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What’s that smell? *Sniff* What’s that? Mothballs? Is grampy coming out of retirement?

It took a while to find the time and skills to recover our site content from the script kiddies’ assault that took it down for a long while, but here it is… again… and it’s called… a website. With new improved truly inscrutable passwords. And updates. Automatic ones.

Attempting to forget about their clichéd seasons of mid-careerism and child-rearing, the now officially old folks at Urban Myth are coming out of the closet with a boutique-ful of superb new releases and bonus-laden catalog. Even our first “best of” (by arrangement with Spain’s muy saliente You Are The Cosmos label.)

We admittedly slept on the first few years of the vinyl re-revolution, but we’re jumping on that bandwagon like irony on an sophomore’s reading list!

In any case, welcome back and stroll around the grounds &c. as we keep adding all that fresh new content.

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Corey Landis has just finished work on Therapy Dog, his fourth long-player for Urban Myth.

Nobody matches pathos, humor, intensity and despair with the loveliest, most melancholic melodies quite like Corey does, and these nine new tunes do not disappoint. Even in this cluttered, post-scarcity world, we think it’s a break-up album for the ages, and one that will warm the cockles of your dear, dark heart with its stunning bitterness and thrilling beauty. This will be UM’s second release on vinyl. (Should we even bother with those CD thingies? Do y’all even still buy those?)

Therapy Dog was written, arranged, recorded, mixed, produced, and — wait for it — performed in its entirety by Corey around his “adopted home town” L.A.

The track listing as we go to press*:

Side A:
Natural Disaster
Everybody’s Leaving Everyone
Therapy Dog
Wrong About Me

Side B:
After The Coffee
Airport
Poltergeist
Be Nice To Me
Honey, I’m Home

Physical release date and tasty digital morsels coming soon to teh internets near you.

 

*Not actually going to press in any sense of the word. Not even if you count WordPress. Which you shouldn’t.

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Oh happy day!

Lee Feldman has put the finishing touches on a new record entitled Album No. 4: Trying To Put the Things Together that Never Been Together Before.

HALO, an EP of album and non-album tracks to get your taste buds going hits stores TODAY!

Available from iTunes, Amazon, and the usual download suspects, as well as from Lee’s brand spanking new Bandcamp.

More info as we get it, but for now enjoy the trademark whimsy of Lee’s recording diary videos from his Kickstarter Page. (Lee’s Kickstarter posse raised over $15k to the making of his record!)

 

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The reviews of Dan Bryk’s Pop Psychology are trickling in, but they’re pretty enthusiastic thus far:
“A strong candidate for best album of the year. Dan Bryk’s new cd is a triumph of intelligence and wit, an oasis in a world full of idiots. [50 Best Albums of 2009]” –Lucid Culture
“…a Clipse for Burt Bacharach fans, peddling witty cynicism like crack. Pop Psychology adds up to an acerbic but ultimately forgiving snapshot of the mercurial musical world Bryk inhabits. [7.4/10]” –Pitchfork
“…a treasure that few will unearth, but one that will be held tight by all that take the time to listen. I know that sounds like hyperbole, and maybe it is, but there is something precious about how Bryk sees the world that has raised him up only to drag him down.” –Hero Hill
“…each clever turn of phrase, jangly guitar, layer of odd instrumentation, and overdubbed vocal is a revelation. And with every release he continues to upgrade, update, and redefine what is possible from the simple pop song.” –songs:Illinois
 
La lucha continua. 

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Some shows coming up this month…
Cambridge, MA – The Lilypad
Friday, October 2 — 10 pm
Brooklyn NY – Freddy’s Back Room
Sunday, October 4 — 8pm
East Village NYC – Banjo Jim’s
Friday, October 9 — 8 p.m

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WHY BE YOU WHEN YOU CAN BE . . . LEE FELDMAN?

Lee Feldman launches his “Be Lee Franchise” in a special

BE * LEE * FESTIVAL

With Amy Allison, Dan Bryk, Kevin Corrigan, Pete Galub, Greta Gertler, Henry Hample, Carol Lipnik, Chris Moore, Alon Nechushtan and more
SUNDAY, JULY 26th, 2009 at 6:30 p.m.
425 Lafayette Place, NYC
$12.00
Tickets: 212-967-7555 or www.joespub.com
After being Lee Feldman for 50 years, Lee is ready to let others join the “fun.” 
 
This Sunday, 17 artists step into Lee’s shoes for a night to play his songs and pay tribute to his unique brand of American songwriting.
“Lee Feldman uses a Tin Pan Alley bounce to make twisted or troubled situations sound like parlor songs.” – The New York Times
“Reviving a bit of Brill Building artistry, this New York piano man makes you think and swoon and hum all at once.” – Village Voice
 
“Lee Feldman plays the piano in just the dry, subtle, understated manner that his dry, subtle, understatedly hilarious songs call for.”  – Atlantic Monthly
In an identity-obsessed and money-driven world, songwriter Lee Feldman’s “Be Lee Franchise” hits a nerve and runs with it.  Lee invites you to cast off the stress of your own daily concerns and discard your fears of identity theft by becoming Lee Feldman.  
 
How can you do this?  Visit Lee’s website and Watch the Infomercial!  Then make a donation and you can actually become Lee.
 
You’ll get a nice certificate, a copy of Lee’s latest album I’ve Forgotten Everything and you will be encouraged to perform a song of Lee’s and post it online. It’s quick, it’s easy, and most important of all . . . it’s safe.
 
On Sunday July 26th, artists from New York and beyond will celebrate this revolutionary way to take an “identity vacation” by becoming Lee on stage at Joe’s Pub.  Since many of Lee’s songs can be classified as public acts of introspection, they will have plenty of material to work with, including tunes like “Lee Feldman” (which features Lee’s Social Security Number), “If I Were You” and “Mr. Feldman,” a fantasy as told by a nursing home resident.  (See the listing below for a complete roster of guest artists.)
 
For more than 25 years, people have been beguiled, amused, provoked, and moved by Lee Feldman’s songs, which he typically delivers himself from the piano bench.  His sincere and unadorned vocal style has a great foil in his expressive, sometimes-meaty, sometimes-delicate playing.  He rolls songs out, as one friend put it, like a “demented jingle mill,” capturing the details of life and the dilemmas of existence in 3-minute songs that can include stride piano, waltzes, pop, rock, jazz and free improvisation. 
 
With influences including Bartok and the Beatles, Miles, Monk and Morton Feldman (not related), Lee himself has inspired many artists.  The BE * LEE * FESTIVAL presents some of these amazing musicians who love Lee and his work; they are all listed below.  
 
A lifelong New Yorker, Lee has lived in Brooklyn for the past 22 years, and has released three albums:  Living It All Wrong (Pure/Mercury); The Man in a Jupiter Hat (Mercury/Bonafide); and I’ve Forgotten Everything (Urban Myth), as well as a 30-minute animated musical STARBOY.  
 
A short documentary about Lee titled “Lee Feldman, Lee Feldman” can be viewed at Vimeo. Academy Award nominated director Bennett Miller (“Capote”) says, “If you like Lee Feldman, you’ll love ‘Lee Feldman, Lee Feldman’.”
 
Artists performing at the Be Lee Festival: 
 
Jim Allen, Amy Allison, Alice Bierhorst, Dan Bryk, Peter Cherches, Kevin Corrigan, Dennis Cronin, David Feldman, Lee Feldman, Pete Galub, Greta Gertler, Henry Hample, Carol Lipnik, Chris Moore, Alon Nechushtan, Steve Swartz, Bob Windbiel. 
 

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Dan Bryk‘s long-delayed, tortured-epic-as-pop-record Pop Psychology is available for streaming and download at downloads.bryk.com RIGHT NOW.

And the REALLY crazy part is, thanks to either the recession, a desire for web 2.0-ness, slavish devotion to Radiohead, submission to the right brain or whatever crazy rationale(s) Mr. Bryk might have up his sleeve, he’s gone and made the entire album available for FREE for a limited time (we’d prefer to think of it as “pay what you can”, which in fact, you very easily may.)  Pop Psychology will be available on all normal download services next month, but here’s your chance to listen (and spread the word) early…