Hey folks, just a few notes as we get ready for the OX release.

First off, we’ve been posting links and updates pretty much instantly at our twitter page.  Check that out if you want to see a more sporadic and personal account of things happening.  You can see that here. 

If you are one of the ones who didn’t download the leak, you can hear “The Purveyor of Novelty and Nonsense.” here.  It’s exclusive to this site apparently. Since the release is so close, I’m pretty sure the whole thing will be streamed soon enough, but honestly, the streams don’t do the production job any justice.

We got an amazing write up by Ian Robinson, the metal vj guy from MTV back when the Rock was reigning WWF champ.  And WWF was still called WWF.  Regardless, you can read that review here. In general we won’t post all reviews on this site, we’ll leave that to our twitter page, but this one was especially flattering.

Also, we wanted to let you know that the next installment of OX, titled OXEP is done and off to mastering.  It is 16 more minutes of OX and will see a 2009 release.  You can view the lyrics right now on the lyrics tab above.

And just because it’s been cracking me up for days, some nature head banging.  If you are one of the dudes in here, get in touch, Ingram wants to go camping with you guys really bad.

We wanted to let you guys know that the OX Preorder is now available.  The band decided to try something different this time.  Shirts are cool, but we wanted to try a few different things.  Here is a heads up on what we went with.

1. A metal flask with the OX cover engraved on the front.  We’ve never seen a band flask before, and we know you all drink.  We pay attention to stuff like that.

2. A stash box.  Officially it’s to stash things like pens and paperclips and stuff like that. In reality we know you’ll find something more interesting to stash in here, and we designed it to meet those specifications.  It’s a black matte box with the OX icon engraved into the wood on the top.  It’s 2.5″ tall, so it’ll fit your bulkier pen sized item perfectly.  It’s lined with velvet on the sides and top, but we made a special printed cardboard for the bottom incase you know, the insides of your pen spill out and you want to make sure you get it all back in your pen.  After writing this, I’m thinking we should have made a pen to go with this.

3. A 12 piece art print set.  This thing is massive and for the art/gig poster crowd.  We printed 1 of each of the ox icons, totalling 12 in all.  They are hand silkscreened in silver on black matte cover stock.  Each piece is 8″ x 8″ and ready to frame.  They come packaged in a black envelope that is printed and then hand signed/numbered by the artist Don Clark (invisible creature / demon hunter).  The envelope is then sealed with a wax seal.  This project is limited to only 200 pieces.  175 are black and silver, and then 25 are a limited red on red.  The red ones are chase packs and are inserted randomly into orders for these.  If you get one with a red wax seal you know you got some ebay fodder.  These are only being run once, and at $25.00 it’s a steal what with how much time is involved to produce these.

4. We also have all the new ox related merch up.  We did low numbers to see what folks wanted before we go into full production.  For gods sakes, if you are sick of black shirts send us a message.

That’s it folks, we thank you for checking it all out and supporting us for what we hope is a loose year.

We went ahead and gambled on of the more unique songs first, and got to put up a rocker we like a lot too.  Check it.

Hey all, this is pretty exciting for us local KC/Lawrence folks.  Our old buddy Terry Taylor has cooked up a metal music weekend featuring Regional bands.  Very cool to see someone putting their neck out to support Punk and Metal in the Heartland.  Click Here for more details.  This is right before our record is released, so I’m pretty sure this is going to be the first place you can get the new “OX” record in hard format.  Not making any promises, but we’ve always had product in hand several weeks before our release dates.  Please check it out, and let’s do this!

Hey folks, 2 new dates have been added to our calendar.  April 24th in Chicago, and April 25th in Minneapolis.  Check the details here.

Hey all, just a note that you can follow the progress of OX on twitter.   If you don’t know what twitter is, it’s kind of like an ongoing group text message with people you know or like.  Nerdy?  yes.  Fun and informative?  totally.  We’ll be posting links and news there first.

Hey, just a quick note that we got an email that there is a pretty rad buy 1 get 1 free cd sale at relapse.com on relapse titles.  Good on new titles too.  Check it out here.

I’m a bad news first person, so I’ll make it quick.  No SXSW appearance this year.  Just didn’t make sense after most of our labels weren’t having a huge presence.  Meh…next year maybe.

Now the good news, Coalesce is finally, and I mean FINALLY going to make it overseas to tour Europe.  Here are the details.  Bring it.

16.06.09 NL - Amsterdam, Winston Kingdom
17.06.09 UK - Sheffield, Corporation
18.06.09 UK - Plymouth, White Rabbit
19.06.09 UK - London, Undwerworld
20.06.09 BE - Antwerpen, Trix
21.06.09 FR - Clisson, Hellfest
22.06.09 CH - Zurich, Dynamo
23.06.09 IT - Sottotetto, June Bologna
24.06.09 AT - Vienna, Arena
25.06.09 CZ - Prague, Futurum
26.06.09 DE - Berlin, Cassiopeia
27.06.09 DE - June Essen, Pressure Fest
27.06.09 DE - Munich, Feierwerk
28.06.09 DE - Karlsruhe, Jubez
29.06.09 DE - Cologne, Werkstatt
30.06.09 NL - Tilburg, O13

BOO!

Note: possible Show on the 15th in Iceland.

As of today, the record is complete and has been submitted to Relapse Records for international distribution, (including Vinyl format).  We’ve entitled the record “Ox” and it will include 14 new songs totaling roughly 35 minutes.  Ed Rose at Blacklodge Studios recorded and mixed the record, and Mike Fossenkemper at Turtle Tone mastered it.  The guys at Invisible Creature are presently finishing the artwork and packaging.  We’re hoping for a release date sometime between April and May.  The exact date will be made public as soon as we have one.

We are currently planning tours for each US coast as well as SXSW and some over seas jaunts.  We also plan on attending a few festivals in an effort to play in areas that may not fit into our tour schedules.

In an effort to make room for new Ox merchandise, Blue Collar Distro has discounted almost all of the stock available at our online store.  Many of our recent clothing designs are on sale, some at prices lower than cost.  If you have any interest, check it out HERE.

For those of you who have contacted us online or at our shows during the past year and half with encouragement regarding your anticipation of the record, we apologize for how long it has taken us to put it all together.  We sincerely appreciate all the support you have given us and we’re trying to do as much coalesce as our schedules will allow.

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