Ye Old

News

June 23^rd, 1998

If you missed the live broadcast of the Sucker! NetTV interview with Shannon, or just want to watch it again, now's your chance ...

Get the player if you need it:

Somehow it slipped through the cracks and I never officially announced the picture disc, The Missing Letter Is You, released this past fall on Thick Records. Check out their cool website, too.

Tour dates are available at Billions. Also, the new release, Sorry In Pig Minor, is slated for 3/10. For those of you who won't have the opportunity to purchase a copy at a show, or can't wait that long, and/or can't find it at your local record store, you can order it from CDNow.

Got an email the other day from Cows drummer Freddy Votel. My apologies to everyone for waiting ten days to publish the news, but I've been busy with work, my new Bubba's Monkey Calendar for Portland (Oregon), going to shows (still recuperating from one of the best Jesus Lizard shows ever), performing biological functions, etc. Anyways, instead of paraphrasing, I thought it would be more interesting to quote the entire message, only slightly edited to protect the innocent ...

hello mr. kenric, freddy cow here, just wanted to drop you an inquiry thanking you for existing and caring enough to give us our own website on the ever growing "net". i thought i'd give you a brief update if'n you care to incorporate it into your page, that would be most righteous of you. first of all, our newest waxing is nearing completion as we speak, the recording, mixing et.al. is all done. We did it with Buzz along with the engineering wizardry of one Mr. Randy Hawkins (he's our "right arm" when we are on the road - doing sound, talking care of business and whatnot, perhaps you've already chatted him up in the past over a jagermeister or two) and also Dave gardener (former head of amrep's studio). The artwork is pretty much all that is left, and that rather bold feat is being manhandled by Paul Metzger who aside from being a rather minty artist is also quite an impressive guitar player in his own right (the last band i was in for 8+ years was with him), in fact we "rented" a few of his guitars to use on the record which worked out real sweetlike for mr.Thor. (you might have seen Paul's artwork on the 10" ltd. edition picture disc we put out this fall on thick records- a label out of chicago). The new record is due out somewhere 'round the neighborhood of March 15th, give or take a few weeks. We will be touring starting the very end of March through the first week of May as it stands right now, so feel free to spread the word, i think that with the current climate of music we're gonna need all the word of mouth we can get. I'll try to keep you posted as time draws nearer. i guess that's about it for now, shannon's still in new york, and kevin is moving there also within the next month with his lovely wife, and thor and i still wish to brave the tundra that is the twin cities. we will begin rehearsing sometime in march for the upcoming tour............. if i think of anything else i'll type it up and send it your way. Thanks again for promoting our band on this internet device thingee. transmission over and onward - tues. the 20th of January 1998ad. - freddy v.

Yes, the rumors you've heard are true.

Shannon is indeed moving to New York City.

Now, before you have a heart attack, the word (from several sources) is that the band will still be going strong. The official word from AmRep is that they will hit AmRep Studios with Buzz in October, with the new album probably arriving in the springtime. They will still be touring and everything, though my guess is it won't be as frequent, but I hope I'm wrong about that.

It's taken me six long months to get settled in my new environment here in Portland, Oregon. Things are going just swell. Life couldn't be any better, and here I have some Cows news for you finally ...

No tours at the moment, just a few shows in Minneapolis. If you're lucky enough to be in the area, check out the Billions site for info (see below). Right now, they're concentrating on writing new songs. Biggest development is that they're planning to hit the studio with Melvin's King Buzzo in September. Definitely something to look forward to. Meanwhile, here's some news from Brent at AmRep:

MTV's Indie Outing show will be airing the Amphetamine Reptile profile. Join our CEO Dr. Sphincter as he takes you on a hilarious guide of the Amphetamine Reptile Industries Compound. Meet our highly trained staff, see snips of world class videos from Cows, Melvins, Supernova, Unsane and others plus you'll get a quick peek into AmRep Studios where the magic happens every day. Set your VCR: Monday, August 4th : 12:30pm and then again at 8:30pm (Eastcoast/Pacific time) on MTV.

Friday, Feb. 28th Cows & Unsane (there's a brotherhood being formed here..yikes!) play First Ave. here in Mpls.. as part of this Un-Vailed Snowboard event. Also, a few weeks back Cows calmly slid onto stage during a "garage sale" @ First Ave. under the name Bitches With Whips to play an acoustic set (?!?!) Fuckin' amazing to hear takes on "Sticky & Sweet" and the goofy "I Love You" pulled out by Kevin playing an old acoustic guitar as a bass & Thor manglin' away on a hollow body electric. Shannon could be up for Tony Bennett lounge acts but there's still plenty of piss fire in him! Fun, yes but have no fear...they ain't going hippy on us!!

Coming up within the next week, I should have enough energy to finally publish some of these letters I've been getting. Some great stories about live Cows shows, and more photos, too. My apologies to you folks who've sent me stuff that I haven't put up yet. It sucks when you're working 40+ hours a week and all and then the weekend comes and it's summertime and, well, you know the story. Shit, you're probably just as busy and not even reading this! Hah hah. See you soon.

Well, I did not think I would have any news this month, having just finished moving (seven days on the road in a Ryder truck with four cats in the cab), and unpacking and getting everything arranged. But hey, this thing (the Cows page) is starting to feed itself!

Brent at AmRep provides us with a review of some recent Cows shows and some info on a new song:

Cows jumped up during the AmRep X-Mas party (12/20 @ Turf Club in St. Paul) after Unsane played and tore into Hittin' The Wall, 4 Things, and an extended 39 Lashes with Shannon whipping some poor sucker in the crowd! Amazing considering they played on the Unsane's gear!

The show in the main room was awesome! They broke out a new song where Shannon does some crazy Moog keyboard shit...heavy! New song called Death In The Tall Weeds was played on Spin Radio Network 11/18.

Cows are a brewin new shit & it rocks!

And in NYC, my pal Tooney Reed sends us a vidcap from the Larry Sanders show on HBO, where one of the actors, Wallace Langham, who plays the character Phil, is wearing a Cows t-shirt:

I thought that was pretty amazing. I'm going to try to find out if it was Wallace's shirt or if the people in wardrobe gave it to him to wear or what. My guess is it was his shirt, but the bottom line is, a Cows t-shirt was on a major premium cable service. Are we living in the Twilight Zone or what?

Last, but by no means least, there appears to be a tour a-brewin', starting in March. At the time of this writing, all of the dates are within the Central time zone, except for Indianapolis. The confirmed dates are the ones where they will be sharing the stage with Skeleton Key. Complete up-to-date details are available from Billions Online.

Not much in the way of news this month, partly because the Cows have been mostly taking a break for a while, but also because I've been too busy to find out new stuff, partly due to the X-mas season, but mostly due to my upcoming Big Move from NYC to Portland, Oregon (only a mere nine days away now). I imagine it will be at least another month before I have anything new for ya, but that should coincide nicely with the shows they have coming up in late January.

However, I did get an email message from Tim Mac recently, who provided details on some of the Cows recordings he helped to create. One of the most interesting bits o' info was his revelation that Peacetika was originally slated to have a total of 15 songs, but the final release was trimmed down to just eight. Two of the other seven were released as a 7" by Insipid, though they were different versions on that single. (I'm waiting to hear from Tim about what happened to the other five songs, especially the possibility that they might someday be released as an E.P.).

Also of note was the fact that the song "Four Things" (on that Pandemonium split 7" with Headcleaner) "has the distinction of being the last recording involving Norm on drums". (I'm also waiting to find out if the version on Whorn was different than the one on the single.)

Even more interesting than those little tidbits is Tim's own website. He has recorded many a Cows song, and is responsible for making Whorn, as he said himself, "the most honestly representative album they've ever made". Read "The Story" to find out more insider information about the Cows as well as tons of other bands.

Them Cows just finished up their tour with Tool yesterday. Should be heading back home, I guess. I'll find out for sure next week. Give 'em some time to relax before I bug 'em again. Looks like the only thing they have planned for sure at the moment is a show in December at First Avenue (Mpls). I'll have new stuff up here in a week or so. Talk about the tour and life in general.

When I last spoke with Shannon, he mentioned that he did not have a computer, so he had no idea what these web pages are all about. Well, I recently got a color printer (the Epson Stylus Color 500 - I highly recommend it), so a couple of weeks ago I sent him a complete printout of this site. I thought it was important that he and the band know … what's it all about.

So I just spoke with Shannon again today, and the first thing he said was that he was surprised to see how much stuff about them was out there on the Internet. I was glad to hear that, because to me it meant that I had succeeded in demonstrating some of the differences in publishing on the Internet versus other medias (I also sent him a couple of the last remaining issues of the old printed version of Skin Flute Music Magazine ... btw, if you're wondering, I don't plan to make any more copies any time soon, but I do plan to transcribe a lot of the articles and stuff to this web site ... eventually). The most significant advantages I think he realized is how much information is available, and how easy it is to retrieve it. Of course, one of the drawbacks is that you can't access it without a computer, but eventually that will be less of a problem as more people get computers, even if it's just one of those Intenet boxes, which I imagine will soon become a common addition to home entertainment systems, and eventually being built right into televisions sets.

Anyhoo, Shannon also said they are leaving for another tour in nine days. They're touring with Tool. I find that kind of strange, personally … even weirder than the deal with Primus, but … oh well … ya gotta go with the flow I guess. I asked what he thought about playing with Tool, and he said he really didn't know much about them, except for seeing their videos.

The tour only covers the USA's west coast and midwest, Texas, and New Orleans, and lasts until mid-November. You can get the specific dates from the Billions link below.

Also, regarding the last report that they were working on an album, he said that they were only working on a few songs. They had received some time in a nice studio (the best they've ever been in, he said) in exchange for contributing to a recent benefit album. I don't remember for sure, but I think he was referring to the Radio K deal, benefitting the Kristen Pfaff Memorial Scholarship Fund (see the Discography for more details on that). Of course, the songs they worked on in that studio will probably end up on their next record, but that will have to wait until next year, I imagine.