Spider Bags to Release new Album via Merge

Spider Bags to Release Frozen Letter on August 5 via Merge Records; Share their single "Japanese Vacation," Spider Bags play June 18th in Durham, NC

Spider Bags has premiered “Japanese Vacation” from’ Frozen Letter, the band’s fourth full-length album and first for Merge which will be released on August 5Frozen Letter follows up 2012’s Shake My Head. Additionally band has made the album’s lead track, “Back With You Again In The World,” available to stream via SoundCloud. Spider Bags will be onJune 18 in Durham, NC at Duke Gardens as part of the Merge 25 – Music In The Gardens Series. Spider Bags just announced a summer tour in support of Frozen Letter that will make stops in major cities including Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C. and more. All upcoming shows are listed below.

 
Spider Bags formed in 2005 as a long-distance project between close friends who had known each other since their high school days in New Jersey. Dan McGee had just witnessed the demise of his NYC-based punk band DC Snipers. Feeling he had gone as far as he could with the three-chord punk genre, and not wanting to repeat himself, he began writing volumes of songs with his friend Gregg Levy. He began sending these new songs in demo form to three of his NJ friends who had since relocated to Chapel Hill, North Carolina. McGee and Levy drove down to NC to record with the full band, intending it to be more of a visit than anything. But something special happened during that recording, and eventually McGee and Levy would relocate to the area as well. That original lineup recorded their debut, A Celebration of Hunger (Birdman, 2007), with Brian Paulson and then toured the country together for a couple of years before eventually going their separate ways. But McGee found himself more prolific than ever, and he and Levy decided to keep Spider Bag going. A number of different players toured and recorded with the band while they finished another full-length, Goodbye Cruel World, Hello Crueler World (Birdman, 2009), and recorded half a dozen singles. Shortly after, Levy moved back north, but he continues to be a contributing member of the band.

During the 2011 recording of the band’s third album, Shake My Head (Odessa, 2012), the current lineup consisting of Steve Oliva (bass) and Rock Forbes (drums) was finally solidified. Building upon the foundation laid down by its predecessor, Frozen Letter rocks with the clairvoyance of three musicians who have spent a lot of time recording and touring together over the last few years. “When we started this record, we weren’t even thinking about it being released. We just did it to have fun and keep moving forward,” says Forbes, who has been playing with Spider Bags since 2008. This approach, and McGee’s intent to make a “weird, trippy record,” allowed the band to push itself further out into the psychedelic frontier than ever before, aided by engineer/producer Wesley Wolfe. Simultaneously, the trio was recording a full-length as the backing band for North Carolina blues singer Reese McHenry. The sessions, both engineered by Wolfe, tended to blend together but also kept the band focused on music. Some finished songs were left on the cutting room floor (and the McHenry album as of this writing is still a work in progress), but during those three exhilarating days, the eight songs on Frozen Letter were recorded.

Spider Bags Tour Dates

06.18 Durham, NC @ Duke Gardens – Merge 25 Music In The Gardens Series
08.09 Winston Salem, NC @ Krankies
08.13 Nashville, TN @ The Stone Fox
08.14 Chicago, IL @ The Hideout
08.15 Detroit, MI @ Jumbo’s
08.16 Cleveland, OH @ Now That’s Class
08.17 Pittsburgh, PA @ Smiling Moose
08.19 Brooklyn, NY @ Union Pool
08.20 Philadelphia, PA @ Boot & Saddle
08.21 Washington, DC @ DC9

Advertisement

Looking for something new to listen to?

Sign up to our all-new newsletter for top-notch reviews, news, videos and playlists.