Album Release: Porch

Year of Kings. Day 150. Turn into Asheville FM around 1pm today as we hang out with @loosefitradio Ernesto. Also this is @103.3ashevillefm Asheville FM’s fundraising drive - so support local radio that supports the local scene!

Year of Kings. Day 151. Kings at Loose Fit Radio with Ernesto yesterday afternoon. Show 17. Playing at Black Mountain Brewing at 2-4pm today.

Year of Kings. Day 152. One more photo of our time at Asheville FM. Here’s Ernesto @loosefitradio - It’s so important to have a local radio station playing local music to build up the local music scene.

Year of Kings. Day 153. Thanks to The Railyard for putting together our album release party - and making it a costume party with prizes. So on Saturday October 28 we will be holding our album release at The Railyard in Black Mountain - with costumes - with smoke machines and laughs. Why not?

Year of Kings. Day 154. I feel like at our Sunday show we were loose, maybe too loose? We have a new song called Divas and we name-checked everyone in the band for being a big diva - especially Craig. And then Merlin had a riff so we wrote a new song in the middle of our set. It wasn’t the most polished set - but it was fun!

Year of Kings. Day 155. Our EP is slowly being released. When you use a service like CD Baby to release an album it takes up to two weeks for it to be out on all the platforms. So think it’s out on Apple Music and Amazon Music right now….

Year of Kings. Day 156. Music releases? Next Saturday. Our album is called “Porch” because we found this porch to play during COVID. It was outdoors and we could stand five feet apart and we could wear masks and we could still meet once a week and play music. And we wanted that Appalachian porch music feel, like the back of a pub in Ireland, the looseness, people joining in, people dancing around, starting quietly but by the end of the night everyone being part of the music, fireflies, singing, flirting, moon and stars, just the night seeming to glow…

Year of Kings. Day 157. There’s a mythology to the album “Porch.” We played on this porch and looked out over this small mountain town to the woods and wild hills around us - and we dreamed up a story of an outlaw mountain town, where the law hasn’t been seen in a generation, where we are always gambling and always losing, where the girl is always leaving, and we just can’t get on that train out of here…

Year of Kings. Day 158. No show today. Practice at Craig’s place this evening. Time to focus and see what is working. Except - I think it will be a time of beer and goofing off and laughing too much..

Year of Kings. Day 159. We nearly had the whole gang back together for practice last night - plus an extra. One of the cool things about being in a band is the space for all that bad behavior, immature behavior, goofy behavior, showing off, to emerge. To be kids again. And sometimes when one of our kids comes to sing at a practice - they may find that they’re the most mature person in the room.

Year of Kings. Day 160. We’re going to be having our album release party on Saturday night, 7-9pm, at The Railyard in Black Mountain. It’s also a costume party with prizes. Last night the owner, Big John, asked me if Dark City Kings could run the costume contest and give out the prizes. This seems like asking the drunk band on stage to judge Halloween costumes at the end of the night… oh this will be fun…

Year of Kings. Day 161. The release of our album “porch” is happening. We’re using cdbaby to share it to Spotify and all the streaming services. Tomorrow I’ll upload it to Bandcamp and then we’ll have a bunch of free download codes to share at the album release party this Saturday.

Year of Kings. Day 162. “Porch” is released - https://thedarkcitykings.bandcamp.com/album/porch. It should be on all streaming platforms - it says it is on CDBaby - but their distribution takes a while, a while, a while. Anyway - please do check out the release. I have a big head and I think we write good songs. Thanks to Craig Rumney, Colleen Rose, John Rogers, Bayla Ostrach, Joe Hooten, Kyrie Antoinette - and our producer Kevin Boggs.

Year of Kings. Day 164.. Show tonight at The Railyard. 7pm. Album release show. Costume party. Album up on Spotify and Apple Music and YouTube Music… See you tonight. Thank you to everyone.

Year of Kings. Day 165. Show 17. Album 1. And thank you to everyone for coming out for the album release show last night. Costumes! Parade of costumes! Merlin the MC! Smoke machine! Lights! Fireworks! Color! Laughter! Noise! Music! Total heartbreakers! Dancing! Jameson! Snacks from Portland! We shut the place down!