7" OF THE MONTH CLUB - A NOTE FROM JACK

first off, I want to thank everyone for the overwhelmingly amazing reaction to our "7-inch of the month club". when this idea came up, there were so many questions... so much goes into a project like this, and we all pushed so hard to make this happen. we are so proud to have the kind of fans that get behind something like this. seriously, steel train fans are people I am extremely proud to know. you guys continuously inspire us to push further and further with new artistic endeavors.

so.... the first round of "7-inch of the month" subscribers has SOLD OUT!! really excited for everyone who got in early!! and for everyone else... there are 150 subscriptions left! after these go, there will be NO more orders/subscriptions accepted. one of the most important elements of this project is to keep it tiny. these 7 inches will never be re-produced. there are many things we do that are meant to reach a large audience... this is not one of them.

when I was 14 years old, growing up in the new jersey scene, labels and bands would do vinyl clubs to release rare music and print it in a limited edition fashion. one of my favorite parts of independent bands and labels is the ability to do things exactly like this. a year ago when we got out of our deal with drive thru records, we made a promise to ourselves to do all of the things we always dreamed of doing as young kids first starting bands... all the things that had become impossible for us to do when we were on a label. it started this year when we decided to self release our record, from there we made 'terrible thrills vol. 1' happen (our entire record covered by all female artists), and now, the 7-inch of the month club. the 7-inch club is particularly close to us because it's a tradition that we grew up with and have always wanted to carry the torch. we are taking so much care to make sure these vinyl turn out to be as different and exciting as possible. I'm excited to announce that the first 7-inch will be ....(drum-roll please) side A) shapshifter side B) call it off. shapeshifter is the only song that we recorded and mixed as part of our latest fill length that didn't actually end up on the record. it was in fact the first song we recorded for the record. technically it's a b side, but in a way it feels more like a missing track since the production feels just like the record it was recorded for. this is probably the most aggressive song we recorded for the full length, and I'm just thrilled to finally get it out there. as for the B side of 7-inch # 1..... you all know how we feel about tegan and sara, and in the past few months we've been covering 'call it off' at some of the in store performances we've been doing. since then we've had a ton of requests to record our version of the song.... so there ya go. 7-inch #1 revealed. oh yeah, I also want to mention that I've seen the exclusive art that alia shawkat has done for these 7-inches and it's absolutely beautiful. with the immediacy of everything these days, it's so fantastic to do a project like this that involves so much anticipation. ... ok - there it all is, don't be left out.. you can subscribe here. 

lastly, i want to thank everyone for an incredible fall tour. we've met so many fascinating people on the road in the past few months.... and.. I'll leave it at that, being that I'll probably pontificate on this matter next week when the tour actually ends. ok- I'm in Florida. that's all. 

jack