Dr. Frank's What's-it

MTX SHOWS - FINALLY!

So as I've been banging on about, the new album comes out Oct. 4 as a download with the paperback edition of the book. You can pre-order (though the download itself won't be "up" till day of.) Or come get it at shows, download to your phone, listen to it instead of live us, complain about it on tumblr, etc.

So, herewith, the first batch of the aforementioned MTX shows. (Oh and, before you ask, we're only doing weekend dates right now, so we can’t add anything to these.)

Fri- Oct 7th- San Francisco at DNA Lounge

Sat- Oct 8th- Sacramento, CA at Blue Lamp

Sat- Nov 12th- Santa Ana, CA at The Constellation Room

Sun- Nov 13th- Los Angeles, CA at Redwood Bar

Fri- Dec 9th- Chicago, IL at Reggies

Sat- Dec 10th- Green Bay, WI at Lyric Room

Special guests TBA.  Ticket info TBA!

ADDED:

Oh, and don't forget this show on Sunday Sept. 18 at the Crepe Place in Santa Cruz, with me Kepi, Kevin Seconds and Dan Potthast:

Anti Corporate and Stuff Man Yeah

Remember when everyone thought it was the height of evil and a betrayal of "punk" to put UPC codes on records? Down with commercialism (in the context of this product we are trying to sell you)! We were all a bunch of hippies underneath really.

If I'm remembering rightly, Jon von used a UPC from a box of tampons on one of the MTX cover designs in hopes that someone might scan it and hijinks would ensue, but I never heard of any hijinks ensuing from it.

Packing Up the Boxes

Thanks to everyone for buying stuff in this last record sale, and for bidding on that Love Is Dead test pressing, which wound up going for $405 -- a record, I'm sure, so to speak. (And cheers, Brian.)

I'll probably do another sale at some point, especially if the storage excavations turn up anything interesting. I do have a quantity of posters, stretching back to the Rough Trade days that might get brought out. And maybe I'll do another test pressing or other bit of memorabilia then too.

In the meantime, here's the list of what's left:

LPs ($20): Alcatraz, Revenge Is Sweet, Milk Milk Lemonade, Making Things with Light, Night Shift

10" ($15): Big Black Bugs

7" ($8): Tapin' Up My Heart, Andromeda Klein, Dr. Frank & the Bye Bye Blackbirds "Even Hitler..." / "Population: Us"

CDs ($10): Night Shift, Making Things with Light, And the Women..., Show Business Is My Life, Alcatraz, Yesterday Rules

CDep: ($9) Miracle of Shame

CDR ($9): The Way Things Sound Like, Eight Little Songs

cassingle ($5): King Dork Approximately / O'Brien Is Trying to Learn to Talk Hawaiian

shirts ($20): Dr. Frank / Kepi Euro-tour (M, S, and Ladies' M only), King Dork Approximately (S, M, L, XL), Sam Hellerman (M only)

As usual, I'm going to leave this post at that link in the sidebar ("I have some odds and ends lying around...) in case anyone wants any of it and would like to try to shake me from my customary state of lassitude to the point where I might actually pull the well-tetris'd boxes back out of the closet.

Thanks again, my good people.

Bio

Ages ago, asked to write a bio for my band, I came up with a timeline type thing that went something like:

1985: band forms;

1986-7: band releases two long-playing short-selling records;

1989: band releases new e.p., driving record label out of business;

1990: despite concerted effort, band fails to drive new label out of business;

1993: band learns to play its instruments;

1994: band achieves apotheosis as a purely theoretical, non-material entity perceivable only through concerted exercise of the intellect and mathematics.

1995: the universe collapses in on itself.

This was never used.

Another Record Sale, that's what's happening today

UPDATE, 08.03.16: So the Revenge Is Sweets and Alcatrazes are all gone. I still have a small number of Milk Milk Lemonades, and plenty of the others. (I'm not sure, but I strongly suspect that that's the end of the Revenge supply, and possibly of Alcatraz as well. But we'll see about that next time.) I'll keep doing this till the Love Is Dead test pressing auction ends on Tues. Drop me a line if you want anything from the stock that remains and cheers.

Okay ladies and genital men, I'm doing this sale thing again, in the spirit of giving the people what they (kind of) want and also in the spirit of my trying to become temporarily a little less broke, which is more important / difficult.

The headline news item here is, I suppose, that I have no more LK 134 (Love Is Dead). As in, there are no more left in my stock; if anyone else happens to have any, they still have them obviously, but as for the old Lookout stock it is gone gone gone. (Now it is possible that there could be a box of them hidden somewhere that may come to light in the process of some unrelated excavation, like King Tut's tomb. But I wouldn't count on it.) By the way, t here are no more CDs left either. So this album has now joined Our Bodies Our Selves in stock oblivion. RIP weird smiling blue girl.

I wish I had more, but since selling 100% of the stock is a kind of milestone, I've decided to commemorate it by putting a test pressing up on ebay as an adjunct to the usual sale, so that anyone who absolutely must have Love Is Dead on vinyl has one last chance to get it from me. That auction is here if you want to check it out. It's a once in a lifetime chance, or something.

I do have some LK 180 (Revenge Is Sweet) this time around -- possibly/probably the last of those as well; a few LK 232 (Alcatraz), along with the others listed below. Another surprise find was a box of ...and the Women Who Love Them "special addition" CDs, which I thought were long gone. (So you see, it does happen.)

So here's what I've got on hand:

LPs ($20): Alcatraz, Revenge Is Sweet, Milk Milk Lemonade, Making Things with Light, Night Shift

10" ($15): Big Black Bugs

7" ($8): Tapin' Up My Heart, Andromeda Klein, Dr. Frank & the Bye Bye Blackbirds "Even Hitler..." / "Population: Us"

CDs ($10): Night Shift, Making Things with Light, And the Women..., Show Business Is My Life, Alcatraz, Yesterday Rules

CDep: ($9) Miracle of Shame

CDR ($9): The Way Things Sound Like, Eight Little Songs

cassingle ($5): King Dork Approximately / O'Brien Is Trying to Learn to Talk Hawaiian

shirts ($20): Dr. Frank / Kepi Euro-tour (M, S, and Ladies' M only), King Dork Approximately (S, M, L, XL), Sam Hellerman (M only)

All this stuff is new; the LPs are sealed Lookout stock.

The procedure is, drop me a line (at themagnificentdrfrank@gmail.com) saying what you want, and I'll check availability, calculate the shipping and total, and tell you the amount to paypal to: themagnificentdrfrank@gmail.com. (Make sure you spell it right.) Include in the paypal order a list of what you're ordering so I don't screw up. And when you do the paypal order, please do it as an order for goods/services and include your address in the order. (Avoiding the fee by making it a gift instead is a nice idea but in fact makes the whole thing more of a hassle, plus the shipping often winds up costing more.)

Please make sure to indicate if you are outside of the US because that obviously affects shipping. (Also, note that Canada is, in fact, outside of the US.)

I'll send these out on a first paid, first served basis, meaning that if there's one copy left and you've inquired about it, but someone else pays first, the payer gets it.

I'm happy to sign anything or whatever. The quantities are limited to whatever I've got in my living room at the moment. When they're gone, they're gone till (possibly) next time.

The Mr. T Experience Are New Wife

King Dork Approximately the Album

Album artwork (front side) here. Seems like some folks are confused by this whole set up, especially by the fact that I keep talking about an MTX album when the image available heretofore has been of a book written by Frank Portman. I'm here to calm you all down, with this visual aid. No doubt displaying it will cause as much confusion as it clears up, as is so often the case.

Nevertheless, the deal is: this MTX album will be a free download with purchase of the paperback book that comes out on Oct. 4. They are distinct, but related, items, each a "window" into the other, so to speak.

To those who already have the hardcover book (and a heartfelt thanks goes out to you if you are one of them) the way to think of this new edition with album is this: it's an album for $9.99. The physical book is a bonus, but is also analogous to a record jacket you might have purchased with an LP in days of old, with lyrics and artwork as usual, but also with a whole novel crammed inside as well; the record itself is virtual, but if you close your eyes and imagine a spinning disk, and maybe a few pops and skips, you will be able to approximate the meat space album experience. Then, perhaps, open them and gaze lovingly at the cover. Kiss it. Hang it on the wall. Draw the logo on your math book cover. That kind of thing.

That said, there will likely be a vinyl edition at some point in the future, if the backlog at the sole remaining pressing plants in Croatia and Slovenia ever allow for it. (Yes, or the purposes of this post two plants can be "sole".)

Tell your friends. Pre-order here.