May 31, 2011 Update

First things first here:
Our biggest piece of news comes in the form of this incredible new stuff we've been hearing from Dead, from Melbourne. They're a two-piece, with Jem Moloney who's drummed in Fire Witch, Inappropriate Tough Guy Behaviour and Fangs Of!. Dude's a savage. Dead is sort of like Fire Witch, in that it's got an kind of spacious, plodding creep and heaviness. I think of it as kind of modern AmRep noise rock, channeled through some kind of claustrophobic doom riffs, played on a bass. In short, the shit's fabulous. Gives us faith in the human race's ability to not just do crappy American Idol bullshit with its evenings. Not to get all soapboxy, but you know, it's affirming to get rocked in a fully supportable way once in a while, and Dead are just that! And, hear this, they are coming to the US in August and will tour East to West, play Total Fest in Missoula on August 19 and lots in-between! Get ahold of us if you want 'em in your town. We'll send out their itinerary in June or July, well prior to its start.

Couple of things Dead related here before we move on:
Here's a sneak peak, free MP3 of a song called "Preventable Disease"

We'll be releasing their 12" called "Thundaaaaah" and are pretty stoked about that. Pre-orders will be up shortly.

NEW SHIT DEPARTMENT
So, just about a year ago Japanther put out their most recent longplayer. It's called :Rock 'N Roll Ice Cream" and it's Japanther moving further along their pop continuum. So, back when we first heard the record, and the song "Not At War" in particular, we got really stoked to be involved somehow with the record. We opted for doing a small run of CDs+ a limited embroidered patch. This thing's finally come out. My god, what took so long? Maybe the fact that re-using a bunch of un-used CD trays seemed like a good idea at the time? Maybe because it's silk screened? Maybe because it come with an embroidered patch? Not any part of this project was as easy as paying for a box of plastic to be shipped from wherever CDs exactly come from. But, so it goes. The things here, it's priced at $10 for list members in n. america and $15 overseas.
Buy a limited to 250, hand-numbered Japanther RnR Ice CreamCD + Patch (North America)
Buy a limited to 250, hand-numbered Japanther RnR Ice Cream CD + Patch (world)

DISTRIBUTION DEPARTMENT
Friend, there's a ridiculous amount of titles we've traded for here, for starters we've got some really good stuff from:
Thou, Helms Alee, Broken Water, Pine Hill Haints, Killer Dream, Squalora, White Shit, Goddammitboyhowdy, Circle and oh, oh, oh, so much more. It'd be a pain in the ass to write about it all here so what I've done is create a separate, easy-to use, postage gets added-uniformly-and-it's cheap site for the Wantage Distro. It's right here: http://wantagedistro.bigcartel.com/

TOTAL FEST
Our Tenth(!) annual Total Fest happens this August 18-20 in Missoula. It's a lineup on par with the best we've ever done, with Big Business, White Shit, Dead, Unstoppable Death Machines, Kowloon Walled City and a ton more coming out. Have a look at the totalfest.org site to follow what's going on. We'd love to see you there, as always we float the river/swim, barbecue and host a record swap.

DUDE, WTF DEPARTMENT
Quit using acronyms, generation Y. Yeah, we know. It's been a long time between updates. Too long really, but as a living organism, this thing (Wantage) has times of pretty moderate activity, and times with pretty serious action. It's pretty much a one-dude and his wife machine, so no excuses. It just takes a while to get a report together for you sometimes.

OTHER NEWS DEPT.
Wicked news for us all: Federation X played live in Bellingam on November 13th back in 2010. All signs point to total sonic mastery and no notes missed. Here's the link to that. Nice audio/video.

Karp Documentary: Bill's still plugging away, and he's beginning to shop early versions of the doc. to film festivals.

-White Shit (Big Business, Karp, Monorchid dudes) have a new video, viewable perhaps only to those of you with facebook accounts. It shreds. Here's a link to it.

-Speaking of that, did you know that White Shit are playing Total Fest X, August 18-20?

RECOMMENDATION DEPARTMENT
-We can't say enough about the Blind Shake's ability to rip. They've got a new record coming out on the Learning Curve label, and it's thoroughly, thoroughly start to finish good news. Like Federation X sort of, with a baritone and standard guitar and great tones.

-Hammerhead have a new four song EP. I didn't think I'd ever be typing those words, but it's true. Legendary, and I try to use that adjective sparingly, Minneapolis via Fargo noise rock masters Hammerhead stopped playing over 10 years, to everybody's chagrin, and last year they made this new recording called "Memory Hole" and put it out on a CDR in time for the AmRep 20 year party. It's excellent.

Talk to you soon,

Wäntage.