Friday, September 18th will see the release of Maximum MN, a digital mixtape featuring Sub Pop artists covering Minnesota musicians, capturing a snapshot of Minnesota’s long history of life-changing music and to show solidarity with the people of Minnesota. In the wake of the ICE raids in Minneapolis this year, a lot of communities have been hit hard. Families have been disrupted, people have been displaced, and local support systems are under real strain. Proceeds from this compilation will be sent to The International Institute of Minnesota, a non-profit organization that supports refugees and immigrants through resettlement services, English and citizenship classes, job training (including nursing assistant training), immigration legal services, and direct financial support in the current environment.
 
The eight-song tracklist includes Downtown Boys (covering the Replacements “Can’t Hardly Wait”), Yuno (covering Hippo Campus “The Way It Goes”), Sweeping Promises (covering Hüsker Dü’s “Something I Learned Today”), Mudhoney (covering Halo of Flies’ “Rubber Room”), Shabazz Palaces (covering Prince’s “Pop Life”), Flock of Dimes (covering Low’s “Especially Me”), Weird Nightmare (covering Paul Westerberg’s “It’s a Wonderful Lie”), and Pissed Jeans (covering former Minnesota Governor and WWF wrestler Jesse “The Body” Ventura’s “The Body Rules”).
Please find a full tracklist below.
 
MaximumMN will be available on all streaming services on Friday, September 18th worldwide from Sub Pop. Fans can also secure the mixtape two weeks early exclusively through today’s Bandcamp Friday on (September 4th).
 

Today, Friday, June 26th, Downtown Boys have released Public Luxury, their enthralling new album, out now worldwide from Sub Pop. The band is celebrating the album’s entry into the world with a poignant new video from animator Romy Matar for album standout “Yellow Sun,” which The Skinny notes, “there’s a melodic softness that reveals a fragility under the surface, something which might even appeal to fans of The Killers.”
 
Band member Joey La Neve DeFrancesco elaborates further on the song and visual: “‘Yellow Sun’ is a song for Lebanon, written as Israel’s ongoing invasion and occupation of the country began in 2024. The lyrics were inspired in part by the work of Lebanese poet and painter Etel Adnan, especially the poems “Beirut 1982” and “The Arab apocalypse,” which she wrote during Israel’s earlier occupation of Lebanon from 1982-2000. As with Ednan’s work, the song is meant to name the horrors (“phosphorous skies,” “every day an angel explodes”) while also insisting on the possibility of a new day: “The trees grow in every direction / I’m still heavy with love…
 
“The accompanying video by Lebanese animator Matar is a fable-like tribute to the decades of displacement and hostility faced by the indigenous shepherds and rural communities of Palestine and Lebanon since 1948. It also contains visual references to Adnan’s paintings.”

Downtown Boys are announcing a new UK and EU late fall/winter headlining tour, which begins on December 4th in Amsterdam, NL at Paradiso, and runs through December 21st in Rome, IT at Monk. Tickets for these shows are on sale now.
 
Downtown Boys’ previously announced US live dates for summer and fall 2026 are underway, with an album release show and benefit tonight, June 26th, organized by Willimantic Records for the Covenant Soup Kitchen & Food Pantry at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in the band’s second “hometown,” Willimantic, CT. The band’s US touring schedule continues through Saturday, September 26th in Mississauga, ON at Second Summer Festival.
 
Please find a current list of dates below.
 

New 2026 US Shows Include Support Dates With Gang of Four In June, And Headlining Dates For July

Downtown Boys are sharing “You’re a Ghost,”  an anthemic, industrial dance-punk track, which is out today on all digital streaming services. It is accompanied by a powerful animated official video directed by Lebanese artist Khalil (@palpable.image). 
 
Band members Victoria Marie and Joey La Neve DeFrancesco say of the visual: “‘You’re a Ghost’ took shape in the context of the previous and current administrations’ violent suppression of pro-Palestine and anti-ICE protestors, and ICE’s recent, depraved escalations within the always-horrific U.S. deportation regime. In such a time, as a bare minimum, we must continue to demand freedom of migration, movement, and everything for everyone. They can’t distract us with clouds of hate. Our bodies and our history are not a game; this is a power structure. ICE out.”
 
The “You’re a Ghost” visual is the latest offering from Public Luxury, their new album out worldwide on Friday, June 26th, 2026. 

Photo Credit:  Naomi Yang

 
Downtown Boys have pushed relentlessly forward as an artistic and political project since their founding. Singer Victoria Marie and guitarist/singer Joey La Neve DeFrancesco first met at union meetings while working together at a hotel in Providence, RI, writing many of the band’s early songs about labor organizing and exploitative workplaces. The quintet is completed by Joe DeGeorge (sax/synth), Mary Jane Regalado (bass), and Joey Doubek (drums). Over years of touring and three acclaimed albums, including Full Communism in 2015 and Cost of Living, their Sub Pop debut in 2017, Downtown Boys have continued to grow as artists, musicians, and organizers.
 
Now, the band has arrived with Public Luxury, an enthralling album that keeps politics front and center while summoning the band’s most urgent and powerful sound to date. The definition of Public Luxury falls very much in line with that of the title of the band’s second LP, Full Communism. Straight up, Public Luxury means, “everything for everyone.” It’s the stubborn insistence that a better world is possible, while fully recognizing the horrors we witness daily, and the individual and collective responsibility to resist the nihilism and hopelessness we can all feel.
 
Public Luxury was co-produced by DeFrancesco with recording engineer and longtime Downtown Boys supporter Seth Manchester (Lambrini Girls, Lightning Bolt, Model/Actriz) at the Pawtucket, RI studio and arts space Machines With Magnets.  The album was mastered by Heba Kadry.
 
Read more about Public Luxury here.

The fierce and mighty Downtown Boys will release Public Luxury, their incredible new album and the follow-up to Cost of Living, their acclaimed Sub Pop debut, worldwide on Friday, June 26th, 2026. The new longplayer features highlights “The City Begins,” “Sirena,” “Viva La Rosa,” “You’re A Ghost,” its title track, and today’s offering, the massive “No Me Jodas.” Public Luxury was co-produced by Downtown Boys’ Joey La Neve DeFrancesco and recording engineer Seth Manchester (Lambrini Girls, Lightning Bolt, Model/Actriz), at the Pawtucket, RI studio and arts space Machines With Magnets. The album was mastered by Heba Kadry.
 
In the “No Me Jodas” video, Downtown Boys perform with explosive energy for an enraptured crowd at a small club in Brooklyn. The visual was directed by John MacKay (Nation of Language “Inept Apollo,” “I’m Not Ready For The Change”), and also stars Mariachi Internacional Tapatio De Alvaro Paulino. Watch here.
 
Singer Victoria Marie offers this on the music video, “The video for ’No Me Jodas’ (translation: ‘don’t fuck with me’) is inspired by the aesthetic of ‘chicha’ —a music culture out of Peru that is also about economics, work, partying, life, desire, and nightlife. The ethic, as put by one Chicha musician, Chacalón, is two words: chamba and vacilón (hard work and partying).”