From Karl Blau’s latest LP, Zebra.

On the evening of Sunday, August 2, Rachael Jensen (keyboardist and violinist for the Portland-based pop group Parenthetical Girls) suffered a major tragedy: four members of her immediate family were involved in a fatal car accident while traveling home from an annual family reunion. Her father and two brothers were rushed to an intensive care facility, and are now in the early stages of their recovery. Tragically, Rachael’s mother Kris, 51, passed away at the scene. Rachel and her brother Jeremy, who runs the Idaho record label Coming in Second, have always been close to the folks at K.

The amazing folks at K have donated a stack of assorted test pressings to the Kris Jensen Memorial Fund. They are included in an auction that runs through next Tuesday. To make a donation to the fund or find out more about the many auction items, visit www.krisjensenmemorialfund.com

Head on over to the Dub Narcotic Dot Org Vimeo Channel for the latest in basement garbage-can rock video (see Monotonix). I will be updating the YouTube channel sometime soon.

Calvin Johnson @ The Co-Prosperity Sphere (2/12/08)

Old Time Relijun @ Subterranean (3/19/08)

Karl Blau @ Ronny’s (3/22/08)

Monotonix @ Empty Bottle (3/28/08)

We recently started a Vimeo channel which will contain all things K on Vimeo. Please subscribe if you are a Vimeo member. Although YouTube will remain our primary venue for videos (particuarly full-length shows), our Vimeo channel will always debut our Dub Narcotic Video Singles series before they air on YouTube, as the videos on Vimeo are of higher quality.

The Dub Narcotic Video Singles series are exerpts and highlights of previously uploaded full-length shows from our YouTube channel. Below is a list of the first batch of video singles.

1) The Blow - “The Long List of Girls”
2) Saturday Looks Good To Me - “Money In the Afterlife”
3) Old Time Relijun - “Cold Water”
4) Karl Blau - “Mockingbird Diet”

The videos in the singles series will appear on YouTube a week or so after we upload them to Vimeo.

Tags: the blow, saturday looks good to me, old time relijun, karl blau, k records, krecs, chicago, vimeo, youtube, video

Karl Blau and Your Heart Breaks played a great show last night at The Hideout. It was the record release part for Karl’s new CD called “AM” on Whistler Records (a new Chicago label). They put out the Slow Down Joe b/w Lake King Daughter 7″ that you can get from the K Mail Order Dept (on the back it shows a different label name, but they changed it to Whistler recently).

Anyway, it was a really fun show. I bought all three of the CDs available from Your Heart Breaks, they are really good. I also picked up Karl’s new CD and it is also wonderful. It should be coming out in January. I’m going to see if I can help the Whistler guys out, you might be able to buy it online sooner, more on that later.

Your Heart Breaks

Karl Blau

Tags: chicago, hideout, karl blau, your heart breaks

It was great seeing Phil and Karl play South Union Arts. Before the show I said hello and picked up the new Mount Eerie (parts 6 & 7) book / picture disc. Karl is playing a full set @ The Hideout (21+) in Chicago tonight, I strongly urge you to come out!

Karl Blau

Mount Eerie

Tags: chicago, karl blau, mount eerie, south union arts

Karl Blau played a show in Dekalb last night, I drove out from Chicago. It was really fun. I got there way early and had the opportunity to hang out with Karl and his daughter. They were making up songs, Karl was playing piano / tambourine and his daughter would sing, it was cute.

Karl told the story of how he acquired his new touring vehicle, which looks like a giant storm trooper helmet. He also mentioned that he had just dropped off DATs at K for his new record called “Nature’s Got Away” which should be coming out spring of 2008. After the show I kindly thanked Karl and bought a copy of the Dance Positive LP.

I’ve suddenly been meeting these amazing collectors, archivists, and traders lately. If anyone out there has archive footage of K shows, long lost artifacts, factoids, stories, and would like to share them, please contact me.

Tags: 7th street place, dekalb, k records, karl blau