Blue. New Years Eve. It is a start of the traditional new year. Blue is our color. Blue. Our violin is blue. Our old prom dresses were blue. Our souls are blue like the sky. And our music goes whistling through the air. We are lightness. We glide and dance and have winged feet.

We played music all night long, in the house where Craig grew up, on a dirt road, up in the mountains. Kevin Moloney came back from Las Vegas and U2 and we laughed and danced and drank and made up songs and played long lost originals and old favorites. All was good in the universe.

I read all these articles and interviews about Sinead O’Connor and Shane MacGowan, and they were blessed with knowing themselves, knowing their voice. They breathed fire and truth and beauty. What do we know? Dark City Kings seem… sillier… lighter. I love - most of all - punks who wrote love songs. This is what I listen to: The Cure, New Order, The Waterboys. Maybe we are punks who write love songs. We write songs about the poetry of Saturday night.

Why? Why do this? Because it brings us joy. That’s a photo of hanging out at practice grinning like our faces will break in two. Sure - we want to express ourselves - sure there’s a technical side and it’s always feels good to master a skill - but mainly because when we play music it brings us joy.

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.

Playing at The Orange Peel is a transformative experience. What I mean is… standing on a stage that big, in front of that size of an audience… you have to let go a lot of the BS. You have to let your insecurities fall away, at least for the duration of the set. You are there to create a transformative experience for others, to create a world where art is real, joy is real, heartbreak is real. So you have to transform.

“Heart of Stone” is about as classic mountain country as can be - but Divas is total B52s foolishness. And both those influences are part of Dark City Kings’ dna.

It’s a time of both expansion and focus. We’re gonna spend the evening at Craig’s place up in the mountains - new originals and old gems - taking everything from our closet and hanging it out on the front porch. At the same time we gotta figure out 10 songs we’re gonna play at The Orange Peel on January 11 and make them super tight. So - expansion and being razor focused - at the same time.

Glam? And - to be clear - not the sunset strip metal glam but the T-Rex and David Bowie glam? Throwing around the idea of “glam” has restarted the question of what are the Dark City Kings? We have Craig banging on the cajon and Kyrie on the fiddle - through she plays it like an orchestral violin, like the violin in Pulp. But we’re not really Americana. Merlin was hanging out with us for a couple of weeks - and then said: “oh you’re a pop band.” Yeah - we like ABBA as much we like Lucinda Williams. Pop. That’s us.

The aim? I have one year to get The Dark City Kings to open for Lucinda Williams. And how do we get there? Write good songs. Record good songs. Play good shows. Get played on the radio. Get a few write-ups in the music press. But… also…. find a way to be friends with Lucinda Williams booking agency!

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…

We lost two members and gained two members. Now we’re creating a new song book. One of the best parts of starting a band is those first weeks and months when songs are created and covers are tried and everyone figures out the sound. I thought we’d be just the same as our first version - but we’re in the creative phase and we’re creating a new song book. One of my favorite parts.

Dark City Kings day 1: hi - this is JP. I’m in the Dark City Kings. In the real world I’m an activist, writer, director of short documentaries. I always wanted to film a band, follow them closely for a year, document them as they write music, record music, play shows, interact with the music scene, get played on radio, book at bigger venues, get written up, get onto a label… So this is day 1 of the actual story of Dark City Kings this year. We’re finishing recording our first album and we’re about to release it - this is our story.