Julian Never in Santa Cruz at The Crepe Place with Joel Cusumano and Rip Florence, presented by Redwood Records! This Friday, April 17th, all ages, 8pm. Tell a friend!
I did a thing. The Go Go Radio Magic Show (CJLO in Montreal) interviewed me about Mt.St.Mtn., the early days Omnibus Records, various music and art scenes, pre-teen/teenage influences, youth culture and underground art and more. A storied two hour two parter with tons of music.
Hey, I don’t wanna hear myself talk for five minutes let alone two hours but the fine folks at GGRMS always put together thoughtful interviews (see the recent Julian Never and Wind Ups chats) and are far too kind.
Anything is the third single off the upcoming album Everything Is Purgation by Julian Never. See them this Sunday with @the_telephone_numbers and @slugfeast_ at the @kilowatt_bar_sf in San Francisco this Sunday, Feb 1!
"Anything" tries to hold all the things you’ve done, good and bad, and all the love you carry in one song. Repeated words that have lost meaning. So much energy wasted for little purpose, connection or insight. Sometimes capturing a moment is enough. Maybe each time the song plays it will teach you something.
“Anything” is a song about a time of desperation with a brief and relevant reference to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s tragic novel, Tender is the Night.
“It’s 5 o'clock in the morning. Awake again and no place to go.” The early morning sets the tone for an entire day, whether the skies are clear or opaque. “Anything” is about the search for peace when you’re not sure if you’d recognize it. The pull toward chaos, and the strange comfort found in distortions. It’s a reflection on the patterns we return to, even when we know better.
This album documents roughly fifteen years of my life, and I’m proud of the work we’ve done. It’s autobiographical—maybe a little picaresque. “Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future,” and perhaps there’s a bit of the Golden Ass in me. I’ve lived a full life in forty years. If I changed even a moment in some Sliding Doors fantasy I might not have my daughters. I’m grateful for it all.
15 years ago, I stopped making music, convinced it was selfish or narcissistic and maybe it still is. But I couldn’t help myself. Fine Steps became a band, we made a record at Tiny Telephone, and though it’s out of print and mostly unheard, I am proud of it. I never stopped writing songs. And so you have Everyday is Purgation. Thank you to Mark Kaiser and Adam Cimino for giving up their time and resources to make this happen and for Ole Haarstad for completing the band.
Songwriting has been with me since I can remember. As a kid, I wrote a song about a tree tucked into my parents’ Lay-z-boy, sang into toy microphones, had Hammer pants and a headset mic, dressed like New Kids on the Block at church. I sang in church choir. In high school, a handwritten ad for a band that wanted to sound like Flipper and the Germs caught my attention. This started my relationship with DIY and punk music.
Everyday is Purgation moves through shifting states of agency, telling a story in episodes. Purgation here isn’t about purity so much as emptying—trying to see the world like an ascetic, failing, and continuing. It’s about individuation, discernment, and yes, salvation. I carry a masochistic affection for the tension Catholicism places on my life. And as a divorced Catholic, I stand at the edges for some—but I don’t see Catholicism as about institutional fussiness. I see it as “of or pertaining to the whole order of being” …agapic love, restoration, and transformation. It won’t be on Spotify. Buy the vinyl.
Coming up, Julian Never, Telephone Numbers and Sacramento’s Slugfeast at the Kilowatt in San Francisco to celebrate the release of Julian Never’s new LP, Everyday Is Purgation out officially February 6th! The show is Sun Feb 1st and FREE!
Mt.St.Mtn. and Dandy Boy Records presents:
RYLI, JULIAN NEVER, RHYMIES
At the Little Hill Lounge in El Cerrito
Friday Jan. 9!
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#mtstmtn #dandyboyrecords
Say Something is the second single off the upcoming Julian Never LP, Everyday Is Purgation, out Feb. 6th. See them this Friday at @littlehilllounge with @rylitheband and @sounds.like.rhymies
“Say Something” is about trying to fix yourself by making the same mistakes and following the same attachment patterns. You’ve just wrecked your life, and this relationship isn’t going to fix you. An artist drops into your life—only to disappear as fast, ending things through a cryptic screenshot posted by their friend on Instagram.
You expected more of yourself for getting vulnerable like this, for caring as much as you did. You know you weren’t owed anything, but it still stings. It bruises the ego. Give yourself a rest. This wasn’t meant to be. Move on.
“Say Something” is a country-ballad take on jangle pop, featuring Josh Yenne on pedal steel. It’s about that raw feeling of being left behind—caught in the loop of rumination, waiting for words that never come.
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#mtstmtn #juliannever #indiepop #dreampop
“Push” it’s the first single of the upcoming Julian Never LP, Everyday Is Purgation, out Feb 6. 300 vinyl copies, 100 on royal blue which you can pre-order now (link in bio). No Spotify, but it will be out on other streaming services.
Record release show is February 1st at the Kilowatt (@kilowatt_bar_sf ) in San Francisco with The Telephone Numbers (@the_telephone_numbers ) and Slugfeast (@slugfeast_ ) - FREE SHOW!
#mtstmtn #juliannever #indiepop #noisepop #indierock
a little BTS on the creation of the album at a house in st. Helena… thank you @danner.gram for use of the house. Thanks @of_birding_age@mtstmtn obviously too! Couldn’t have happened without you all!
The new LP by @massagetheband is out now!
>> It’s been four years since L.A. indie-pop mainstays Massage last released new music. Now, on Oct. 10, they return with Coaster, a masterful 10-track album that finds the band facing the upheaval and uncertainty of adulthood the only way they know how: together, five longtime friends, turning out one Perfect Pop Song after another.
The wait was worth it. Massage have always seen themselves as music fans rather than proper “musicians,” and Coaster — their third LP after 2018’s Oh Boy and 2021’s Still Life — still conjures memories of other eras: the braided rumble of The Cure’s “Pictures of You”; the radiant clang of Big Star’s “September Gurls”; the strobe-light sheen of Echo and the Bunnymen’s “Bring on the Dancing Horses”; the hazy strum of David Kilgour’s “Shivering”; even the post-Madchester swagger of prime Oasis, if you squint hard enough.
Yet while facets of Coaster might feel familiar, here they add up to something greater, and rarer — a band that finally sounds more like itself than its influences.
#mtstmtn #massageband #indiepop #noisepop #indierock
