Hello, everyone. We’ve returned from our vacation at “SXSW”. Below is an awesome recap of our “tour” from KS co-owner, Paul Kneejie (Bipolar Bear, The Pope, Megafuckers, White Shit, etc.). It’s pretty great. Besides that, we had a great time and are expecting our next two releases in about 2-3 weeks. The Moles “Untune The Sky” 2XLP was just approved for production along with Agent Side Grinder’s “Debut” CD. We’re also sending off the new Dictaphone “S/T” LP to the presses in the next week or two. Good stuff!

In other news, we have lots of new stuff in distro again:

1. Lil’ Daggers / Satan’s Youth Ministries “Split 7” – Great 7″ from these southerners, a bit of psych garage stuff and a bit of gnarly southern gospel punk.
2. Distel “Mrok / Regn” 7” – Amazing new Dutch angst pop band, imported from Enfant Terrible. Dark, driving pop music.
3. Bran “Fuscum Subnigrum” 7″ and Booklet – More minimal synth genius from Enfant Terrible. Limited to 150 copies and completely sold out elsewhere.
4. This Moment in Black History “It Takes a Nation of Assholes…” LP – Imported from X-Mist in Germany, TMIBH fills a huge gap in the Cleveland punk scene where politics and the punk aesthetic meet progressive post-punk. Like Black Flag and Pere Ubu made a band together.
5. V/A Denton, Denton USA! LP – Great sampler of the great pop-punk scene coming out of this weird little Texas town. Wax Museums, Bad Sports, Fergus and Geronimo are some highlights.

We’ve also managed to restock a very limited number of records into our store again. I suggest you all pick them up ASAP if you can:

1. Asja Auf Capri “Novi Ronde” LP – Hand-numbered, silk-screened amazing minimal synth stuff from this great duo. Imported from our friends at Labil in Germany.
2. Dig That Body Up, It’s Alive! – “A Corpse is Forever” LP – Amazing hardcore metal rippage from all-star rockers John Dwyer (Oh Sees), Oran Canfield (Iran), and Nate Denver.

Also, because of our awesome tour return, we’re having another huge sale. We have no room left and tons of stuff coming in all the time, so everything has been discounted. If you’re a Facebook fan, you get an ever better discount than what’s on the site now, so fan us up! Anyhow, here are the details; ALL KILL SHAMAN RELEASES ARE $10 OR LESS!!!! ALL DISTRO ITEMS REDUCED!!! SPECIAL PACKAGES ARE UP IN THE KS STORE!!! Please make us some room.

And without further ado, here is Paul’s amazing SXSW update:

Hey everyone we are back from SXSW and it was a much bigger success then we thought. RAD! We got to meet super dope bands and really check out the scene and what is happening and stuff. Really neat to see what DIY and community is all about.

The trip started out with us meeting really sweet record executives at the Beeville club. We got super f’d up and then went to the strip club where my buddies from Terminally Chill records got lap dances and tipped $3.80 in change. HA HA HA HAH! The lady was like “I have a kid you know.” My buds were like “Whatever, you’re from Texas and I am freaking famous! Here is another nickel so you can give your kid a nose ring!”

The next day we woke up and started getting totally f’d up and eating tacos for breakfast. Some idiot from the town was trying to tell me about what was happening in Texas and how their school system was struggling and blah blah blah. I was like, ” man, I am hear for the beer, the babes, and the DIY ethics class!” So yeah, I threw a burrito at his head and he cried a bit before leaving to try to tell someone else his little story. I forgot what happened after that.

On Wednesday… Thursday?… whatever. On another day we woke up and starting getting totally f’d up. I saw that Crabby Levine was still unconscious so I told my friend, Big Pants, to pee on him. Big Pants was like “No way dude! I got so much money I am gonna pay this kid to pee on him”. So he walked over to this teen. The dude was like “No way man. I live here in Austin and am just trying to get my schoolwork done. You people need to leave me alone.” Then Big Pants freaking shot the kid in the face! This totally woke up Crabby.

On Monday we woke up and totally started getting f’d up. We realized we had not actually watched any bands yet and we were supposed to start signing new stuff with this trip, so we headed out. So many hot chicks! Anyhow, it was really hard to watch bands cause everyone totally knows us and was talking to us about all this crap. Worst part about it all was the major cock-blockage! Dudes were like “Y’all have done so much for the scene and blah blah blah.” Meanwhile hot Texas babes were giving me the eye! Finally I was like “Dudes, seriously just call my secretary and send the demo to my people already… geez… can’t you see I am trying to watch Vampire Weekend!”

The last day was a sad day. We realized that we would soon have to go back to the real world of just partying in LA/SF and DJing sold out super shows. After hitting a big line of coke, I decided that maybe drinking wasn’t the thing for today. Today I was gonna learn. For real this time. I looked at Levine then looked at myself in the mirror… “Today we remember what it was like to start this scene bro.” I called our PR/A&R teams and told them I was gonna find a band myself today. Before I knew it I was totally f’d up again. Yeah!

After accepting sponsorships from Pizza Hut and Kodak, we went to the DIY indie record tent and gave a talk on the importance of keeping things pure and independent. I stated that I believed the kids were our future and our hope for a better tomorrow. I talked about the beauty of change and how things were different and better and stuff. While I was talking, I totally noticed these babes with Motorhead shirts and sweet tats were checking my stuff out. So I ended the speech and proceeded to get f’d up.

All in all, we learned a lot from SXSW. Community is totally important. Without the DIY music scene and all it does to help the world, people would be totally dead or something. Besides, if I didn’t do music then I would have to get a job or something. That crap is LAME!
So anyhow, to celebrate our success as SXSW, we are doing a huge sale to clear out room for all our upcoming releases.

Hey! We’re going on vacation. That means that all orders from now until the beginning of April will not be shipped until the first week of April. Sorry about that, but we’re going to Germany, Slovenia and Austria! We’re meeting up with Timo from Labil and perhaps some dudes from other places (Cheveu, Movie Star Junkies, etc.).  It’ll be cool. Moles 2XLP “Untune the Sky” LP is at the presses with Agent Side Grinder’s “Debut” CD  licensed from Enfant Terrible. They’ll both be done shortly after we return. Thanks for the love and we’ll post pics soon!

Check out this awesome video from Hiroshima Rocks Around off of their split LP with Bipolar Bear. They’ve also just opened a new venue in Rome called DalVerme with a great lineup of bands booked almost every night through March.

HRA – Al denton nel giorno del giudizioHD from aakasa on Vimeo.

In other news, we’ve got some brand new distro items from our friends at Les Disques Steak in France and Sweet Rot in Canada:

• Andre Ethier “Copkiller – Infant King b/w Nothing is written in stone – Pride of Egypt” 12″ EP – Awesome new EP from one of our favorite musicians and ex-Deadly Snake Andre Ethier. Brilliant, sensible garage-R&B-pop music.
• Nerve City “S/T” LP – Another brilliant record from this lo-fi garage rocker. Like the Velvets dragged through the mud and recorded in a gas tank. Great follow up to our own 10″ last year.
• Shake Shake Bolino “Don’t lose your friends b/w Please Pony Please” – Awesome garage punk from a member of Cheveu. Blown out greatness with brilliant song structures. Highly recommended.