As many of you have now heard J and Janet from Channels have a very sick baby boy. Their son, Callum, was born with a genetic motor neuron disease called Type 1 SMA, or Spinal Muscular Atrophy. This is a serious disease that has no cure. In response to the many people who have asked how they can help, their friends and ex-Jawbox bandmates Kim Coletta and Bill Barbot, have set up a page on their Desoto Records website where people can find more information about Cal's condition and donate to his treatment fund. Obviously this is a painful time but your thoughts and best wishes go a long way.

www.desotorecords.com/cal

www.jrobbins.net

Ryan Nelson, who many of you know through both his artwork for, and musicianship in, Soccer Team, Beauty Pill and Most Secret Method, will be exhibiting ink drawings at Transformer Gallery in Washington, DC from Dec 16 until Jan 20.
OPENING RECEPTION: Saturday, December 16, 2006, 7 to 9pm
ARTIST TALK: Wednesday, December 20, 2006, 6 pm
EXHIBITION HOURS: Wednesday thru Saturday, 1 to 7pm and by appointment
http://www.transformer.org

Joe will be touring in the midwest United States in January with Zu and Capillary Action. He'll then be headed to Europe in February and then to Japan. He will be joined by Massimo from Zu on all these dates. Check out the tour section for complete details as they are posted.

Michael Fussell, our longtime production manager, headed back to his home principality of Wales at the end of November and Ryan Nelson, who many of you know from our mail-order department, is leaving at the end of the year to go back to school. Michael will continue working with Dischord as a freelance consultant but the boys will be missed around the office. Basla Andolsun, who has been assisting Ryan with web-orders, will take over full-time once Ryan departs. Andy Gale, from the band Haram, has also been brought aboard as we reshuffle the deck and look to the future.

DVDs are cheaper to manufacture these days so we've lowered the price from $18.00 to $16.00 post paid. The Fugazi, "Instrument" DVD also has nice new packaging to go along with it's new lower price.

The Evens, "Get Evens" and the Make-UP, "In film/On Video" DVD are both now available in record stores and on the Dischord website. These two are the latest in a string of releases Dischord has presented this fall. In case you blinked sometime in the last 3 months, we released new records from Channels, Soccer Team, The Aquarium, Joe Lally and French Toast.

Dischord Records, in conjunction with Inner Ear Studios and Ruffian Records / Swim-Two-Birds Studio is sponsoring a program for young DC bands called The DC Free Recording Project. Together we are offering free, short (five hour) recording sessions at Inner Ear Studio to young, DC area bands/projects that have not yet had experience in a professional recording studio. The sessions will be engineered by Hugh McElroy from Swim-Two-Birds Studio. To participate Bands must be from the Washington, DC area and play original music. Go to http://www.dcfrp.com for more details.

Soccer Team, (featuring Dischord mail-order king , Ryan Nelson and ex-Dischord Direct Queen, Melissa Quinley) recently returned from several shows in the south with Antelope and have new songs ripe for recording in the next month or so.

French Toast recently played at CMJ with The Aquarium and Beauty Pill and have been playing shows with These Arms Are Snakes. They will soon be headed to to the West Coast where they will plays shows on their own and hook up again with TAAS. For more info check out out tour page or go to: http://www.frenchtoastdc.com

Joe Lally recently returned from dates with Antelope and will be touring with the Melvins (accompanied by Dale and Buzz) and is headed to Brazil in November. Check out the dates on our tour page or for more information go to: http://www.joelally.com/

The Evens will be releasing their new album, "Get Evens" in stores on November 6 and we'll have it available here several days earlier than that. They just warpped up some mid-west dates and will be traveling more in the next months.

Due to a serious illness in the family Channels have had to put all band business on hold and cancel their upcoming appearances. They ask that you bear with them and thank you for your understanding.

French Toast are filming a segment for the children's show, Pancake Mountain, and will be playing shows with These Arms Are Snakes in late October and a CMJ showcase in November. For more on French Toast go to: http://www.frenchtoastdc.com

Antelope recently finished mixing their full length, recorded with Ian at the Dischord House, which should come out early in 2007.

Dischord will also be releasing a Make Up DVD on November 6. The DVD, titled "The Make Up: In Film/ On Video" features: - "Blue is Beautiful," a film by James Schneider with audio commentary by Ian Svenonius (33 minutes, color 16mm). - Filmed Videos: Save Yourself, White Belts, Call Me Mommy, Little Black Book (13 minutes - previously unreleased tracks) - Video-taped performances from live shows at the Wilson Center in DC and the Troubador in LA (43 minutes). - German TV INTERCEPT from outpost 'Spex' (7 minutes) Ian Svenonius (Weird War, Make Up, The Nation Of Ulysses, etc.) has compiled a book of his popular essays for release. Called The Psychic Soviet , after the central framing essay, it consists of both new articles and ones published previously in places like Index, BBGun, Dot Dot Dot, Sound Collector, Plan B and Weird War World, among others. The book is 280pp, 3.5x5. The book is available on the website

We always say that we release records along with the ebb and flow of our community here in Washington, DC. This idea will be well illustrated after a year of relative calm with a VERY active release schedule planned for the second half of 2006. IN 2005 and 2006 the DC punk scene has taken a turn back to the underground and we are now beginning to see the fruits of this period of introspection with forthcoming albums from Channels, Soccer Team, The Evens, Joe Lally, French Toast, The Aquarium and possibly Antelope.

Beauty Pill are touring in the Mid-West in July. Check the tour page for details. Devin Ocampo and Chad Molter from Medications will be joining Chad, Basla, Drew and Jean for these shows.

Antelope is planning on recording a full-length to be released later in '06 or early '07. They will be touring with Joe Lally is September so check on the tour page for upcoming details.

Dischord will be releasing a Make Up DVD later this fall. The DVD, titled "The Make Up: In Film/ On Video" will feature the film "Blue is Beautiful" by James Schneider with audio commentary by Ian Svenonius; videos for "Save Yourself", "White Belts", "Call Me Mommy", "Little Black Book"; and 43 minutes of videotaped performances from various venues.

Channels, featuring J. Robbins, Janet Morgan and Darren Zentek, have finished recording a full-length titled, "Waiting For the Next End of the World," which will be released on August 28th. They should be playing some shows around the release of the album but with a baby at home J. and Janet will not be available for extensive touring. For more information on Channels go to their website at http://www.channelstheband.com

French Toast have finished recording their new album, "Ingleside Terrace" with Brendan Canty of Fugazi. This is their first new material as a three piece and we are looking to release it in early October. The band has recently completed tour dates in Spain, France, and Germany and are planning a full US tour to coincide with the release of the album. Please check our tour page for current dates.

Joe Lally (Fugazi) has also finished recording his first solo album, "There to Here," which we hope to release in October. "There to Here" was recorded by Ian MacKaye and Don Zientara at Inner Ear Studios and by Ian at the Dischord House. The album features Lally's compositions with contributions from Eddie Janney (Rites of Spring, One Last Wish), Jason Kourkounis (Hot Snakes, Delta 72, etc.), Jerry Busher (French Toast), Guy Picciotto (Fugazi), Danny Frankel, Ian Mackaye (The Evens, Fugazi), Amy Farina (The Evens), Scott (Wino) Weinrich and Antonia Tricarico. Joe has been playing regional east coast dates with Don Zientara, toured in Italy and will be touring the states with Antelope in the fall of 2006.

Dischord will be introducing a full-length CD from The Aquarium, a duo featuring Jason Hutto on keyboards and vocals and Laura Harris on drums, in October. The Aquarium have been playing shows around DC for a couple years and have crafted a hypnotizing set of instrumental and vocal compositions often accompanied live with random movie clips culled from Jason's library collections. As well as performing with The Aquarium Laura plays drums for Benjy Ferree's band and has played with the short-lived and much loved DC quartet, The Threads. Jason previously played guitar with the the incomparable Motor-Cycle Wars (who's number 1?).

Ian and Amy are in the process of recording what they hope will be a new Evens full-length for release this Fall. They have instruments and recording equipment spread throughout the basement and the living room and are recording this project entirely themselves. This recording project follows a 3 week tour in the UK and Ireland which was very encouraging despite a bout of food poisoning which sidelined Ian and led to the cancellation of one gig.

The Dischord catalog is now available on EMusic , a digital subscription service that focuses on independent labels and music. The catalog is also available on Downloadpunk.com , itunes, and Microsoft Music We've done our best to balance wide availability and format options with quality independent options so people can make informed decisions as to where to spend their money. We are also working toward one day offering digital download sales directly on this site.

The Soccer Team album, "'Volunteered' Civility & Professionalism," has also been finished and we are also planning for an August 28th release. Soccer Team is a collaboration fronted by Ryan Nelson (Routineers, ex-Beauty Pill, ex-Most Secret Method) and Melissa Quinley (who used to work with us here at Dischord). Over the last year Ryan has been recording songs and vignettes in his basement, often inviting Melissa to help him flesh out and contribute ideas and vocals.