Darren Hanlon

The latest record is now available for you to buy and spin at will. Get it now from Flippin Yeah.

It’s $20 + postage and released in stores 16th March. For our International friends this is the only place to get it right now.

Here’s the official crackle:

Ironically for a writer who’s never put one on an album it was a cover song that inspired this musical career archive.

“I recorded a version of 80’s pop single ‘the Perfect Day’ (Fischer Z) and put it on side B of a very limited edition promo disc. It ended up getting a bit of airplay somehow and then the emails started flooding in asking where to find it” Hanlon says.

Not one for pouncing on an opportunity it’s taken him 4 years to finally release the song properly as part of the b-sides, rarities and unreleased song collection Pointing Ray Guns at Pagans.

A melange of disparate tracks cherry picked from the whole period of his 9-year career as a solo performer. Some of these have proven live favourites despite not ever being part of an official album.

“I finally felt there was enough content of unofficial material to constitute a descent body of work. I tend never to have much excess material but out of the 25 or so tracks I had lying around I narrowed it down to the best 15 so it wouldn’t be a kitchen sink glut. I would hope this album sounds as cohesive as any of the other ones.”

Entries include his first ever recorded song, ‘Funpark Fugitives’ to the most recent limited-edition single ‘Electric Skeleton’ as well as unreleased versions of ‘Pinball Millionaire’ and ‘Eli Wallach’ which has a surprise guest vocal from the Magnetic Fields Claudia Gonson.

I thought it prescient to let you know about the tour we’ll do in March/April where we’ll be demonstrating the songs from our new rarities album “Pointing Ray Guns at Pagans” live.

Although a short tour in duration we’re trying to pack in as many shows as possible. I’ll be bringing a small ensemble featuring Cory Gray from Portland OR and Evelyn Morris (otherwise known as Pikelet) from Melbourne.

All shows will be supported by the NYC anti-folk hero Jeffrey Lewis.

Details on the tour page

I’ve just escaped from Camp A Low Hum during which i played my first NZ shows ever. Many great bands discovered (the Broken Heartbreakers, the Teacups, Little Pictures) and reaffirmed (Pikelet, Alex and the Ramps, Crayon Fields). Such a bummer i missed the surprise performance of Neil Finn as I had to get the hire car to Auckland in time. I was instead trying to sleep in a haunted motel somewhere in the middle of the North Island where the old night manager brought 2 beers and potato chips to my door at midnight and asked if I wanted to watch ‘girly films’. I assume he wasn’t talking about Steel Magnolias.

I’ll be around for the rest of the week and have a few more shows on both islands, the details of which are in the gig guide section of this very site.

Here’s a couple of free shows I’m playing in New York this month if you’re around…

Jan 13th
Googie’s Lounge (above the Living Room)
154 Ludlow St
NYC
10:30
i’m doing a short set before Joe McGintys Keyboard Karaoke
www.livingroomny.com

Jan 14th
the Bell House (front bar)
149 7th Street (between 2nd and 3rd Avenues)
Parkslope
with Graham Smith (Kleenex Girl Wonder)
8pm
www.thebellhouseny.com

I’m Just sneaking down the chimney for only a few Xmas shows this year. Sorry I”m not making it the full way around this time but I hope to get out of the house a little more often in March.

For my lack of mileage though I’m making up for it with….innovative venue ideas! Well, in two places at least…

Sydney: If anyone has ever lived in the inner west of Sydney then maybe they’ve had a late night temptation to embrace their inner goth and jump the graffitied walls of St Stephens Church in Newtown. Beyond lies the spooky colonial graveyard, along with other miscellaneous headstones relocated from the graves they once marked in the greater part of the cemetery after it was covered over and turned into a municipal park and playground.

I approached the resident minister and he was open to having a live performance inside the beautiful old sandstone church there. The show will be late afternoon on Saturday 20th, December and we encourage you to come early and have a picnic or throw a frisbee in the park. Try not to disturb what lies beneath, I’ll be nervous enough as it is.

This will be all ages. there will no alcohol and minimal bad language.

Brisbane: I’ve been driving past The Old Museum in Brisbane for years and imagined dusty shelves full of shrunken heads and specimen jars with baby Thylacines behind it”s stately Romanesque facade. Now we’ll all get to see for ourselves. Apparently it’s been hosting music for years starting way back in 1891. The good people at Mammoth have commandeered a room inside and will be hosting the xmas show for me.

Like St Stephens this show will be all ages although alcohol can be purchased too and all profits go to charity. Bring the family if they”re not annoying you.

Now all this is not to say that the East Brunswick Club in Melbourne isn’t exciting and interesting too. I’ll do my best to make it seem like you’ve stepped through a portal and arrived in a yuletide fantasia. I plan to do this with tinsel.

Also, on invitation from the good people at Happy Yess I’ll be bringing the Xmas show to Darwin for the first time, and experiencing December in the tropics first hand. I’ll bring gills so i can breathe out doors.

As always all shows will be solo and hopefully intimate in atmosphere.

Bring your own mug. I’ll make some mulled wine.

the Stockholm date has now jumped back a day to:

WEDNESDAY 27th, AUG

Still at:
Landet, Telefonplan
50kr

info at:
www.landet.nu

It seems there will be no shows in Gothenburg and Berlin after all. Something may happen in Oslo Monday night so come back to this spot over the weekend to see if there are any updates.

The tour with the Magnetic Fields was as wonderful as anticipated. Historic ornate theatres; acoustically engineered spaces that made my $300 pawn-shop guitar sound fit for philharmonic. For me, half hour sets!…all killer no filler. For them, 2 hour sets that I had the pleasure of enjoying each night. There are not many bands that bare such repetition. Also they seem to attract the same crowd world-wide; attractive, well dressed, well mannered, erudite, attentive lyrics appreciators. What more could I ask for? So since it’s finished I’ve been brought kicking and screaming back down to earth. I have to fend for myself again.

So I’ll be playing a few scattered shows in Europe before I return home.

So here are the dates locked in;

AUGUST

FRIDAY 22nd
Bergen, Norway
Hulen (the cave)
with Professor Pez
100kr

SATURDAY 23rd
Kamerad and Spelemann Festival
NorDan industrihall, Moi, Norway
with Sufjan Stevens, Ladybug Transistor, Wovenhand and others…
Darren is playing a short solo set
more info Kamerad and Spelermann myspace

FRIDAY 29th
Jonkping, Sweden
Chinabion
with the deirdres (uk) & casp casp!

SATURDAY 30th
Malmo Popfest
Malmo, Sweden
Debaser
with/ The Deirdres (UK) and many others
60kr

SEPTEMBER

FRIDAY 5th
Lisbon, Portugal
Maxime
info at the venue website

SATURDAY 6th
Coimbra, Portugal
Salão Brazil

MONDAY 8th
Hove (Brighton), UK
The Brunswick
venue website
show will finish in time for last London train

THURSDAY 11th
Manchester, UK
The Roadhouse
supporting Mark Kozelek/Sun Kil Moon
info at venue website

SUNDAY 14th
END OF THE ROAD FESTIVAL
Larmer Gardens, Dorset , UK with/
Akron/Family, Bon Iver, Calexico, Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band, Dirty Three, Kimya Dawson, Mercury Rev and many more
info at End of the Road Website

MONDAY 15th
London, Earls Court
The Troubadour
if you want to come you can buy tickets here
venue info here
$7 presale $8 on the door (tickets selling fast!)