new Howling Hex / Neil Hagerty brings the funk!

of course there's no denver date

LOL perfect

hahahaha

he hasn't played in Denver in almost two years, i think! even though he obviously LOVES it here.

300 DAYS OF SUNSHINE

anybody seen this current tour?

Proof of life
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-howling-hex-with-special-guests-tickets-84999181841?aff=efbneb

I checked out his website/Tumblr recently for first time in a while; looks like he's selling homemade board games.

They're like download/print on demand type things but yeah. In the NMH tradition they are conceptually oblique and probably impossible to play.

I wonder if it is true that he has recently recorded three albums that haven't been released (as he said in one of those weird RTX interviews this year). I would love to get new Hex music at some point!

Hey, I just discovered (on my local streaming service) a HHex track I wasn't aware of... on this 2013 album. It's good!

Any other heads out there prefer Denver: Approved for Indica Mix to the original alb?

Gee I wonder who at the Denver Brunch game company was responible for this game?

JUNKY BINGO
Win big to be the first to lose it all and win!

NOW EVERYONE CAN PLAY BECAUSE EVERYONE CAN PLAY BINGO! You must battle to be the master of the bingo parlor while dodging drug lair dangers & murderous lies in your everyday life. Careful with that pizza money, choose wisely how it is spent. Who will be the perfect zero in J-U-N-K-Y BINGO?

https://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/junky-bingo

xp i dont prefer it, but its great, i play them just about equally

Gee I wonder who at the Denver Brunch game company was responible for this game?

I'm assuming the "Denver Brunch game company" is a one-man operation

B/c I'm bored, here's a quick & dirty ranking of the main Drag City albums (not counting the three released under the NMH name; and with 1-2-3 subbing in for the three Ltd. LPs):

Best Of
All-Nite Fox
Nightclub
XI
1-2-3
Denver
Wilson
Earth Junk

?!

where is the best one, You Can't Beat Tomorrow?

Whoops - forgot YCBT. Slot it above 1-2-3

Ha ha!

nmh is the only person who retweets the dumb memes i retweet on twitter. his tweets often make no sense to me. he seemed pretty upset about the recent rtx thing. i went hot and heavy on xi for a while - should give some of these other records a listen.

I agree with that ranking pretty much.
Nightclub Version of the Eternal took about a decade to sink in. I kind of wrote it off as a perverse exercise in audience punishment, but at some point, the cd ended up in my car and I played it a few times and it clicked. Good album, subtle in it's own unique way.

A while back on one of his websites, he teased a couple new bands - The Vicksburg Occupation, City in the Country - and an "all new line-up" of Dan'l Boone. I can't find anything official online now (Neil is a prolific deleter of content), but there are traces if you're willing to go back through the Zonk! backlog.

Zonk! is Neil's youtube / podcast thing.

I’ve never even heard of Zonk! But I stopped tracking his online activities a while back...

(Totally forgot about Dan’l Boone; will have to revisit that one. I liked the album he did with Toth.)

Best Show related comedy thing headlined by whatever The Howling Hex is now

Surprise! This is tomorrow night at Baby’s All Right.
Comedy + @TheHowlingHex
Come by if you’d like 👌🏼 pic.twitter.com/geBpUQVuoe

— Pat Byrne (@1800PATBYRNE) December 29, 2019

Wish I could be there!

Eager to hunt down footage. Wonder what he played. New Hex imminent?

^Yes, turns out it is!:

https://www.fatpossum.com/5140-2/

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/howling-hex-knuckleball-express-947428/

(gotta say, I don't love the new song)

Ok, I guess it’s kind of a jam...

Still, it’s in sort of a “funny“ style, esp. in light of this section from the RS interview:

”Rock and roll is what’s missing in bands these days that take a generic approach to playing that’s almost machine-like,” he adds. “We don’t need that anymore because machines can actually do it. I don’t see what the difference is between a precise human drummer playing to a click track and EDM. There’s some weak dad-rock stuff being distributed now by people my age, so I’m just trying to up the ante. I get on stage and say all the words I believe in my daily life. Not every dad can do that.”

reading between the lines: Malkmus, Callahan & recently Oldham are now fathers.

Well, so is Neil... and I doubt he’s dissing those guys!

I like the new track, dunno if it "ups the ante" (lol) but it rocks well enough

I know, right? lol

The Best Of... still sounds so great... his playing, the arrangements, everything just smokes. "Green Limousine" is one of my favorite traxx ever -- it's brain-melting, I can't play it loud enough!!

wooooooooo

Surprising development, to me at least. I figured Howling Hex releases would be Bandcamp or Patreon deals after the break with Drag City.
Speaking of which: https://www.patreon.com/howlinghex
I wonder that maybe sending Neil Hagerty $360/year might actually be worth it.

Also, I've assumed that Trux is broken up again, but that Rolling Stone thing is the first thing that I've seen that suggests so.

Thx for the Patreon link; good to see he’s ramping up & doin’ stuff.

He's uploaded a new track called "TILT2" to the Patreon acct. The mix is pretty weird -- his vox are way upfront, the music buried in the background, and he pounds on the mic for emphasis a few times(?) -- but, y'know, it's cool!

The 2nd Patreon upload is a weird/random video filmed on a phone... (he's already on that tip, lol)

Did anyone else who pre-ordered the new Howling Hex album just receive a refund from Fat Possum with no explanation? I'm guessing given that the pressing plants aren't operating that this release and many others have been postponed indefinitely.

I didn't even know there was an album available for pre-order!

(Nice tune - https://www.patreon.com/posts/sailing-on-by-35459094)

Guess MP3s will be available on 4/17: https://store.fatpossum.com/products/knuckleball-express

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/the-howling-hex-knuckleball-express/

“'Lies,' the most immediate yet least satisfying track on Knuckleball Express, is a slice of heads-down Southern boogie"

I dare anyone to find anything remotely "southern" or "boogie" about that track

Dear Pitchfork: please stop writing about rock music

Jeez - no kidding

I think I will wait to listen to this until I can listen to it “for real.”

Is there going to be a "for real"? Even on Fat Possum's website, the only option is mp3 download - is this even getting a physical release?

Yeah, I dunno, it’s not looking good :/

are pressing plants even open?

It'll be a shame if this doesn't get an actual physical release because it's really good (and despite what the Pitchfork review says, none of it sounds like fucking Belle & Sebastian, jesus christ). Some of it actually reminds me of some of Westerberg's low-stakes solo stuff, which I wasn't expecting

Hagerty’s records are difficult to review; I’m not sure I’ve ever read a review that made me think, “Yeah, this gets it.” A lot of them tend to fall back on the usual RTX/drug/etc. references (though, to be fair, so do the press releases).

Also, I’m glad Howling Hex albums are still getting reviewed at all. The Trux reunion may have been short-lived, but seems like it probably did “boost interest” a lil’ bit?