce’s finger snapping, air guitar playing, lip synching karaoke dance moves to ask what we were listening to.
    
“This is Punch N Judy, Buy the Fluid”, is what I thought he said over the screaming stereo. “They’re from Denver!”.
   
“This is way cool!”, I replied. “This sounds like the MC5!!” “Punch N Judy is a great band name!”, I yelled. “And, Buy the Fluid is a witty album title!”.
    
Bruce brought the volume down and flipped his air guitar over. “No, the band is The Fluid; their album is called Punch N Judy.”
    
“Well, that’s even cooler! Are you going to sign them? Can you get them on Sub Pop?”
    
“We’re hoping! Yeah, they’re cool; we’d like to! You dig this?”
 
“Man, you got to, this is great!”
 
What a significant and important signing it was for the Sub Pop roster and the Seattle “Grunge” community. For Soundgarden it was encouraging and reassuring to learn that the vision developed within our scene was shared elsewhere, and that this milieu went beyond our regional geography. It also gave credence to the belief that Seattle in the late 80’s was analogous to Detroit in the late 60’s, with this Denver band bringing the legit spirit of the MC5 (my favorite band!) to pair with the often cited and repeated, but dubious comparisons between Seattle’s Green River and Mudhoney, and Detroit’s Stooges. The Fluid also brought a heavy dose of the New York Dolls and they along with our “Iggy” bands all referenced the stylings of NY’s Dead Boys!
 
Why The Fluid weren’t more successful is a mystery to me. They were better than most bands from our scene and around the international indie circuit. They had great songs and could play them really well! They could actually perform background vox and harmonies in pitch and key, with hooks! If you ever had the opportunity to have seen them live, like Soundgarden did when we first played shows with them, you’d have seen a band that commanded the stage with a charismatic presence and swagger that asserted the cohesion of five fingers clenched into a fist. They were rock stars that were a dangerously wild and real cool time.
 
Mudhoney’s Mark Arm highlights the mutual admiration between The Fluid and Mudhoney:
Mudhoney opened for The Fluid when they first played Seattle in 1988.  We were blown away by how amazing they were and instantly became great friends. Our bands dug deep, mining similar veins, but we applied different alchemy to the rock we dug. We admired each other’s results. They were one of the best live acts of the era.  Their albums were in heavy rotation in our tour van. And now they are available again for you to hold in your grubby little hands.
 
And Jello Biafra (Dead Kennedys, Guantanamo School of Medicine, Alternative Tentacles Records) sings the praises of The Fluid and their scorching debut album:
At last, The Fluid are available again!! The best part is Punch N Judy, the great lost first album hardly anyone knew existed. The Fluid were always the most Detroit-powered of all the big early grunge bands, and nowhere more than on Punch N Judy. All killer, no filler. Not everyone was hip to them, but other musicians sure were. Especially in Scandinavia a few years later - no Hellacopters explosion without them.

Fluid’s catalog is now available from Sub Pop. Limited colored vinyl preorders are available at the Sub Pop Mega Mart (North America), Mega Mart 2 (UK/EU), and independent retailers worldwide.

YouTube Advance Listening Party 

Saturday, November 16th 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3zV3W6Cd-M

Global Instore Listening Parties

Wednesday, November 20th

https://www.fatherjohnmisty.com/listening-parties/

On Saturday, November 16th (@ 9 am PT / 12 pm ET / 5 pm UK / 6 pm EU), Father John Misty will host a one-time-only early album visual playback experience of the album on YouTube.

On Wednesday, November 20th, record stores around the world will celebrate the release of Father John Misty’s Mahashmashana with in-store listening parties. Attendees will have the chance to hear the album two days before its official release and access exclusive giveaways, including signed art cards (US and Canada only), white label variants (EU-UK only), stickers, and more. Check with your local store for timing and details.

Last month, Father John Misty recently released “She Cleans Up,” the dance-filled official video for his current single from Mahashmashana. Rolling Stone calls the song “a stomping glam-and-grit rocker driven by a chunky bass line, splashy baselines, and guitar riffs designed to be blown to rattle the casings of your speakers.”

Father John Misty’s previously announced headlining tour dates for 2025 in support of Mahashmashana, including his North America run with special guests Destroyer and UK dates with support from Butch Bastard, are on sale now. 

Father John Misty’s Mahashmashana will be out Friday, November 22nd, 2024, worldwide from Sub Pop and in the UK and EU from Bella Union.

What People Are Saying About Mahashmashana:

“Another great, mind-bending, soul-baring, melodically rich album.” “Album of the Month” - ★★★★ MOJO 

“Another set of brilliant, beautiful songs… Tillman is an outstanding vocalist, a master of phrasing and inflection.”  8/10, Uncut

“Josh Tillman addresses mortality with wickedly expansive style on his sixth album. Flushed with wit and luminous melodies, his songcraft remains an inexhaustible pleasure.” ★★★★ Record Collector

“Father John Misty’s sixth album eulogises humankind in Josh Tillman’s idiosyncratic, endlessly intriguing way… These 50 minutes of music are simultaneously momentous and sublime… There’s plenty of lushly arranged emotional climaxes; it’s not rare for the songs to reach a sweeping peak that is as towering, dense, overwhelming and ultimately moving as life.” ★★★★ Shindig 

Damon McMahon releases new remix album, Death Jokes II, today, the final work of the acclaimed Amen Dunes project. 

This is the last chapter of the final volume. Goodbye, I’ve barely said a word to you, but it’s always like that at parties - we never really see each other, we never say the things we should like to; in fact it’s the same everywhere in this life. Let’s hope that when we are dead things will be better arranged.

Amen Dunes was founded in 2006 with D.I.A., an album he recorded on an 8-track recorder in a trailer in Upstate New York. It grew from there, with McMahon releasing 6 full-length albums and 2 EPs over the last 18 years. Today he releases the 7th and final album, Death Jokes II, a reworked version of his May 2024 Sub Pop debut, Death Jokes. Hailed as “a daring turn in a different direction” by NPR Music, “a testament to McMahon’s sheer artistic brilliance” by Stereogum, and “a body of musical work that’s often as confounding as it is brilliant” by GQ, Death Jokes marked a major departure from Amen Dunes’ previous output, an ambitious album that saw McMahon immerse himself in the electronic music he grew up with but never imagined himself able to make.

Death Jokes was a complex project that took close to four years to complete and was recorded in various iterations, including an alternate version of the album recorded in June of 2021 at the famed East West Studios in Los Angeles (in the “Pet Sounds” and the haunted “Whitney Houston” rooms)  with Money Mark (Beastie Boys) on keyboards, and both Jim Keltner (Bob Dylan et. al) and Carla Azar (Autolux) on drums.

In reimagining the album as Death Jokes II, McMahon revisited all that material for stripped down remixes of the songs by Craig Silvey. These new mixes also include unheard contributions from notable Death Jokes contributors Panoram, Kwake Bass (Dean Blunt, MF DOOM), Christoffer Berg (Fever Ray), and Robbie Lee, a multi-instrumentalist and NYC veteran.

Death Jokes II is a celebration of endings and of deaths, marking the end of Amen Dunes, itself. 

Stream Death Jokes II

Death Jokes II Tracklist

1. Ian (Sunriser)

2. What I Want (Night Driver)

3. Exodus (Do It)

4. Rugby Child (300 Miles Per Hour)

5. Purple Land (In The Springs)

6. Mary Anne (Senigallia)

7. Italy Pop Punk

8. I Don’t Mind (Q Loop)

9. Round the World (Down South)

10. Ian (Goodbye)