DragKing's second full length release Indie Authenticity Crisis is in limbo. Those of you who check in here from time to time may have noticed that the release date keeps on getting pushed back. It now turns out that there are some logistical problems at the Won't Go Flat headquarters and they're not sure when it will now be released. Hopefully in the fall to take advantage of all the students returning to the college radio stations hungry for new and exciting sounds. This is one disadvantage of being on a small indie label. Sometimes crazy stuff happens. While the major labels rip off artists left and right they at least usually get their product out to the marketplace in a timely manner. Won't Go Flat is still committed to putting out Indie Authenticity Crisis and DragKing is still happy to be associated with such a nifty up and coming Chicago label. We're just chalking it up as another day in the life of a small independent band.

In the meantime DragKing is forging ahead. We're busy at work on several projects. The main one being the building of our new studio. DogPatch will live again! Hopefully we'll be done by the end of the month and we'll start some serious recording projects. DragKing has already almost finished an entire new project. At the moment we're calling it Deconstruction Loop. It's possible that we'll have it all done and mixed down before Indie Authenticity Crisis comes out, and then release it on our own label DogPatch. Our plans are to get DogPatch going as a more serious label. We've got several projects in the works with several different bands as well as new DragKing material. DogPatch is planning on releasing a CD by the SF offshoot of DragKing called Kill. We've also talked to our friends The Belgian Waffle Jazz Posse about recording and releasing something by them as well. Look to this space for more info as we get the studio up and running.

so friends... have you ever heard of Amon Duul?

Crazy band from Berlin. Yeah, "Kraut Rock" is all the rage now it seems. Everyone's heard of Can, Kraftwerk, and Faust. But this band was different.

Amon Duul was more than just a band. They/it was/were two bands! Amon Duul was a commune in the late 60's. A bunch of long hair, pot smoking freaks who lived in Berlin. They also played music. One bunch of them could play their instruments. They played slick, professionally played early "prog rock". Long pretty, complex songs about fairies and knights in shining armor. in other words they pretty much sucked. Then there was the other Amon Duul. They were the freaks of the commune. The fuck ups. Sister band to the Velvets and the Godz. Imagine Sister Ray played by the Shaggs with about 4 more drummers and you've got the other Amon Duul. Also throw in a primitive approach to mixing that sounds like a cromag Adrian Sherwood and you've got some amazing shit. The problem was that the record buying public didn't know what they were getting. Records by both bands were released under the name of Amon Duul. If you bought one you didn't know if you were going to get songs about gettin groovy over in the meadow, or the fucked up primordial sludge.

Why bring up this strange precident? Only to prove that everything has been done before of course! and set you up for the...

New DragKing!

Better than ever Comrades! This is the DragKing you've been waiting for! Comin' at cha with new members. New ideas!

DragKing is going in a direction right now much like Amon Duul. We've become in some ways like two different bands, each representing a different approach to music, two sides of one debate. One band is concentrating on the live approach to music. This DragKing includes Sluggo on guitar and vocals, Ted E. Gray on bass, Mr. Pibb on Moog, Mark Wardo on drums, and Nobu on keyboards. What does this DragKing sound like? imagine early Genesis/King Crimson mixed with the feel of the Jazz Monster era of DragKing. This DragKing will soon be setting up live performances around the Midwest.

Then, just like Amon Duul, there's the other DragKing. This DragKing is digital. The brainchild of Stel, this is the computer/future side of DK. DragKing has achieved the technical means to turn a PowerMac computer into a 16-track digital studio. Deck II. Toast. CD-Burners... the revolution will be digitized! Suddenly every noise is a sample that can be looped and turned into a song. With just a few point and clicks a CD can be made that can be turned into an LP or more CDs with no effort. This is the other DragKing. Stel is the main mother here. With Mr. Pibb and DJ Gray supplying the beats. What does this DragKing sound like? More like some of the older DragKing songs such as King Richie I and Slag. Samples and loops. Noise-hop.

DragKing's latest record Indie Authenticity Crisis will be released in 1998 on the Chicago label Won't Go Flat Records. Won't Go Flat has been putting out records by mainly Chicago artists for several years. Other artists on the label include Grimble Grumble, The Goblins, Toulouse, and Francis Gumm. DragKing is excited about being part of the Won't Go Flat roster of stars! Indie Authenticity Crisis will be released on both vinyl and CD. We've sent off the masters and all the artwork. Everything is ready to go. We've gotten back the test pressings of the LP and they sound fantastic. Look for copies to appear in your local underground/indie rock store in the near future.

In conjunction with the release of Indie Authenticity Crisis, DragKing will be hosting a record release extravaganza in Chicago. It will be an affair that shouldn't be missed. Look for information and updates on this web site.

Alex, Stel, Sluggo, and Ted at Mama Stel's.

Indie Authenticity Crisis!

The working title for the new Dragking CD is "Indie Authenticity Crisis". The new CD comments on the current situation in the independent post-punk scene where monetary success (and/or critical acclaim) is both the implicit goal and the signifier of a surrender of legitimacy. The "crisis" is one where the respect of peers is dependent on the one hand on "staying true to the scene" and passing up lucrative opportunities, while on the other hand those who do "make it big" and hence are no longer so dependent on the respect of their peers(or perhaps they are simply adjusting to a new peer group?) often garner a more significant form of respect. As Indie Rock is co-opted by the big money vultures, the process of "selling out", becomes the process of buying in. As bands like the Royal Trux begin to appear in Calvin Klein commercials(see below) the line between the hipster drop-out and the celebrity model is smudged. The music of the Royal Trux was originally the antithesis of capitalist success(see "Spike Cyclone" or the Twin Infinities Lp). Now they churn out insipid blues rock. Destroy All Music!

and now a word from A.P. Harris

Sluggo, I like that you've done all this commentary. One thing you didn't mention about the "working title" is the fact that I formulated it in my deep belief that Indie Rock is in a state of Crisis in the sense that it has inherent contradictions. You do point this out, though, in your own way. For me the contradiction is between (a) Indie _Rockers_ are actually entertainers, therefore they want attention, air play, renumeration, and, basically, audience. As such they are subject to the insidious workings of the "Culture Industry" with it's manifold and well-documented evils. (b) On the other hand, _Indie_ Rockers proclaim independence from the Culture Industry. This is where authenticity comes in. For an Indie rocker, authenticity is (partly) measured by her or his autonomy from the culture industry.

If there's a didactic reason for the name, I'm try to point out to Indie rockers or fans that this crisis does exist, and that they will be stuck in a state of contradiction unless they take over the "means of production" of culture itself. Indie rock's attitude is to carve out a niche for itself and perch there happily forever. But this is contradictory, because the form of expression is fundamentally situated in the Culture Industry. Hence, Indie Rock is stuck as a sort of farm system for the Culture Industry. The biggest deniers of this situation are actually the indie labels more than the bands, I think.

By no means should I be taken as saying Indie Rock is bad, it has to change, or should go away. Not at all. Most creative music is not coming out of the big 3 labels, just like the fact that creative movies are not coming out of hollywood. Hell, look at the theater industry, where you have a slew of starved "indie" theaters, and then on the other hand, Broadway puts on a musical version of "Big". The same situation is happening everywhere.

New Single out now on Destroy All Music
DragKing has a new single out now on the Destroy All Music label. The Destroy Amerikkka single was recorded shortly before the fire at DogPatch, and the songs on this single are among the last songs ever recorded there. Destroy All Music is a noise oriented, low-fi label based in Glasgow, Scotland and York, PA. This is the first DragKing single with Alex Martin on drums and percussion. Look for it at your local record store now!

STUDENT RADIO STATION FORCED TO DROP GAY SONGS
Columbia, S.C. -- A dispute over the broadcast of songs with explicit gay lyrics resulted in the shutdown of a student run radio station at the University of South Carolina (USC) and the appoinment of a new staff before its return to the air.
USC director of student media Chris Carroll said he monitored the station's programming for two weeks during which time he heard a number of songs that were indecent and possibly legally obscene.
Among the songs was one called "Homo Christmas" by a band called Screetching Weasel that included references to candy canes and anal penetration.
Former music director Eric Greenwood told Southern Voice that Carroll was offended by gay-oriented lyrics and had been building a file against the station for some time.
"We played Pansy Division, Drag King, and [gay] bands on the Out Punk label as well as lesbian artists like Team Dresch, Fifth Column, and Phranc," he said.
Carroll denied that the gay songs were singled out for objection. He said it was "purely a coincidence" that the questionable songs were about homosexuals.

Man I hate it when all these alterna-rockers keep swiping our name. Since we put out our first record five years ago all these bands have come out using the word "Drag". There was even an article about it(which thankfully didn't mention DragKing) in the NewCity, a local free paper. It really pisses me off when some lame band like National Drag is more widely known than the band they stole their name from.

But then "Drag King" was the name of an album by the seminal British Queercore band Sister George before it was the name of a band from Chicago. I have that record at home and it fucking rocks! That record was reissued a few years ago by OutPunk Records, which is now no longer, however, their back catalogue is still availablehere.

Or you can find out more about Queer Punk here. Or even better check out this site here for a great overview of the Queercore scene and some great bands(like Sister George, Pansy Division, Tribe 8, God Is My Co-Pilot, Fifth Column, Team Dresch, Mukilteo Fairies, Tiger Trap, Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, Heavens to Betsy, Sleater-Kinney, Cub, Kicking Giant, Phranc, The Third Sex, Sta-Prest, & Skunk Anansie). I strongly encourage anyone who digs DragKing's music to check out Queercore(as a genre) and Sister George(in particular).

Or check in with the Queer Corps here. Or check out the Need, a great band from Olympia, here.

Well, my rant is digressing a bit here. I just wanted to explain why DragKing is not at all like all the "drag" alternative bands out there. We are the originators, not the imitators, as Lee "Scratch" Perry might say. The name DragKing is a tribute to drag racing(see our song "Combustion"), Drag Queens and Transgendered Activists in general(see our song "Are You A Woman"), and of course our favorite recreational drug(see the cover of "Backburner"). The name DragKing is not an attempt to jump on any band wagon or trend.

Sincerely,

your ole pal

Sluggo

p.s. Speaking of Drag Racing,
check out the following from pp. 35 of _Please Kill Me_ (by Legs McNeil)

Wayne Kramer:

"We had existed in a couple of forms before we were known as the MC5. Me and Fred Smith had been in rival neighborhood bands in Lincoln Park, a Detroit Suburb. Fred's band had been called the Vibratones and mine was the Bounty Hunters, named after Conrad Coletta's dragster of the same name.

"We all shared a love of hot rods and big assed engines. I even took a job at the drag strip selling ice cream-just so I could be there every week. Drag racing was in our blood. I mean, it was loud and fast, just like the music."

DragKing last played at the Monk Parakeet art opening on Dec. 13th, 1997. It was an amazing groundbreaking performance for DragKing, unlike any of their previous shows. DragKing collaborated with former CDC member Lee Pembleton and moved in a more noise direction while playing a set that stretched over two hours!

DragKing will next play at their record release show sometime early in '98

Our Brother Grapefruit, formerly known as Barrett Heaton, has metamorphasized into DJ Chubby Flea. Mr. Heaton was DragKing's original guitarist. He plays on "Backburner" and "Jazz Monster". Now he resides in Japan. DragKing participated in a prisoner exchange program with the Land of The Rising Sun: we got Nobuyoshi Suto, they got DJ Chubby Flea.

DJ Chubby Flea is a disc jockey only in so much as he mixes. The thing is, he mixes people too. The club or gallery space is the site. Here he orchestrates a multimedia presentation: ambient and techno music, video, photography, abstract sounds theory and other bits of text are all spliced together. He invites local artists to work with him as performers, DJs, video artists, musicians. As an audience member you will be placed into contact with the work of numerous musicians, photographers, and video artists works. You will meet the DJs, the artists, their friends, and other audience members. And so, you too are mixed. The mix flows from the physicality of the club space into the experience of the mind; perception of the work requires that connections between the disparate elements be made. These connections often seem loose, arbitrary, and strange; such juxtapostions not usually experienced in such a tongue-in-cheek fashion, so one may have various reactions ranging from being amused to being uncomfortable, from feeling enlightened to feeling confused. Just as people enter the space of the club or gallery from the contexts of their lives, the sounds and visual images from random moments of life are selected and presented by the artists.

DJ Chubby Flea wants to identify the artist, the DJ, and the audience with ART. At times the music may be brought down so low that any sound caused by audience member becomes a part of the greater sound performance. Likewise audience members are caught like moving screens in the various slide and video projection. The images appear on their chests faces and backs, and their silhouettes pass crisply as shadows in the projected imagery. DJ Chubby Flea wants his artists and audience alike to be transformed through contact with such a media and social sculpture, to be more aware of the details of everyday sound and visual imagery, not only as we perceive what is around us but also as we realize that we are being perceived by the others around us. He asks, "How is it that anyone can be seen as a creative and expressive individuals in this consumeristic and post-industrial life?" He answers, "through our posture, our dress, our behavior, through our selection of entertainment, and through our work and our studies."

DJ Chubby Flea thinks that any DJ is making a audio collage from other recording artists' works. He expands on this concept, wanting to bring in a wider range of physical, audial, and personal elements, and to allow them to interact, and thus create multudinous and simultaneous works of art. He facilitates a collage in the gallery or club space and allows you to become a part of this collage, to have this collage internalized through your percepion and thought.

He invites you, your friends, and your family to enjoy and participate in his next event in a small space known as Club Zonne in Motoko 1 in Kobe on a Sunday afternoon in May. A fragmented presentation of ambient and techno music, video, sound, performance, slide projection, and video games. A DogPatch and QK Records sampler. Artists include Gary Ulrich, Guy Overfelt, VINYWORKS, Eijin, DJ Yuki, Satanicpornocultshop, and DJ Chubby Flea himself. Sunday May 17, 3 to 6 PM, CLUB ZONNE, Motoko 1, near JR Motomachi, Kobe.

back to main DragKing page.