Story/Stereo—a concert/reading series that pairs local musicians with local writers/poets—just announced two new events.

First, Asa Osborne—formerly of Baltimore gnostic/punk quartet Lungfish—will perform with his guitar/organ project, Zomes. Lisa Selin Davis will read. That’s kind of a tough gig, though, considering the last person to put words in or around Osborne’s music was Dan Higgs.

Then, in February, J. Robbins—fresh from reissuing the late ’90s masterpiece For Your Own Special Sweetheart and performing on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon with the reunited Jawbox—will perform his first ever solo show. Marianne Villanueva and Steve Fellner will read.

Dates and details after the jump:
Read More “Story/Stereo Announces Two New Shows” »

Pressing a record is a pain in the ass. Really, it is. You have to record the music, get the tracks mastered, press the records themselves, have them shipped from the pressing plant and so on and so forth.

So after taking the better part of a year just to get the music part right, it’s understandable that True Womanhood might want to forgo the pains of creating a physical product. Especially when there are quicker, more efficient ways to get the music out there. The moody D.C.-based band leaked two new studio tracks around the internet yesterday–posting a yousendit link on facebook and passing the songs around to interested parties via e-mail.

The two songs–”Magic Child” and “Dignitas”–were recorded by the band in three studios over the course of seven months. “Most of it was recorded [in Brooklyn] at Death By Audio, some of it was recorded in D.C. at our houses, and the vocals were recorded in Baltimore, with J Robbins,” explains guitarist/vocalist Thomas Redmond. “The last time we recorded [for a demo CD, sold at shows throughout '08] we did it in my living room. We used really shitty equipment. We bought the cheapest–literally the cheapest– mics we could get on Musician’s Friend, set them up haphazardly, and made due. So this time it took a while to figure out what was the right sound.”

Download link after the jump:
Read More “True Womanhood Leak Digital 7″” »

This morning, I broke the news that Jawbox would be reuniting on a late-night TV show to be named later. It got named! This all set off a flurry of Tweets and blog posts: who knew so many people were pining for mid-’90s posthardcore? “This is all rather funny, isn’t it?” Jawbox singer-guitarist J. Robbins wrote in an e-mail today. “We’ve been kicking the reunion idea around for a while, not particularly seriously, since we decided to do the ‘Sweetheart’ reissue,” he wrote.  “When the Fallon opportunity came up, I think everyone looked at it this way:
1. it can be sort of a “diet reunion” – any time we’ve discussed playing again, we all agree that we’d want to be as good a band as we were 12 years ago. But 12 years ago, we could afford total immersion: we all lived together, rehearsed 3 times a week for 4 hours at a stretch and toured 6 – 8 months out of the year. It’s much easier to imagine doing justice to one song for one day than it is to imagine pulling off a full set and tour, particularly with [drummer] Zach [Barocas] being in NY and with the family and work commitments that we have. Maybe this will adequately scratch the reunion itch for those of us who are feeling it.
2. it’s such a weird idea, such an unlikely opportunity, why wouldn’t we do it?”

As to a reunion beyond the confines of late-night television, Robbins wrote: “I don’t think that doing the Jimmy Fallon show would really be a likely catalyst for that sort of thing. Or would it? I think we are all just playing this by ear and we’ll see how much fun we have. But it’s still unlikely given our number one condition, which is not to suck if we got onto a real stage in a room with people who give a shit about seeing us play. I think we’re all a bit taken aback that anyone is paying attention.”

A few days before all this, I spoke with Robbins about the upcoming reissue of For Your Own Special Sweetheart, Jawbox’s 1994 major-label debut.

Read More “Jawbox’s J. Robbins on the For Your Own Special Sweetheart Reissue” »