Well, it’s been years in the making, but Wonderlick is pleased to announce we’ll finally be releasing Topless at the Arco Arena this summer, through Rock Ridge Music. The tracks are being mixed as I type, artwork is being designed, and Jay and I are debating track selection and sequencing. We’re aiming for a 7/7 release date.
Between now and mid-April, we’ll be letting anyone who pre-orders the album name his or her own price. This is a thank-you to the folks who’ve been supporting this project since it began, and who probably already have all the rough mixes already. It’s also a way to have your patronage immortalized, since we’re going to list anyone who winds up paying more than whatever the average price turns out to be in the liner notes.
Press release from the label after the jump.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 24, 2009
WONDERLICK EXPLORES THE INTERSECTION OF ART AND COMMERCE ON NEW RELEASE
New Release “Topless At The Arco Arena” Coming In July
The California-based group Wonderlick will be releasing their sophomore full-length, “Topless At The Arco Arena,” on July 7, 2009 via Missing Piece/Rock Ridge Music. According to band member Tim Quirk, the record, “examines the intersection of art and commerce from people who have been on every side of it.” “Topless At The Arco Arena” finds Quirk and bandmate Jay Blumenfield making music for music’s sake. Both have very successful careers in other endeavors: Tim is VP, Programming of Rhapsody and Jay is a TV producer and video director. Inspired by Tim’s essay of the same name (originally published in the anthology “This is Pop! [Harvard University Press]), the album was recorded in Oakland and Los Angeles over the past few years. The essay will appear in its entirety as the album’s liner notes.
“Many of us were in bands,” Quirk wrote in the essay, “and before the dot-com explosion had spent most of our time writing, playing or watching music being made. But the tech boom had brought us out of the world of nightclubs and concert halls and into the land of cubicles, and our adventures there proved just as heady, about as brief, and equally packed with contradictions…. It’s possible to be complicit in your own exploitation, and it’s easy not to mind.” It is that mindset that brought to bear the musical fruits of “Topless At The Arco Arena.”
Wonderlick comprises half of the former members of Too Much Joy – a group known for witty alterna-pop which spawned the ’90s hit “Crush Story” and sold several hundred thousand records. After Too Much Joy disbanded and some time had passed, Wonderlick started as a messing-around-in-the-studio project in 2001 between Quirk and Blumenfield, who have been friends since their teen years.
After they successfully garnered a sizable amount of money in donations when offering a episode hack track at a time to former Too Much Joy fans for free download online, Wonderlick decided to release their self-titled album in 2002. Since that time, they have continued to post new songs, some of which will make it onto the forthcoming album (see track listing below).
Continuing to redefine the relationship between fan and artist, the band began a pre-order offer on March 10th on www.sayhername.com, which will run until mid April and allows the fans to set their own price for the album. As an additional incentive, fans who offer to pay median price or higher will be thanked in the album package.
TENTATIVE TRACK LISTING
1 When She Took Off Her Shirt
2 All Boys Want
3 We Run the World
4 The King of Bad Decisions
5 Fear of Chicago
6 You First
7 The Case Against Tattoos
8 This Song is a Commercial
9 Nobody Loves You Enough
10 Fuck Yeah!
11 Janie Jones
12 A Different Kind of Love
13 Your Majesty
14 The Possibilities
15 Devil Horns
Wonderlick can be found online at:
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Wonderlick/55734476585?ref=mf
Twitter: http://twitter.com/tbquirk (Tim)
Website: http://www.wonderlick.com