Right now nobody knows what to do or say. Nothing is normal. Except for, perhaps and fortunately, JOE NORMAL & THE ANYTOWN'RS. Here at Big Stir Records we're trying to adjust to what's happening and get creative about how to respond to what we're all going through. So when Joe approached us about rush-releasing a new single addressing this global crisis – “Living With Me” b/w “Home”, out Saturday April 4 and available for preorder now at https://bigstirrecords.com/big-stir-digital-singles – we recognized that it was time to throw our regularly scheduled programming out the window and let the Anytown'rs demonstrate that rocking out is way to go out. The new tracks come direct to you as a bonus single in our weekly series, “Number 67.5”, befitting the Rapid Rock and Roll Response nature of the songs and closing the gap between the artist and the listener like never before. Let's let Joe tell you all about it!

“Rock ‘n Roll is… Alive ‘n Well… in Anytown USA!” – Joe Normal

“Living With Me”

Bringing the Rock and Roll direct to your living room while the bars and pubs have closed, Joe Normal & The Anytown’rs offer up “Living With Me,” a much needed uplift for everyone struggling to get along with each other amid the tension and differences we face at home and in our relationships.

Turn the lights down, turn it up LOUD, and turn your troubles around! Elements of Raspberries, Oasis, Brian Jones era Stones, and even KISS filter through this Anytown’rs live classic. It’s only Rock ‘n Roll, so c’mon and shout aloud with us, “Living with me is such a drag, but honey let’s work it out!”

“Home”

As we spend more time indoors, we reflect on what home means, perhaps not only to ourselves, but as it relates to others out there in the community. Here are three vignettes, perspectives on home. Acoustic guitar and synth drive this melancholy ballad that evokes “Sell Out” era Pete Townshend, and the balladry of Paul Weller.

Expected release: April 4, 2020

Big Stir Records, in partnership with Futureman Records, is proud to announce the April 3 release of a double A-side single from GLOWBOX and TOM CURLESS AND THE 46% highlighting their contributions to the already-legendary XTC tribute compilation GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS. Glowbox's version of “Earn Enough For Us” and Curless's rendition of “I'm The Man Who Murdered Love” are up for pre-order now at https://www.bigstirrecords.com/big-stir-digital-singles ...and best of all, these terrific covers, part of the digital-only component of the tribute CD, will find a physical home on the BIG STIR SINGLES: THE SIXTH WAVE later this year! Justly renowned for previous tribute compilations celebrating Sloan, The Who, and many more, Futureman Records has been widely hailed at having outdone themselves with GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS, owing in equal parts to the strength of the XTC catalog and the all-star lineup of contributors. It's available as a two-disc, 32-track CD along with 17 digital-only bonus tracks at www.futuremanrecords.bandcamp.com/album/garden-of-earthly-delights-an-xtc-celebration now! Boston's GLOWBOX first caught the ears of Big Stir Records founder Christina Bulbenko last year with the catchy melodies and classic guitar sounds displayed on their 2018 album Fossil Fuel. Her enthusiasm led to the first and only “bidding war” between BSR and Futureman (actually a low-key and affable caution from FM head honcho Keith Klingensmith that the band were spoken for)!Everything that made the band's album so compulsively listenable is brought to bear on the Skylarking classic “Earn Enough For Us”, leaving us at once all the more envious of Futureman, and all the more eager to hear what they get up to next. TOM CURLESS is best known for the no fewer than seven sterling pop albums records released under the monicker YOUR GRACIOUS HOST and his celebrated 2018 solo debut on Futureman, Songs of Movement. Curless tracked his version of this latter-day XTC classic (the original of which resides on the Wasp Star album) between sessions for his forthcoming album Almost Ready For The Future. The track represents the debut of his backing band The 46%, a veritable Detroit pop supergroup, here featuring CHIPPER SAAM (THE HANGABOUTS) on bass and RON MCPHERSON (DETROIT DIVES) on guitar, with other local notables on board for the album. Big Stir is... well, delighted to join Futureman in welcoming you to the Garden of Earthly Delights... may its pleasures offer you musical solace in these complicated times!

Expected release: April 3, 2020

“Maybe the world is ending,”, sings Brooklyn's PAULA CARINO on the A-Side of her new Big Stir Single (out Friday, March 27th at www.bigstirrecords.com/big-stir-digital-singles and available for pre-order now) ...continuing “Maybe the world ended, and we can stop pretending” before arriving at the epiphany “Maybe the door is open, maybe it's always open... and we all get to decide”. It's damned near impossible not to get chills. “Door” sounds like it was written for These Troubled Times. We happen to know it reached us well before we were all sheltering in place, and that its intent – a meditation on the choice we all face in what to believe – is more universal than reactive to the current crisis. But it feels as if it were created to heal and offer solace in a way that's deeply needed... and we couldn't be more thrilled to bring them to you now.

These brand new and exclusive tracks serve as the followup to Carino's wildly successful “Flying Dream” / “Green-Wood” single from 2019, a terrific duo of songs from the early days of the Singles Series now collected and available on the Big Stir Singles: The Third Wave CD. Fans may not know that with these two songs, Paula Carino scored the best-selling installment of the Big Stir Digital Singles Series to date The new “Doors” b/w “Welcome Spiders” is every bit as strong as she branches out with new collaborations and stalwart musicians, anchored by the same emotive sophistication that captured so many ears and hearts the last time out.

Paula Carino is a New York-based songwriter, known for her work with the babd Regular Einstein and a number of celebrated solo releases. Both all-new offerings were written by Paula Carino, produced and recorded by Tyranny of Dave in theaters and basements around Chicago & Brooklyn, and mastered by Scott Anthony at Storybook Sound, Maplewood, NJ. Producer Dave Wechsler is a talented Chicago-area singer-songwriter, formerly of the band Piñataland, now a solo artist/producer who goes by the moniker Tyranny of Dave. The rhythm section are also from Chicago: David Salako is a first generation Nigerian American engineer/producer/drummer for a variety of nationally touring acts, and Aaron Zemelko teaches orchestra in the Indiana public school system. Zachary Cale contributes lead guitar to the psych-informed grooves of “Door”, while Phil Glauberzon contributes the guitar lines to the intricate and absorbing “Spiders”.

Both are exclusively available from the Big Stir Singles Series and will find their home on CD in the coming months on Big Stir Singles: The Sixth Wave.

THE WALKER BRIGADE storms back with this week's Big Stir Digital Single! “No” b/w “Fallout” is out Friday, March 20 and is up for pre-order at www.bigstirrecords.com/big-stir-digital-singles now. It's the followup to their previous single “Tower” (collected on the BIG STIR SINGLES: THE FOURTH WAVE CD) and a taste of what's to come from LA's most exciting postpunk pop combo: big hooks, an X-style vocal attack, and a sound that can only be triangulated by their propensity for covering Wire, The Soft Boys, and Mel Brooks... in other words, wholly unique and absolutely essential.

What do the band – Tracy Walker (lead vocal & guitar), Mark Fletcher (bass), Craig Tyrka (drums) and Jeff Walker (guitar & vocals) have to say about themselves, and this new outing? “Anthemic despair... savoir faire... members from elsewhere... NYC, Philly, Chicago, L.A. (really everywhere)... punk, art-pop, tight harmonies, and songs we want to hear. Influences: Childhood.” The tracks were produced by the band with David Guerrero and recorded and mixed by Karen Basset at her faaaabulous Laurel Canyon studio; Marc Doten at Trend Coma Bootlegs, Echo Park; Brad Gordon at Magic Carpet Studios, North Hollywood; and David Guerrero at Sparkle Palace Sound, Atwater Village, and mastered by Mark Linett.

Of the A-side, they note: “In the chaotic and confusing year of 2018, Tracy Walker felt desperate for clarity, and wrote an early ’90s-styled homage to the only one word sentence.” Bassist Fletcher explains the much longer genesis of “Fallout”: “Some years back, when I was in a band with Larry Jacobson (Youth Chairs), and Michael Mooney (Manby’s Head), our rhythm guitarist Andrea Ogarrio showed us the beginnings of a song about the breakup of her first marriage. The rest of us joined in with chord changes, riffs, and a few minor revisions to the lyrics. We recorded the song twice, the second time with Marc Doten, but neither was ever released. Here it is for the first and third time.”

It all adds up to some of the most intense and bracing music that Big Stir's had the pleasure of releasing this year. If you're locked down, quarantined, or carefully practicing your social distancing, here are the cathartic rockers you just might need to feel a little less penned in. Turn 'em up, rock the hell out, and just say “No” to feeling trapped. The Walker Brigade is riding to the rescue... we're saved!