PLAASTIK NEWS (2007)

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12-29-07:

Jeff Jooce returns to his internet spokesman status in the band to tell me that COOL COMMUNITY is completely finished, will be released on, um, April 1st (he promises it's for real; awaiting confirmation of date from Capitol), and that the album mix of "An Anomaly" will be virtually unchanged from the Internet single, which very briefly flirted with Billboard's Top Ten Downloads chart. The track was chosen by Nick, Jeff says, because of its unexpected qualities as opposed to the "killer" stuff that populates the rest of the LP.
The first "official" single from COOL COMMUNITY has yet to be chosen. Jeff says it "might be" the already popular "Unanswered Calls" or it "still could very well be" "Laboratory." Either way I think we'll all be quite happy! But we do know that the disc will be an extended EP, as that is now the only way Capitol will agree to release a Plaastik single, and that the single will be issued, in contrast to Nick's original plan of attack, just a week before the album, though it will show up on the radio in three or four weeks.

12-2-07:

To the shock of virtually everyone, "An Anomaly" is a country song. Not just mildly a country song, or a reggae country song, it is an unabashed total twangy cowboy country song. And it is not a joke. Mostly acoustic, very emotional, very Appalachian even, it's very out of step with the rest of what's on the album as far as we know. It's been fairly well received, especially the hauntingly distant production, but most fans don't truly believe it is representative of what COOL COMMUNITY will actually sound like. Maybe the version on the album will be entirely different? For now, we can say the song truly is... yes... yes, wait for it... an anomaly.

11-24-07:

Just FYI: Capitol has no involvement with the internet single "An Anomaly," which is being self-released by Plaastik with the label's blessing; it is (a) not a final mix of the song, just Nick's unapproved master, (b) will have no associated artwork, (c) will be an extremely low-priced download between thirty and fifty-nine cents, and (d) won't be the actual first single from the album, which will be, in an apparent compromise, an EP. "An Anomaly" will have no CD release as a single and is to be considered a "pre-release bonus." It will, however, be issued as a promo to radio stations sometime in January, along with the "real" first single, which by then will have been chosen. Sorry for all the jargon but Capitol really got on me about the phrasing in Nick's e-mail!!

11-8-07:

Nick Parker, in a humorous email to me, thanks us all for our "support in this difficult personal time" on behalf of himself and Janet but asks that accusations toward his current and former significant others of "lesbianism in my best interest" be quelled. "I want to be for Frisk what I could never be for any of you," he says, "so please stop the pervo talk."
But much more importantly, he wanted to pass along the "tidbit" Jeff Jooce mentioned. "Normally I'd let Jeff handle all this middleman stuff, but no one is in the studio except me and I'm totally ficking snowed in here. So I just would like you to know that our new eighteenth album entitled Cool Community will spawn our first-ever Internet only single. It is called "An Anomaly" and will be available at all your favorite e-stores December 1st. We are taking the approach we once did sort of with Rockville, drumming up excitement roughly four months ahead of album release. should be interestng."
What he said!

10-30-07:

Happy Halloween! There's very little to report, I'm afraid, except to confirm that unfortunately, the gossip that Nick Parker and Janet Kieran have filed for divorce appears to be true. Parker has been quietly dating Rhythm Method drummer Frisky Smith since early in 2007; he and Janet have apparently been separated for quite some time and only in the last few weeks has the situation been leaked. I am assured that this has no effect whatsoever on the band's plans and that they have never gotten along better, and in fact that Kieran and Frisky, who sat in on the last few album sessions, have become close friends.
Nick Parker, who will be the sole credited producer (in contrast to CHILD, which was "produced by Plaastik"), is mixing the album throughout the next month. Plaastik reconvenes a week before Christmas to approve the final mix. However, Jeff says that there will be a considerable tidbit of news well before that.

9-19-07:

Once and for all, the rumor that Tina Singleton is feuding with Plaastik over their unannounced appearance as Crisis' opening act last month is completely false, and quite hurtful. I have confirmation of this via e-mail from Mitchell Blank.
Plaastik is in the studio as we speak, rerecording, according to Mitchell, seven of the twelve songs on COOL COMMUNITY. Mixing isn't expected to get serious until December, so don't expect the album before springtime.

8-6-07:

Holy shit! I just got home from Plaastik's weeklong stand at the formerly obscure Hellers Club in Waco, TX, where the band tested their new material on unsuspecting audiences. Most of the shows were short, and they included exclusively new material and covers save one performance of "Only in Theaters" on the last night. The whole lineup was there, a few hardcore fans I made the announcement to several months ago were there, but mostly it was people who thought they were seeing an oddball local band called "The Cronix." It was a thrill all around, and on the fourth night they opened for Crisis, who coincidentally had scheduled to play there several months beforehand!
The security was the tightest I've ever seen. I don't think any songs got leaked, and I don't think now is the time to really talk about them and my opinion of them yet. But here's a list of the new and semi-new stuff we heard:

LowRYDE
Laboratory
Gave It All to You (new band arrangement)
I Thought (ibid)
Someday (ibid)
As a Child, I...
Way It Burns
Stories of You and I
Tribe of the Joy
I Can't Swim
Payment Overdue
Fuck Me Forever
Nowhere to Go
Come All Over You
Rape of Loss
One Breath to Life
Unanswered Calls (not even released yet and by the fifth night, people were cheering for it)
Lovely Hunger
So Wet
World as One
Dormant
Stream
Hey! Come Back to Me (Sweetheart)
Squandered Messiah
Water
Knife Two

...in addition to many lengthy jams, false starts, and surprise covers, which I won't identify so you won't get jealous!
But in all seriousness, I haven't talked to anyone who wasn't enraptured by the shows. This is the best the band has sounded in ages.
The story behind all this is, COOL COMMUNITY was finished about two months ago. There is even a mix in existence that each band member has a copy of. But the band still wanted to try the songs out for a crowd and see how well they wore over the course of five nights. I asked Nick if changes were to be made after the shows. He was obviously really thrilled and satisfied when he told me that yes, they have lots of specific changes they want to make now. He told me the tour behind this album when it's finished will be "astromonical. It's going to be insane." I have to agree, if they keep this up.
The above list of songs -- I'm not going to add anything to the live-only list until we know what will make the LP -- varies wildly between romanticism, sad songs, off-the-handle rock & roll. It's tremendous. I'm truly excited for this album. I've heard most of the new songs (I, too, have a copy of the twelve-song mix) a hundred times now and have fallen in love with them, and I still couldn't believe the energy they injected last week. If they're still making improvements, I just can't imagine. Oh man. This is going to be great.

6-7-07:

Things are still moving along quite slowly on COOL COMMUNITY. I haven't heard from the band in the last couple of weeks, but as some of you know, major things are afoot for late July.
There's been a bit of happy news regarding the Plaastik singles that recently were let out of print by Capitol. Because Plaastik has official ownership of everything through 1997 (and 50% ownership of all their work afterward, for the time being), they have licensed their back catalog of singles [not albums] to Rhino Records, and Rhino is going to be rolling out four new boxed sets of (nearly) all of the pre-Capitol Plaastik singles. There was a similar project under Sony in the early '90s, but those discs had uniform beige cover art. The new discs will be in slipcases with the original artwork (apparently less of a struggle to obtain now than it was for Capitol ten years ago) in plain black cardboard cases. Please note that the elusive "Nachos", still never issued on compact disc, is not included, nor is "The Sky Is Drooling with Contempt," which has only shown up on cassette to date. Each nine-disc box will be sold for $29.99. The arrangement is as follows:

Aug. 7th:
BOX 1: Daddy's Little Girl / Hot Glass / Oil and Water / Middle of the Desert / House in the Forest / Child Actor / Mainstream Single / Only in Theaters / Vinyl

Sept. 18th:
BOX 2: Full Moon / Public Building / Nothing / Awkward State / Yours or Mine / Thumbtack / This Is Not Here / Left / Coffin

Oct. 30th:
BOX 3: Revolver in Her Hand / Pool / You / Mix / All the Circles / Everything You Are / Porn Star / Touch Me / Crazy

Dec. 4th:
BOX 4: Upstairs / Confused People / Breathe / Olives / Us / Morning / Best New Thing / The Beauty / At Our Finest
"Broaden" and "Chill Bumps" are missing here for the reason that Rhino is reissuing the Broaden EP as a stand-alone disc, with a bonus track: the live Letterman version of "Hot Glass" from the "Chill Bumps" single. I guess we've seen the last of the "Chill Bumps" disc; the other b-side it includes is "Bed," which of course is on PROJECTION CONSISTENCY. Rhino will also be putting out the Live at San Francisco EP in July, but it's only just been taken out of Capitol's catalog, so most buyers will not notice any difference.
I asked the Rhino people about the other two EPs, The Science Tour and, of course, Information; they didn't indicate whether those will be forthcoming but said they hope to work with Plaastik more soon, which sounds optimistic enough.
The downside to all this is that PINWHEEL BLOOD BOX, which encompasses the b-sides from these singles, will not be reprinted after its current run depletes; Capitol considers it superceded by the singles, and Capitol is not interested in licensing the rights to the art and package. For my part, I prefer the Blood Box, and I wish more fans had been able to afford to get one. (Although it was released at only $45, the two reprints in 1999 and 2006 were marked at $85 and $110 respectively, due to the elaborate packaging.)
I want to stress, the changeover of the singles doesn't mean anything re: the band's relationship with Capitol. It's purely economic. And ALL of the band's albums are still being distrubuted by Capitol/EMI.
Now, you ask, what about the subsequent singles? Capitol hasn't shown any interest in reviving them, but another EMI subsidiary, Virgin, will be doing just that. In cooperation with Rhino they're prepared two seven-disc sets nearly identical to the others. These I will be picking up, and I know I won't be alone. Unlike the Rhino sets, these will feature minor bonus content: the "Final Hour" single will add "(Don't Go Back To) Rockville," and the songs that were altered for their single versions will also include the album cuts as an extra track. Pay attention to the release dates on these, as they will be shuffled around in the middle of the others.

Aug. 28th:
BOX 5: To Know Him Is to Love Him / Final Hour / We Were / Rental / I Thought I Loved You / Zap / But Why?

Nov. 6th:
BOX 6: Cut / My Joke Is Lost / In Our Sun / Conspiracy / Walking Distance / Ow / Scarlett
As you can gather, the "Rockville" single was left off because all of its b-sides are on CARTOONS.
Keep in mind, the band is not involved with the Virgin boxes; the Rhino sets were their idea, but they are not connected to the reissues of the EMI singles. And whereas the Rhino sets are designed as somewhat permanent, the Virgin boxes are marked "limited edition." Boo to that.

3-20-07:

I never did get to interview the band to get their comments on the LOVE singles, but I did ask Jeff Jooce for comment recently. He said the following:

We are really proud of those discs. The consensus was that the market had changed since we initially began to adhere to our A-side/two b-sides format, and that if we were going to convince Capitol to keep pressing singles for us, which they honestly don't want to [see below - ed], we would need to add to the market value. It worked, of course, and that turned out to probably be the most gratifying part of the LOVE project. Of course, there was also a kind of bittersweet nature to that whole period, because commercial success found us again and we weren't ready for it. We hopefully will compensate for that next year. And we haven't really talked about this yet, but I assume the singles from our next album will be in a similar vein.
Sad news indeed from Capitol in this regard: All of Plaastik's singles through SCIENCE, as well as the Science Tour EP, are being deleted from the catalog as of March 31. The CHILD singles will follow June 30, while price drops are expected for the LOVE singles, which had formerly been priced as EPs. There is still some talk of arranging all the extra LOVE material, already released and otherwise, into a deluxe set.
Why the singles are going out of print after Capitol's much publicized campaign to keep them available, no one can say, except that official downloads and the general lack of interest these days in singles probably thwarted their profitability. I am not convinced, for my part, that Capitol will allow Plaastik to bother with singles for COOL COMMUNITY; they may just put out individual songs for download.
Of the non-album material on these singles, only the Science Tour tracks are available online. Although the PINWHEEL BLOOD BOX is still available in stores (a third printing was just made in mid-2006, but I'm told it lacks the booklet; we'll see if we can host a PDF file of it in the future if the band gives us permission) after being hard to find for a few years, the pre-Capitol b-sides will all be completely unavailable after this deletion. So pick them up quick.
For LOVE, Plaastik ended up fighting for the singles after essentially turning down the very idea of making them, because Capitol wondered publicly why they were being contractually forced to continue generating poorly-selling singles from their other albums if even Plaastik seemed to be admitting the dubious nature of their value. Such is the business life.
More news I can offer is that COOL COMMUNITY is going to be the band's last album on Capitol, and they seem happy to get away. Until late in December there was still some possibility that they may renew their contract.
And as for how the album is going, very well, and if you're on my mailing list, I've got a few surprises for you that have to be kept on the down-low.

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