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Press for Honey Moon
“Honey Moon is sensual and celebratory.”
—Oprah Magazine
“Yet another terrific chapter in a book that I hope
these guys never finish.”—Blurt
“Brett and Rennie Sparks continue to put a brilliantly surreal twist on everyday subjects, using nature imagery to evoke the weird intensity of all-consuming passions.” —Spin Magazine
"Sung by Brett in the booming baritone of a backwoods preacher, Rennie's songs quiver with intimate detail..."
4 stars
—The Independent
See more press below
saki050 Handsome Family Honey Moon
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Taking place under bowed branches and deep within winding corn mazes, The Handsome Family release Honey Moon to a waiting world that could use a dose of surreal love right about now. Their eighth studio release celebrates the duo's twentieth year of marriage with a series of love songs that sharply contrast with some of the dark and mysterious themes of their previous seven releases. The Handsome Family consider their songs Romantic in the 19th century sense of the word: full of an awed sense of emotion in the face of nature’s mysteries.
On Honey Moon, lovers kiss in dripping wet caves and call to each other from trembling mountain peaks. They sigh on windy drawbridges and weep silver puddles in the street. For the first time there is no body count. It is an album of transcendence, of touching the divine, if only for a moment, through our love of someone or something else, even if he is a katydid.
The prospect of composing an album of love songs and avoiding triteness is fraught with peril. Brett explains, "Since we decided that all the songs would address the same theme, I decided that musically each one should be distinct to avoid the pitfalls of other records of this ilk. Each song should be its own world, have its own style. So it's a record of 12 self-contained entities. There are Tin-Pan Alley songs, country songs, R & B songs, a bluegrass song, pop songs, jazz songs, and even rock ballads. This record represents a concerted attempt to flex all of our songwriting muscles. Honey Moon is more musically and technically complex than anything I have ever done. I fell in love with the studio anew."
Fans for many years of vocal groups like the Mills Brothers, The Inkspots, and the Platters, Brett and Rennie's 'song' as a young couple was “My Prayer.” On Honey Moon, lovers kiss in dripping wet caves and call to each other from trembling mountain peaks. They sigh on windy drawbridges and weep silver puddles in the street. Musically, the Brother duos of country (Delmore, Louvin, Monroe, Stanley, Everly) remain a big influence on Brett's use of harmony—as can be heard on “When you Whispered.” Several of the songs, "The Loneliness of Magnets" and "Linger, Let Me Linger," explore the romanticism of Tin Pan Alley, while "My Friend" is suffused with the spirit of Al Green.
Honey Moon, is a headphone record with layer upon layer of cool, weird treasures waiting to be discovered with successive listens. The Handsome Family records all of their songs in a converted garage studio at the back of their Albuquerque house. The duo’s seventh CD, Last Days of Wonder (June 2006), was one of Mojo's "Top Ten Americana Albums for 2006" and was called "an unqualified triumph" by Uncut. Their songs have been covered by many artists, most notably: Andrew Bird, Christy Moore, The Sadies, Sally Timms and Cerys Matthews.
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saki045 Handsome Family Drunk by Noon/The Blizzard
The first CTR 7" single for Brett & Rennie after all these years is a much delayed Double A-side special event. "Drunk by Noon" is the existential country hit from their sophomore album, Milk and Scissors (1996), that has been covered by ANDREW BIRD, CERYS MATTHEWS (CATATONIA), SALLY TIMMS & JON LANGFORD (MEKONS), THE SADIES, and NORA O'CONNOR.
A few years back it even landed on the iTunes Celebrity Playlist for the character Jim Halpert of The Office & continues to be their largest selling digital single by far month after month. Side AA's "The Blizzard" is their sublime and exclusive cover of the 1964 Jim Reeves countrypolitan classic. A sad, sad story of a man whose love for his pony is stronger than his love for his girl or even himself. Beautiful picture sleeve has 2 pieces of original Rennie Sparks art. Two aces!
Handsome Family Downloads
The Handsome Family's releases are also available for
download at Fina Music.
download at Other Music Digital.
download at iTunes.
download at Rhapsody.
download at emusic.
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digital only ep. |
saki048 Handsome Family In the Forest of Missing Planes
We couple that debut CTR 7" single with a companion digital
only EP called In the Forest of Missing Planes. It features the
creepy, but mysteriously soothing, All the Time in Aiports, and
covers of Jim Reeves' The Blizzard and an unreleased cover of
the Louvin Brothers' Appalachian/Brit folk classic, Knoxville Girl.
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saki040 The Handsome Family Last Days of Wonder
Last Days of Wonder celebrates the little miraculous moments of beauty found
in everyday life: a golf course shining in the rain, hanging lights bouncing in the
breeze, pigeons singing from billboards, trees blooming in squares of dirt.
Here, Brett Sparks draws from medieval melody, country-politan
string arrangements, tin-pan alley crooners, and dusty hillbilly records to weave
together the fabric of this record. Rennie Sparks lyrics venture into
magical realism from polar adventure stories, turn-of-the-century electricity
wars, pagan hunting songs and her own time spent (like most people) riding up
elevators, staring out hotel room windows, and driving interstate highways.
The inspiration for the words in these songs (and especially the song “Tesla’s
Hotel Room”) comes from Rennie’s belief that not only does our present
world feel like the last days of wonder, but that human life has always felt
just this way: full of a sense of impending doom and inevitable self-destruction,
but simultaneously steeped in the sacred, the infinite, the impenetrable, the
ever-wondrous.
Brett’s musical compositions for the LDOW and his recording process
were hybrids of the old and the new; the real and the fake; the analog and the
digital. He drew inspiration from reading The Complete Beatles Recording
Sessions,
which led to many experiments and is full of anomalies: analog
compressors, vintage instruments and condenser mics, all drawn into the digital
world of computer recording.
Special guests on the record include Stephen Dorocke on pedal steel (Freakwater, Jesse Sykes), saw-player David Coulter
(Test Dept., The Pogues, Tom Waits). Alongside the usual guitar, bass and drums you will hear mellotrons,
ukulele, banjo, bowed wine glasses, and trombone.
It all feels right,
clear,
heroic, simple, everyday. — Greil
Marcus
A wonderful album. Tesla should be glowing in his grave. — Telegraph (UK)
saki036 The Handsome Family Singing Bones
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There are songs about haunted Wal-Marts,
lovers who chase the fire in streetlights,the madness of very deep holes,
a lake that can only be visited in dreams, and the shadows that whisper
inside a modern, office building. It is The Handsome Family’s 6th
CD with Carrot Top Records.
Singing Bones is designed to rip holes in the veil between this
world and the next. It should surely drive most listeners into a severely altered
state in which even chicken bones at the bottom of a garbage pail across the
street will begin to sing.
The Handsome Family is Brett and Rennie Sparks who live on a quiet street in
Albuquerque, New Mexico. Every afternoon at 4 p.m. the ice cream man rolls
slowly by in a white, dented van that plays a mournful version of “Greensleeves.”
Here—sequestered in their secret, garage studio soundproofed by a wall
of poisonous, prickly pear—the Handsome Family recorded, Singing
Bones. The Sparks’ relied on their usual array of pawnshop instruments
and mail-order software. Brett learned to play the pedal steel and the musical
saw for this record and was also able to lure several local musicians into
the studio using a beer can on a string. Once caged and starved, it was easy
convince a few of them to embellish the new Handsome Family songs with trumpet,
mandolin, bowed bass, and violin. In their live performances, the Handsome
Family will sometimes be two and a minidisc player and sometimes be three (when
they can squeeze Brett’s brother Darrell into the car with his drum set).
But always their live performances will strive to be as beautiful and creepy
as a thorny rose twisting around the bleached jawbone of a dead horse.
Dark, elemental, mischievous and mournful-- MOJO
saki027 The Handsome Family Twilight
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Welcome to The Handsome Family's fifth CD Twilighta half-lit
world of golden street lights, haunted parking lots, and invisible birds. Twilight, is,
in part, a farewell to Chicago where The Handsome Family have lived for the
last twelve years. The CD recalls the near-darkness of night in the city where
the flickering TVs and traffic lights hide the sky above.
While managing to stay married and play together in a band,
they also manage to compose some of the most gripping songs in recent memory,
with Rennie supplying the hypnotic lyrics and Brett the slightly quirky, classic
country music. On their latest album, you will hear guitar, banjo, piano, musical
saw, accordion, Autoharp, and melodica, as well as a mismatched array of mostly
live cymbals and drums.
Most Handsome Family songs combine beautiful, almost lilting melodies
with lyrics that often paint modern fairy tales full of fright, despair,
death, & alienation.
While their trademarks are still intact, there is actually a glimmer of light
in the darkness this time around. Perhaps the saddest song ever written, "Passenger
Pigeons," is now offset by songs like the hopeful "Birds You Cannot
See," the nostalgic "I Know You Are There," and "Peace
in the Valley Once Again," a story of natural rebirth after modern society
finally crumbles and stumbles to halt. Not to be overlooked, their new live
favorite, "So Long," says final good-byes with winks and smiles to
all of creatures great and small who have left their lives by natural and unnatural
means.
As soon as the record was completed, The Handsome Family fled Chicago in the
dead of night and have now taken up residence in an old stucco house in Albuquerque,
New Mexico where they hope to train rattlesnakes to be world class pickpockets.
saki023 The Handsome Family In the Air
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Brett & Rennie Sparks live in a
mysterious rural underworld filled with chilling tales & exhilarating
harmonies.—CMJ
The Handsome Family rise out of the shadowy forest on their new CD, In the
Air, & up into a world of gypsy moths, circling crows, & seeds in the
wind. Fireflies in the summer night, rocks rolling uphill, clothes thrown in
the snow, whispering waves, & milky moonlight all find themselves circling
the night sky of the Handsome Family's latest effort. Murder & love, terror & serenity,
sadness & joy--all of these feelings float like leaves lingering a moment
within the tracks of In the Air. It exudes the fragile beauty of handwoven
lace covering the bloody corpse of your long lost love who's been disemboweled
by a wolf pack; a record that doesn't shy away from the essential bittersweetness
of human life.
The new CD was again recorded in their living room. All sounds were captured on a Macintosh G3 (No tape! Hurrah!). This time the trusty drum machine from Through the Trees was replaced by Brett clunking on various dented cymbals, warped snares, dusty tambourines & a plastic garbage pail. Underneath the guitar & bass you'll hear autoharp, mandolin, melodica, harmonica, as well as church choirs, English horns, & pipe organs culled from the depths of our trusty noise-makers. Guest musician Andrew Bird added a layer of the diabolic with his virtuoso violin.
Who are the Handsome Family? Husband & wife,
Brett & Rennie Sparks
have been collaborating as songwriters for over five years. Brett, the bipolar
Texan, writes the music. He spent his early years listening to opera & eating
biscuits & gravy. Rennie, the lyricist, grew up on the shores of Long
Island where she swears she never entered a room without spotting a spider
on the
wall.
The last Handsome Family CD, Through the Trees, brought the band worldwide
attention (i.e. they quit their day jobs). Touring took them through the
USA both alone & with the Mekons, as well as to the United Kingdom with sidetrips
to Holland, Norway & Belgium. England's Uncut magazine named Through the
Trees the "Best New Country Album of the Year" & Greg Kot of
the Chicago Tribune pronounced it one of the Best 10 Records of the Year as
well as the number one local release. Chicago Sun-Times music writer Jim DeRogatis
placed it as one of the ten most important albums to ever come out of Chicago.
Each song is like an abridged Flannery O'Connor story read aloud by Johnny
Cash, hovering somewhere between the metaphysical & the mundane.—NME
saki020 The Handsome Family Through the Trees
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The Handsome Family create sparse, rural, story-songs that rise and fall like an abandoned farmhouse full of crickets. The band is Brett and Rennie Sparks, a husband and wife collaboration that teeters between The Honeymooners and Macbeth.
Their CD, Through the Trees, is a camping trip in a forest of falling trees, sleeping swans, red worms, and hollow logs. Pick-up trucks stall on snowy roads. Lizards stream from horse skulls. Lonely drunks read Moby Dick and feed boiled eggs to stray dogs. Musically, the CD marks a return to simpler, more transparent arrangements. There is a departure from the traditional guitar, bass, drums paradigm and an exploration of alternative instrumental pairings such as autoharp and drum machine, banjo and tuba, dobro and melodica. The songwriting focuses on beautiful melodies to illuminate the bittersweetness of the words. Basic tracks were recorded in the Sparks' living room by Brett with additional tracks recorded by Dave Trumfio (Pulsars) at Trumfio Towers (Dave's living room and bathroom). The record was mixed by Dave and produced by Dave and Brett. Jeff Tweedy (Wilco/Uncle Tupelo) sang back-up on several songs and added some pretty guitar.
Brett, a manic-depressive Texan, writes the music. He spent his early years listening to opera and eating biscuits and gravy. He's done post-graduate work on the vocal polyphony of Johanus Ockegem, the great medieval Flemish composer, as well as delivered hole openers to oil rigs. He also spent two weeks in a state mental hospital after a full-blown manic phase brought on by the Santa Claus collection at The House on the Rock in Wisconsin.Rennie, the lyricist, grew up on the shores of Long Island, NY where she spent her childhood watching horseshoe crabs writhing on the beach at low tide. In fourth grade she was pelted with Sloppy Joes while reading The Iliad on the school lunch line.
No Depression co-editors Peter Blackstock and Grant Alden named The Handsome Family's last CD, Milk and Scissors, one of the top ten records of 1996. After its release, The Handsome Family played eleven U.S. shows with Wilco at Jeff Tweedy's request. They also toured Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. John Peel featured The Handsome Family on BBC radio and Esquire named the song, "Drunk by Noon" (on Milk and Scissors) "Dissipation Song of 1996." Although Matthew McConaughey chose to sing the Handsome's song, "Arlene" (off the first Handsome Family CD, Odessa) during his Rolling Stone interview, the same song was banned from several radio stations. Some people just don't get the allegorical weight of a red-haired woman bludgeoned to death in a long, dark cave.
The
Handsome Family's live show combines guitar and bass with banjo and
autoharp as well as drum machine and DAT player, creating a unique sound
dubbed by Jon Langford (Mekons, Waco Brothers) as "Countronica". They
also like to drag a life-size plastic deer on stage with them. It makes
them feel like they're camping.
Read a review
at Salon.
saki016
The Handsome Family Invisible Hands MLP
OUT OF PRINT
Invisible Hands is the Handsome Family's first release since 1996's "Milk
and Scissors" studio album (SAKI011) and is limited to 1000 copies worldwide.
A 6 song, vinyl only mini-album that comes in a full color LP jacket, It is
comprised of 5 new, exclusive songs, as well as "Tin Foil" from their last
record. Once again we're treated to a view of the world colored by gray skies,
rain on the windowpanes, and a strange, heart-tugging longing for better times
far past that probably never existed. "Tin Foil" is a loping country waltz
with reflections on physics, physical decrepitude, and relationships gone by.
It is also the subject of a short musical film shot and written by Chicago
director Bill Ward, featuring The Handsomes as actors and with "Tin Foil" as
it's premise. It will be submitted to independent film festivals shortly.
The
five exclusive songs sweep through the Handsome Family repertoire, with an
emphasis on traditional country and Appalachian folk music. "Cathedrals" is
a Hank Williams' style peon to the gothic cathedrals in Cologne, Germany
and the summer playland of the Wisconsin Dells highlighted by Brett's
West Texas drawl and some tasty, if loose, slide guitar. "Grandmother
Waits for You" is a mournful, beautiful, tear jerking ballad of what awaits
all of us after we kick the bucket accentuated by Rennie's vocal harmonies
and vivid lyrical portraits. "Bury Me Here" brings the autoharp and lap
steel out of the closet and winds it's way past the graveyard like a lazy
river on a hot summer day. "Barbara Allen" is a Merle Travis song from
1947 that appeared on the Bloodshot "Straight Outta Boone County" compilation.
And bringing up the rear is their latest composition, "Birds You Cannot
See", an instrumentally sparse, near church hymn played only on bass and
autoharp that combines virtuous aphorisms with lyrical imagery beyond
the surreal.
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In some ways, that last year hasn't been an easy one in The Handsomes' camp, but fans of their unique, urban twist on stark, avant garde country music (or "Americana", or "Insurgent Country", or "Alternative Country" or whatever) are definitely the beneficiaries in this instance. "Milk and Scissors" is definitely two steps beyond where you'd expect them to be at this point. While Odessa's ride was a runaway rollercoaster of near manic-depressive proportions, this album pulls most of those swerving peaks down to comfortable levels, in favor of more fully fleshing out the valleys, and methodically exploring the nooks and crannies of the caves below.
Both song writing and performance are kicked up several notches herein, with a more somber veil laid over the entire package. And while most of the wackiness of Odessa has receded into the distance, a darker, blacker, and much drier humor has risen in it's place. For the Handsome Family, Milk and Scissors is informed as much by a good book as it is a good tune. To wit, the following folks were on their minds while writing and recording: The Carter Family, Kafka, Leonard Cohen, Flying Burrito Brothers, Hank Williams, Sr., Louvin Brothers, Guided By Voices, Everly Brothers, Neil Young, and Eddie Arnold. We get to hear the stories of: Amelia Earhart's last thoughts of the dancing bear from her childhood as her plane spins out of control over the Pacific, the Little Dutch Boy who decided that saving the inhabitants of Holland wasn't such a good idea after all, an American frontier girl's diary entries as she wastes away from TB, Winnebago skeletons, the king who wouldn't smile, the traditional tune of the house carpenter and his old true love, a 3-legged dog, and raccoons runnin' off with your hot dog buns in the middle of the night.
saki005
The Handsome Family Odessa
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SELECT DISCOGRAPHY
CDs
Honey Moon, Carrot Top Records, world; Loose, Europe
(minus Benelux and Ireland); Independent Records, Ireland; Bertus
(Benelux); Spunk (Australia); Mint (Canada) ,4/09.
Last Days of Wonder, Carrot Top Records, world; Loose, Europe
(minus Benelux and Ireland); Independent Records, Ireland; Bertus
(Benelux); Spunk (Australia), 6/06.
Singing Bones, Carrot Top Records, world; Loose, Europe (minus
Benelux and Ireland); Independent Records, Ireland; Bertus (Benelux);
Spunk (Australia), 10/03.
Live at Schuba's, Digital Club Network, 9/02
Smothered and Covered, self-released 7/02
Twilight, CD, Carrot Top Records, world; Loose, England; Independent Records,
Ireland; Trocadero, Europe. 9/01.
In the Air, CD, Carrot Top Records, world; Loose, England; Independent Records,
Ireland; Trocadero, Europe. 2/00.
Down in the Valley, An anthology of past CDs, Independent Records, Europe,
11/99.
Through the Trees, CD, Carrot Top Records, 1/98, world; Loose, 3/98, Europe .
Milk and Scissors, CD, Carrot Top Records, world; Scout, 5 /96, Europe.
Odessa, CD, Carrot Top Records, world; 2/95; Scout, 5 /96, Europe.
SINGLES
"My Beautiful Bride," Magwheel Records, Canada, 8/99
"I Know You Are There"
"Telephones and Telescopes"
SONGS ON COMPILATIONS
"Weightless Again", K-Tel Alt. Exposed Roots Alt-Country
Compilation, 8/99.
"Moving Furniture Around," Loose, New Sounds of the Old West,
2/98.
"Trail of Time," Poor Little Knitter on the Road, Bloodshot
Records,
10/99.
"Barbara Allen," Straight Outta Boone County, Bloodshot Records,
3/97.
"Moving Furniture Around," For A Life of Sin, Bloodshot Records, 6/94.
OTHER ARTISTS
"So Much Wine" & "Peace in the Valley Once Again" by Christy Moore, 2005.
" Weightless Again" covered by Cerys Matthews
"Don't Be Scared" on Andrew Bird's Weather Systems, 2003.
"The Sad Milkman" and "The Snowbird," Sally Timms, Bloodshot
Records, Twilight Laments for Lost Buckeroos, 11/99.
"Drunk By Noon," Sally Timms, Cowboy Sally, Bloodshot Records,
3/97.
See Handsome Family
Tour Dates
Listen to Real Audio for
"All the Time
in Airports"
"Tesla's Hotel Room"
Some Real Audio songs from previous releases -
"24-Hour Store" & "Far from Any Road" from Singing Bones (saki036)
"All the TVs in Town" & "Birds You Cannot See" from Twilight (saki027)
"Up Falling Rock Hill" from In the Air (saki023)
"Weightless Again" & "Cathedrals" from Through the Trees (saki020)
"Amelia Earhart vs. the Dancing Bear" & "Drunk by Noon" from Milk and Scissors (saki011)
"Arlene" from Odessa (saki005)
L I N K S
Honey Moon
4 Stars Uncut
4 Stars The Times
4 Stars The Sun
4 Stars Daily Mirror
Interview with The Handsome Family and Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune.
“At the core of every great Handsome Family song is a sense of mystery, of a world that defies our ability to understand or predict it. That in itself is a beautiful thing, and why I find the duo's music so powerful, and so moving.”—Greg Kot, Chicago Tribune
“There's a burnt beauty to Honey Moon – something akin to Mark Twain re-written by Edgar Allan Poe – that exerts a deliciously morbid pull on the imagination and the emotions. Satisfaction is guaranteed.”—BBC
"Honey Moon is a warm, heartfelt tribute both to a clost-harmony style the couple evidently cherish, and to their own marriage."—The Mail
“The songs on Honey Moon are just a gorgeously haunting as anything they have done previously.” —Blurt
Feature in Maverick, Part 1 and Part 2
Feature in The Word
Get a glimpse of Brett and Rennie’s view of Romanticism on 77 Square.
MAGNET phoned Brett and Rennie Sparks at home, intending to discuss love songs; we were soon engaged on the topics of hillbillies, moths, swamps and toilets. Check out the interview, as well as The Handsome Family's week of guest editing the site from Feb. 24 through Mar. 1st. Look for all 12 posts!
Discover their taste by reading, Brett and Rennie's Top 10 Favorite Murder Ballads on Aquarium Drunkard.
"Returning to American country some of its spiritual mystery —
4 stars.—The Independent (UK) on Last Days of Wonder
"Last Days of Wonder" might just be the duo's finest hour, full of typically nightmarish images but shot through with black humour and moments of geniuine grace and beauty. It's also their most musically adventurous album yet.—The Sun (UK)
Words that in their everyday surrealism have no parallel
in contemporary writing...Music that mines the deep veins of fatalism in
the Appalachian voice—Greil Marcus
This is music that moves forward by turning the clock back: haunting, primal
and strangely heroic—The London Times
Interview with Rennie Sparks + Greil Marcus ahead of their free music n talkin' appearance at UNC's Southern Folklife Center. Murder! Mystery!
City Pages (Minneapolis) cover story on Brett and Rennie from 7/5/06 issue.
Nice feature on Last Days of Wonder from Country Standard Time.
4.5 out of 5 review for Singing Bones from Suite101.com.
Greil Marcus names Twilight as
his number one pick in his
Real
Life Rock Top Ten at Salon.com and
this great piece on
how Brett and Rennie fit into the cannon of Harry
Smith's folk music
over at Granta.com.
Robert Christgau raves as well in his Village Voice Consumer
Guide
The Handsome Family built their own site.
Couldn't have
written it better ourselves review
of "Singing Bones" in the benchmark of cool, Pitchfork.
Folk & roots zine The Green
Man Review writes up "Singing
Bones" nicely.
Enjoy a nice
Handsome Family article in the always fabulous Pop
Matters.
Check out this interview
with Jim DeRogatis at the Chicago Sun Times.
Read a review
of Through the Trees at Salon.
Publicity provided by the amazing women
at:
Green Light Go Publicity
Attn: Janelle Rogers
812 Flowerdale St.
Ferndale MI 48220
248-336-9696 (w)
jrogers[at]greenlightgopublicity.com
greenlightgopublicity.com
Radio servicing by the equally wonderful:
Chouette Shop
Attn: Amanda Colbenson
89 Fifth Ave. #307
New York, NY 10003
212-627-7431(w)
amanda[at]chouetteshop.com
chouetteshop.com
For US booking information about The Handsome Family, visit the excellent people of High Road Touring.