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Hello, all.

Tune in next week for a live acoustic concert with me and Angela via ustream.tv. Don’t worry. You don’t have to pay extra or anything. If you’re receiving this email, that means you’ve already pledged for the record and will have access to this exclusive live broadcast. I understand that a lot of you might not be able to make it to the record release show in NY this March, that you might not be able to make it to a show on this upcoming tour, so I thought I would do a little something special for all the incredible people who made it possible for us to get back in the studio and create this new Damnwells record. It’s been such a strange and incredible and humiliating and uplifting and emasculating and drunkenly bizarre journey thus far, but one thing I’ve come to understand is just how important—how essential—you guys are, the fans, the people who listen, who absorb and share and experience the invisible power of music with me. Enjoy.

Here is the schedule for the two Ustream.tv concerts next week. I hope you can tune in, wherever you are.

There will be two 30-minute Ustream.tv pledgers-only acoustic concerts. The first of these will be Jan 26th at 12pm PST/3pm EST/5pm GMT. The second will be Jan 27th at 5pm PST/8pm EST (1am GMT of the 28th). You can tune into one. You can tune into both. Whatever you like. I will post the link as an update the day of the show.

Also, here’s another installment from the Golden Days soundtrack. The song is called “Secret.” I recorded it back in Brooklyn, NY using this super space-aged technology called a synthesizer.

Thank you,

Alex

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Haven’t Pledged towards the new album yet? Click here to Pledge for access to exclusive downloads and videos; including the song mentioned above (“Secret”) & others with more to come. It takes as little as $10 to pledge with various goodies available for higher pledge amounts.

Sorry you didn’t get an update last week. I couldn’t find the update tab on the Pledge Music site. I’m an idiot.

1) This week’s selection from the Golden Days soundtrack features the four original Damnwellian perpetrators in their Brooklyn best. Recorded in different parts of what we referred to as The Midget House, a slant-floor carriage house I shared with my good pal Ryan-Daniel Healy, this song came together quickly, the sparse rhythm guitar part allowing for plenty of David Chernis sauce, Ted Hudson rumble-bop, and Steven Terry mania. I haven’t written many songs like this. It’s certainly unique amid the tunes in the DWs catalog. For a long time I wanted us to be The Jesus Lizard. This was about as close as I could get. And it’s not very close at all. For your enjoyment, “10,000 Lbs.”

2) Also, we have made the first official music video for our new record, No One Listens to the Band Anymore. “Werewolves” was shot in several locations around the world and in outer space, using the most state-of-the-art technology available. It was very, very expensive to make, as you will see. Take a look. Then tell other people to take a look.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evy9Y7Bahfw

3) The record release show will be held at NYC’s Bowery Ballroom on Thursday, March 24. Get your tickets here:

http://www.ticketmaster.com/event/000045919D746636?artistid=855108&majorcatid=10001&minorcatid=60

PS: That March 1 release date is just for The Pledgers. Everyone else will have to wait until March 15. We wanted you guys to hear it first.

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Haven’t Pledged towards the new album yet? Click here to Pledge for access to exclusive downloads and videos; including the song mentioned above (“10,000 Lbs”) & others with more to come. It takes as little as $10 to pledge with various goodies available for higher pledge amounts.

If you pledge for the record via PledgeMusic (http://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/thedamnwells), you will be able to download the record and listen to it on March 1, 2011. If not, the regular street date is March 15, 2011. It’s kind of like a pre-order type thing. There are many different pledging options, so do check out the above link if you have not already. The cost to download the record is $10.

2) Also, we have made the first official music video for our new record. “Werewolves” was shot in several locations around the world and in outer space using the most state-of-the-art technology available. It was very, very expensive to make, as you will see.

3) If you would like to attend the record release show for No One Listens to the Band Anymore on Thursday, March 24, 2011, at the Bowery Ballroom in NYC, you may purchase tickets here:

http://www.ticketmaster.com/event/000045919D746636?artistid=855108&majorcatid=10001&minorcatid=60

The Damnwells / “Werewolves” (from No One Listens to the Band Anymore. Coming March 2011)

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Happy Holidays.

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Haven’t Pledged towards the new album yet? Click here to Pledge for access to exclusive downloads and videos; including the song mentioned above (“Come Me”) & others with more to come. It takes as little as $10 to pledge with various goodies available for higher pledge amounts.

Angela and I have just returned from the last solo show of the year. We had a great time on this leg. Courtney Kaiser (of Kaiser Cartel) opened each night. She is AMAZING. We sang a bunch of songs together. She and Angela put some brilliant three-part harmonies together. You can check us out on the radio this weekend. Here’s more info about that: http://www.thedamnwells.com/wamu/
It was great to see everyone on this run, hug the old fans, and meet the new ones. I’m working on my second glass of Two Buck Chuck right now and feeling very itchy from the 7 hr plane ride from DC, but I can’t complain.

There are lost of things to tell you. Let me see if I can get it all out in a semi-coherent way.

1) The record is done. Like done done. I’m watching the little blue bar as the mastered version from Dave McNair (the mastering guru) downloads to my personal computer machine situation.

2) The record is coming out March 1, 2011. It will be called “No One Listens to the Band Anymore.” It will feature 12 new and never-before heard Damnwells songs. The band will tour in support of this new record throughout 2011.

3) Pledge Music started a record label and agreed to put out our record. Click here for more on that: http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/PledgeMusic-Recordings-Signs-The-Damnwells-to-New-Type-of-Record-Deal-1364826.htm

4) I just found out that John Oates (of Hall & Oates) is a Damnwells fan.

5) The first installment of the Golden Days soundtrack is here! On this recording is featured the brilliant back-beat thunderclapage of Steven Terry, the incomparable silk riffage of David Chernis, the bopping brutality of Ted Theodore Hudson, and me. This was recorded entirely live.

6) When aliens die, do they go to heaven?

7) I’m itchy.

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Haven’t Pledged towards the new album yet? Click here to Pledge for access to exclusive downloads and videos; including the song mentioned above (“Ragged Reprise”) & others with more to come. It takes as little as $10 to pledge with various goodies available for higher pledge amounts.

Help us make records and save lives, for real.

Friends,

First, thanks to all of you who have downloaded and continue to download our record, One Last Century. It’s been a great experience for us to be able to connect directly with our fans, as well as make some new ones. Thank you all for your continued support. Consider One Last Century as our gift to you, though really it’s just payback for all the great support you’ve given us over the years.

As we embark on a new recording project, we need to ask for your help. Bands rely on their fans. You’re the people who come to the shows, buy us drinks, sing along, and make us feel pretty. The Damnwells need to take that one step further. Don’t worry; you can keep your clothes on (for now, anyway). What we need is your help in making our next record. We’ve recently partnered up with Pledge Music, an organization that helps independent bands raise the money necessary to make records. What’s so great about Pledge is that not only do they help independent bands get their records made, they also donate 10% of the money tallied to charity.

Here’s how it works. By pledging your donation here (http://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/90), you will not only be able to directly assist in making this new record, you will also have access to EXCLUSIVE Damnwells b-sides, video posts, blogs, photos, not to mention helping fight against AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. For this project, we’ve decided to offer 10% to The Global Fund, a humanitarian organization committed to providing much-needed resources for the prevention and treatment of these devastating diseases. Oh, and you also get to download the record once it’s done.

But wait! That’s not all! (cue Vanna White.)

Check out the “Exclusives” section on our home page for, well, exclusive opportunities. Get your name in the credits. Come hang out for a rehearsal. Have us come play your house. Go nuts!

For now, head to the site and enjoy a free download, a little taste of what you’ll have access to when you pledge. The song is called “Death Defier,” and I suppose it embodies some of what we’re talking about here. (Click on the “download” button at the bottom of the page to get it.)

Help us continue to make music and maybe, possibly, really change some lives.

Fans, this one’s for you.

Love, as always,
The Damnwells

http://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/90

This is what Michael Jackson meant to me.

Some years later I was performing on Broadway as Gavroche in Les Misérables. My parents had filed for divorce, and though I got to walk out on stage ever other night and perform for thousands of people, I was devastatingly lonely. I don’t remember the year, but I do remember it was winter. I walked into the Broadway Theatre, rested my soaked gloves on the steam radiator to dry, punched in my timecard, and read a note on the announcement board that electrified my blood. “Michael Jackson is in the audience tonight.” Sadly, I wasn’t performing that night (child labor laws required that two boys alternated performances, and I had just performed the night before). During the show I anxiously paced the dressing room with one of the little girls who played Young Cosette. Together we devised a plan to meet Michael Jackson. Before intermission we would go out into the audience and stake out a place next to his seat. We would get his autograph, maybe a picture. Naturally, this was everyone else’s plan as well. At intermission the lobby quickly turned into a melee of sight seekers, each of them armed with sharpened elbows and flashbulb cameras. We couldn’t even get into the seating area. Large men in black suits with opaque sunglasses began clearing a path from the west lobby doors, pushing the throngs of people back toward the wall. Apparently, Michael Jackson had to go to the bathroom and couldn’t get through the crowd. Young Cosette and I waited on the balcony stairs (we had negotiated the spot with a security guard who worked for the theater). When the gilded lobby doors opened, their gold-trimmed handles shining, I saw him amid the blinding barrage of flashes and the cacophony of screams and cries. His jacket was red leather, his hair greased and curled. He kept his face hidden behind white gloves as he was whisked away into the night by his imposing guards. (For safety reasons—his own and the audience—he could not have possibly stayed for the rest of the show). I only saw him for that one moment, an instant really, like a mirage, but it has stayed with me—a shadow on the far side of a dream. I walked back to my dressing room, my face sore from smiling, and put one soggy winter glove on my hand and tired again to move my body like I was walking on the moon.

Michael Jackson was the ambassador of my youth. I grew up with his songs in my head. His was a constant presence, pervading all aspects of life. His voice was wickedly smooth, as if cut from gypsum alabaster, and it carved out new lines in the realm of my creativity. Simply, he was electricity, barely contained in a flimsy human sheathe. He made me smile that night without even having to say a word.

This is what Michael Jackson meant to me.

Merchandise! Merchandise! Now that you’ve downloaded The Damnwells’ new record One Last Century for free, go buy a f-ing t-shirt! No, for real, check out the new Damnwells merch store. We’ve got some new t-shirts and, for those of you who would like a physical copy of the new record, we’ve got that, too. And they’re really nice, with liner notes and pictures and art. Limited edition! We only printed about 2,000. You can also get the record from select independent music stores that are part of the Coalition of Independent Music Stores fraternity, aka CIMS. Check to see if there’s a CIMS record store near you.

Also, Alex Dezen now has a twitter feed you can follow at twitter.com now, which is a little weird.

There are still tickets available for some of our summer shows, but act fast. Most of these shows will sell out and there are no future tours in the works as of yet.

Thedamnwells.com
Myspace.com/thedamnwells
Facebook.com/pages/The-Damnwells/53252613436

The show at the Hotel Café was really great. Fantastic lineup. Meghan Toohey played bass and sang some incredible backups. She’s just a brilliant player. I’ve known her for years. Great songwriter as well. She and Jay (who joined on guitar for these shows) were in a great band together some years back. The So and Sos. That’s what they were called. She’s come to LA via Boston, like the rest of us, tumbling unhinged into Southern California for a better look back at the East. She and Angela sang some incredible harmonies. I felt like we were playing these songs the way they were supposed to be played, with that oft cast spell of nuance finally giving up the spook. David Lamoureux played piano and keys, whirling those things around those songs in a way that made me kick myself for not having him play on this record. I met him a while back when we were on tour with Augustana, however many millions of years ago that was. The man is a genius. Played his way out of the womb. Transcendent, sidereal, adjective, adjective. Mark Stepro on the drums. A beast. Played amazing. Sang amazing. I love that guy. Great player. Stupendous. Of course, Jay was the star of the show. Every sound he makes is the perfect one.

Next: Austin for South by Southwest. Jeremy Gomez on Bass. Matt Hammon on drums. Of course, I’ve played with Matt before. He’s my brother-in-law, though really you could just drop the secondary distinction. The guy’s been my brother for fifteen years. Jeremy Gomez was playing on my stereo when I was in high school. Mineral was the band. End Serenading was the record. I used to listen to it with my ear to the speaker, turn it off and try to make those songs come out of my guitar. I hope there’s a little Mineral still lingering in my songs.

We played two shows in one day. Threadgills in the afternoon for the Blurt, September Gurl , Outlandos Music, Something or Other party. That was great. Played outside with my sunglasses on. Patrice Fehlen, the darling publicist who runs September Gurl, got us on the bill. She was the first person to lend a hand when I came crawling back to New York after college, guitar fused to my bones and a million songs going in my brain. This great band called KaiserCartel played before us. They’re just a two-piece, drums and guitar, but I swear they sounded like the Beach Boys. From Brooklyn, too. There’s still something in that water, I guess.

Vintage Lounge off 6th Street that night. We were supposed to go on at midnight. The band before us hadn’t even started playing by the time we arrived at 11:45. Luckily(?) the drummer got sick and had to run off the stage after their second song, so we wound up going on pretty much right on time! There were quite a few Damnwells fans there. They stayed well into the whiskey morning, the tired bustle of South by Southwest trailing past outside the big store front windows, stumbling back to their hotels or someone else’s. We just kept on playing until it was all shut down. I took a few requests. Played “Assholes” and “Texas” for the assholes in Texas. (Just kidding.)

We got to hang out a little bit on Thursday, eat some bbq at Stubbs, wash ourselves in the masses. Got to see Mark Olson and Gary Louris at the New West showcase. Those voices. Amazing. Like two rusty halves of a locket that together, somehow, make a diamond. Tim Easton played as well. I always seem to run into that guy at every major juncture in my life. He came to our show the day before at Threadgills. What a songwriter. Pulled LA’s beating heart out of its chest and strung it up on a guitar. The man has lived what he sings. You can see it in his hands, on his face.

We wandered around for the rest of the night, drifting back and forth along 6th with the fantastic melee, music churning above and below like an earthquake in a hurricane. I got to see some old friends, some great friends, drink beers and talk about the old days like veterans from a forgotten war.

I love what I do.

Back to Iowa now to sleep and dream about the West.

See you in New York. April 4. Mercury Lounge.