That's a Whole Lotta Merge for $200....

While, yup, roughly $200 is a lotta dollars these days, it seems like you get quite a lot for it from these last 20 years of Merge Records, no?

The Merge Covers Album is nearing completion, with the following artists having contributed interpretations of their favorites from the Merge catalogue (and a few more expected):

Ryan Adams
Apples In Stereo
Bright Eyes
Bill Callahan
Laura Cantrell
Death Cab for Cutie
Dirty Projectors
Calvin Johnson
Ted Leo
Les Savy Fav
Barbara Manning
Mountain Goats
The National
New Pornographers
Okkervil River
Quasi
Times New Viking
Tracey Thorn & Jens Lekman

The Merge Remix Album is nearly finished as well, with mixes having been submitted thus far by:

Battles
Caribou
Jason Forrest
Hands Off Cuba
Kieran Hebden (Four Tet)
Junior Boys
John McEntire
Barbara Morgenstern
Mark Robinson
Trey Told ‘Em (Gregg Gillis & Frank Musarra)

As previously announced, the full list of curators for the next 12 volumes has been confirmed and is as follows: Amy Poehler, David Byrne, Miranda July, Jonathan Lethem, artist Marcel Dzama, Momofuku chef David Chang, Georgia Hubley of Yo La Tengo, Zach Galifianakis, New Yorker critic/The Rest Is Noise author Alex Ross, Persepolis author Marjane Satrapi, and artists Andrea Zittel and Kara Walker.

The entire SCORE! Merge Records: The First 20 Years project will benefit specific charitable causes handpicked by these curators.

Subscribers will receive the sixteen CDs, MRG, and other exclusive content in the mail throughout 2009, Merge’s 20th Anniversary year, as well as a special box to put them all in.

Quantities will be limited to the number of subscribers who enroll prior to the January 2009 delivery of the first two volumes (curated respectively by Peter Buck of R.E.M. and director Phil Morrison).

Those ordering before November 8 will receive the entire collection for $179. After that date, the price will be $199 until pre-orders close in January (exact date TBD).

To subscribe to SCORE! Merge Records: The First 20 Years: http://tinyurl.com/46ha7d

(Thanks Gregor for the info)

On the News Front: Eric Bachmann/Crooked Fingers and Ryan Adams

(Photo via Chromewaves)

I am a few days behind with this, but some interesting news bits on Eric Bachmann:

1. For you kids in the LA area, tickets are still available for Bachmann's solo show tonight at the Tangier for all of $12. (I'm green with envy btw...)

2. Bachmann's band, the very awesome Crooked Fingers has a new disc out October 7 called "Forfeit/Fortune," aaaannndd...he's putting it out himself, he didn't resign with Merge Records. He says:

...eventually decided to sell "Forfeit/Fortune" to retail, without a distribution partner. The pair connected with AJ Tobey, marketing manager for Flea Marketing, a promotion firm that specializes in indie retail.

"We decided to focus on a small handful of good indie record stores to get the project off the ground," Tobey says of the set, due Oct. 7. They initially selected 20 stores, based on past support of the band and the routing of an upcoming tour, but the number keeps growing. The record will also be sold at shows, through the Crooked Fingers Web site and via iTunes and other digital stores.

3. Nekko Case, Bachmann, and New Order? Hmm, this I gotta hear...

This is a very arranged, louder rock record, with lots of strings, horns and saxes," he says. Bachmann drafted tourmate Neko Case to duet with him on closer 'Your Control,' which he describes as "really different than her style. It almost sounds like New Order.

(Read our previous post on Bachmann and Crooked Fingers with good things to listen to here.)


(Photo via Harp Magazine)

Ryan Adams to publish a collection of prose sometime in 2009 (from today's Page Six, the NY Post:

EMO rocker Ryan Adams has more to say than can be conveyed in one of his crooning songs or in one of his lengthy missives to Gawker.com. Page Six hears Adams has signed with indie Brooklyn house Akashic Books to publish his still-untitled collection of prose. "They just signed the contract," said our source, "and they plan to release it in 2009." A rep for Adams confirmed the deal, but wouldn't comment on a working title or when it would hit the shelves.