July 8, 2006

New website coming soon. New releases. New news.

March 6, 2005

Well. Here is some news:

Snow Cuts Glass will be playing with Ida at the iDiOM Theater on April 6th. We will hopefully have a new 3-song demo ready by that time, and at the very least we'll be debuting a few new songs.

The ISOPAL recording dates have been pushed back a little over a month, since recording wiz Paul Turpin will be heading out with Idiot Pilot on their tour.

The Love!Gum!Pennies! album will be released June 1st.

Asahi broke up.

Kelly a la Ancille is now playing guitar with the Shook Ones.

And that's all I've got.

December, 25 2004

Well this year is almost over, thank god. It has been an equally quiet and frustrating twelve months at the ever-revolving WOJ headquarters, but 2005 will see us refocused with a few releases I've been talking about for a long time, and a few new ones you might not know about yet.

A number of people have asked me why West of January had stopped releasing albums over the last year. There are a few answers to that. One: money. I ran out of it. I graduated from college, and what was waiting at the end of my five year long journey? Lots of bills, rent, and a minimum wage job. No money left for music, unfortunately.

Two: I guess I would call it my 'mission statement.' I started doing this to help out friends and bands that I thought deserved some form of encouragement and/or aid. Things slowed down because the majority of those bands either kept moving forward and outgrew the help I could offer, stopped playing music, or stopped being my friend. It's that simple.

Oh! Band news?

ISOPAL is recording a full-length in March with Paul Turpin at Bayside. They have shirts on the way. And they're playing a show in Seattle at the Rendezvous on Febuary 4th.

I'm still fighting with the LOVE!GUM!PENNIES! artwork, but we hope to reconcile soon.

You may recognize her as cellist and vocal is extrordinaire in Snow Cuts Glass and Can I Be She-ra?, but you may not know that ANNA ARVAN also write songs on guitar and plays solo, and will be recording her debut EP later this Spring. Wooh!

ANCILLE released The Flash and Hum and have played sporadic shows in Bellingham and Seattle while they finish(ed) school and have taken full ownership of the blue and white tour van. I still owe Kelly's credit card some money. [Dude, I totally have some for you!]

I think ASAHI started recording/demoing for what would be LP #2, but I'm not sure. They did release a fantastic split EP with the amazing Outside Alcatraz.

RACETRACK released their debut full-length City Lights on Skrocki Records, played 5,879,146,425 shows (with bands like Harvey Danger, The Reputation, Kane Hodder, and Palomar) and have a number more lined up. People outside of Belligham are starting to fall in love with them, they are regular fixtures in Seattle, and they are getting better and better.

CAN I BE SHE-RA? is all gone, but you can buy their CD from cellist/vocalist Anna Arvan via their myspace page. There are a lot of CDs, so buy two and give one to your cousin in Alaska.

Since the release of their 7inch on WOJ, DOLOUR has released an EP and two spectacularly catchy albums, Suburbiac and New Old Friends, the latter with the newly resurrected Made in Mexico Records.

Peter Nelson and company, also known as AUGUST ANCHOR have been up to something, I'm sure. The majority of the band is now centrally located in Arizona, and while they finish up artwork for their first album, they are about to begin (or have begun?) recording their second album. I really don't know though. Maybe I should give Peter a call.

THE DRAMA just released an EP on Englands fantastic Fierce Panda Records. They had a small tour over there, and I think they're going back soon. Christopher Over has once again taken up his place as bass player. Sweet.

AUTUMN POETRY went through a few minor line-up changes and is now in the studio recording what I believe will be a full-length album.

I hope most of you are having a wonderful Christmas.