Angels + Singles + Albums

Year of Kings. Day 198. Happy birthday to the Debbie Harry of Black Mountain. When you sing the angels dance.

Year of Kings. Day 199. Back in the day bands like Joy Division and New Order would be deliberately difficult by releasing singles and albums as separate entities. This means that you couldn’t find the single on an album. A single was a pop song. And album was a novel. Dark City Kings is not meaning to be difficult - but we did run into the studio with Kevin Boggs to record the double single “Divas” and “Heart of Stone” - and these will be released on Monday - not to be part of an album. They stand alone. This is a “hinge” work - a moment when DCK wrote a traditional song and a very modern pop song - and we started moving in a new direction.

Year of Kings. Day 200. Shane MacGowan? Shane MacGowan? I’m sure he was fun to be around and sure he was also hell. But he was always himself. Who am I? Who are we? Not pretending to be like someone else. Not wanting to impress someone else. Shane McGowan? Yeah. If we were in the dark corner of a pub, drinking, playing music just for ourselves - what would we sound like? When we were born - what was the song in our hearts? It’s really a big question. Who are we? What do we sound like?

Year of Kings. Day 201. Release 2. Double single. Heart of Stone and Divas. It’s up on the major streaming platforms and on Bandcamp: https://thedarkcitykings.bandcamp.com/album/heart-of-stone-divas. Check out Heart of Stone. I sat on the grass about 50 feet away from a tent playing traditional music at the Big Stone Gap’s “Home Craft Days” - and I sang the first verse into my phone. That’s how the song started - very much in the moment - not thinking about meaning. Now I can look back and see where this was coming from - some life - some magic - that was hanging in the air.