From our friend, Joan LeMay at Riot Act Media
Beginning in November, Jealous Butcher Records will begin a year-long vinyl reissue campaign for
Chicago’s Red Red Meat. All their Sub Pop albums, There’s A Star Above A Manger Tonight, Bunny Gets Paidand Jimmywine Majestic are being remastered and recut as double LPs. Each record will contain a selection of period-specifi c bonus tracks, outtakes, and singles — at the very least, an additional side of music per album.
The original artwork for each album will be handed off to a new artist to be re-envisioned as they see fit. The reissue campaign begins with the band’s final album, There’s A Star Above The Manger Tonight (out 11/11/14). The artwork for this release is handled by John Herndon – amazing tattoo artist and drummer for Tortoise.
To add to this, at the end of the campaign, Jealous Butcher will also be releasing Red Red Meat’s debut album, for the fi rst time both digitally and as an ultra-limited LP (150 copies) as well as part of an even more ultra super-limited (100 copies) career-spanning 8-LP book containing their entire recorded catalog.
This 8-LP book will be limited to 100 copies, hand assembled in Portland and numbered (of course). Each LP will be pressed on a limited colored vinyl that is being specially made for this book. Jealous Butcher might even throw in a bonus 9th LP of live material! Downloads of the material will be made available at the time each album is released, with the book and all records delivered once the series is complete (eta. Fall 2015).
Along with all of this amazing vinyl, both limited and otherwise, there will be a collection of posters designed and printed by the fine folks at Screw Ball press, who have been part of this action since the beginning. A limited collection of posters, photos and art from the time the band was originally active will also be included. On top of that, Jealous Butcher will be selling the original painting of the newly-created album art coupled with an exclusive colored vinyl.
To help Jealous Butcher bring this amazing collection of items to the public, they will be partnering with the folks at PledgeMusic. PledgeMusic are the perfect partner to bring people an extraordinary, behind the scenes view into the process as the band and label digs through boxes, scours closets, and pours through the archives searching for lost treasures. The PledgeMusic page for this project will be unveiled soon.
Yet, There’s a Star Above the Manger Tonight is the sound of a band blooming even as it folds in – finding Tim Rutili, Brian Deck, Ben Massarella, and Tim Hurley incorporating samplers, loops, and computers, marrying disparate threads of hip-hop, Krautrock, and dub to folk forms, stomps and blues.
“As a single piece of music it was kind of a real demonstration of where Red Red Meat was at the time, crossed with everything that we were playing around with that would eventually become Califone,” Massarella says.
Self-produced in DIY fashion in the back room of BJ’s Truck Stop, located on the Southside of Chicago near the seedy stockyards, where the band’s members did double time washing out meat trucks, the record features moments of sublime beauty welded to abrasive noise.
“A lot of times I remember being in that back room working on music, and when that bell rang we’d run out and work on a truck,” Rutili says. “We were covered in blood at that job. There was always blood. The dirtiness of the place definitely seeped into the music. That’s the dirtiest record we ever made.” http://jealousbutcher.com/home/index.html
Projected release dates are as follows:
• November 11th, 2014 – There’s A Star Above The Manger Tonight – 2 x LP
• March 24th, 2015 – Bunny Gets Paid – 2 x LP
• August 18th, 2015 – Jimmy Wine Majestic – 2 x LP
• October 13th, 2015 – Red Red Meat – 2 x LP & 8 LP Hand Bound Book (limited to 100 copies)
Keep your eyes on jealousbutcher.com and the Red Red Meat Facebook page for details on this project as they emerge.
