Featuring Anne Hathaway, Kenny G, “Weird Al” Yankovic, Guns N’ Roses’ Slash and Duff McKagan, Rick Springfield, Huey Lewis, Bret McKenzie (of Flight of the Conchords), Vanessa Bayer, Tim Robinson, Susanna Hoffs, Patton Oswalt, Martha Kelly, and more.
Watch The Postal Service’s Benjamin Gibbard, Jimmy Tamborello, and Jenny Lewis (with assistance from Sub Pop’s own “Dave”*) hold Zoom auditions for band members in this hilarious longform PSA for HeadCount’s “Make Your Vote Count” campaign from director Tom Scharpling (who directed 2013’s The Postal Service Auditions).
The cast of Postal Service hopefuls features: Anne Hathaway, Kenny G, “Weird Al” Yankovic, Guns N’ Roses’ Slash and Duff McKagan, Rick Springfield, Huey Lewis, Frank Schøttendt (aka Tim Robinson), Bret McKenzie (of Flight of the Conchords), IRL Rosie, Vanessa Bayer, Susanna Hoffs, Patton Oswalt, Aparna Nancherla, Caroline Polachek, Michelle Zauner (of Japanese Breakfast), Tunde Adebimpe (of TV On The Radio), Ishmael Butler (of Shabazz Palaces), Denny Rock (aka Jon Wurster), Big Freedia, J Mascis, Preservation Hall Jazz Band’s Ben Jaffe, Walter Harris, and Ronnell Johnson, Kim Thayil, and Joe Wong.
*Please note: ”Dave” (aka Jon Daly, THE ACTOR) is not currently an employee of Sub Pop, has never been an employee of Sub Pop, and will never be an employee of Sub Pop (mostly because he won’t return our calls). Also many thanks to the wonderful actress Martha Kelly (and her cats) for her role as “Sheila, the HeadCount Representative”).
HeadCount has registered almost 400,000 voters for the 2020 election and ranks as one of the most active grassroots civic participation organizations in the United States. National Voter Registration Day 2020 was the most successful day in the history of the organization in terms of voters registered. This is the last week to register to vote in most states, and you can check your status and register to vote at https://www.headcount.org/make-your-vote-count/.
About HeadCount and the “Make Your Vote Count” campaign HeadCount is a non-partisan, non-profit organization that promotes participation in democracy through music, culture, and digital media. The organization has registered over 350,000 voters for the 2020 election and worked with a long list of musicians and partners including Ariana Grande, Billie Eilish, Camila Cabello, Dave Matthews Band, JAY-Z, Beyoncé, March for Our Lives, RuPaul’s DragCon, MTV, and Dead & Company. With 40,000 volunteers, street teams in most major U.S. cities, and presence at more than 1,000 events each year, HeadCount ranks as one of the most active grassroots civic participation organizations in the United States. Following COVID-19 restrictions, the organization quickly pivoted to an all-digital approach that led to innovation and online initiatives to fill the needs of the public in using their voices in democracy. For more information, visit HeadCount.org.
On Friday, October 2nd, Sub Pop artists past and present – new signees CHAI, The Gotobeds (w/ Chicago’s Daddy’s Boy), Loma, METZ, The Postal Service, Chad VanGaalen, and Wolf Parade – will be offering a variety of new and unreleased material, special sales and deals through Bandcamp’s “No Revenue Share Day” aka #BandcampFriday.
CHAI’s “Donuts Mind If I Do” is a new song and the band’s label debut, available digitally now from Sub Pop. “Donuts…” will also be available on the group’s forthcoming “Donuts Mind If I Do” b/w “Plastic Love” 7” single out this November. This limited edition 7” is available to pre-order in two color options through Bandcamp – on either orange or turquoise colored vinyl.
$2 for both tracks, $1 per track (digitally).
$8 for the 7” single (physical + while supplies last).
Est. ship date for the 7” single is late November.
The Gotobeds “Sunny Youth” / Daddy’s Boy “Family Cat” is a split digital single with proceeds going to Prison Neighborhood Arts Project. “Sunny Youth” was recorded during sessions for The Gotobeds’ Blood // Sugar // Secs // Traffic, their Sub Pop debut, while Daddy’s Boy’s “Family Cat” was recorded earlier this year at Electrical Audio in Chicago by Steve Albini. Both tracks are previously unreleased.
$1 per track.
Kiwi. Jr’s “Undecided Voters” is the just-released, darkly comic and prescient single from the Toronto-based, newly signed Sub Pop band.
$1 per track.
Loma’s self-released “Wheal Owles,” is a long, loose, haunting, and very human 15-minute instrumental. Emily Cross on clarinet, Jonathan Meiburg on guitar, Dan Duszyniski on drums.
$5 for the track.
METZ’s entire digital discography, including the digital pre-order for Atlas Vending, their forthcoming album out October 9th, 2020 on Sub Pop, is available for sale at 35% off (or $39.65 in total).
Digital discography sale begins Friday and ends Thursday, October 8th.
Chad VanGaalen’s Lost Harmonies is a b-sides compilation of songs that were intended to be part of a synth-focused record called Lost Harmony. VanGaalen says of the project, “They were all improvised live and recorded them — quick and dirty. I was always critical of the way my voice still sounded like my normal voice, and the album got shelved. Eventually I returned to it and tried manipulating the sounds using pitch-shifting and changing tape speeds. I finally felt like it was cool to drool, and it evolved into Lost Harmonies. These are the kind of songs I make to entertain myself late at night.”
Pay what you want for the compilation on Friday, $1 per track after.
Listen to the Season 2 trailer, and subscribe now!
Mere months after its unforeseeably really, pretty great first season earlier this year, and in response to largely precedented levels of demand for more, the Sub Pop Podcast will return for a 10-episode second season on Wednesday, October 12th. Season Two of the Sub Pop Podcast will run weekly from October 12th through December 14th and will be available through all finer podcast distribution points.
Produced and hosted by real-life Sub Pop employees Alissa Atkins and Arwen Nicks at the label’s Seattle headquarters, the Sub Pop Podcast, of course, is where you can hear stories from inside, outside, and adjacent to Sub Pop, Seattle’s premier medium-sized record label. We focus on conversations with our artists, people who work at/with/around Sub Pop, and anyone else willing or reckless enough to talk to us. And same goes for our sibling label Hardly Art. We will continue to include, impose on, sponge off, and otherwise implicate them, as well.
In its conspicuously excellent debut season, from January 10th of this year, through to April 1st, we managed to produce and then release 11 (which, for some reason, we called 10 ½…) episodes of Sub Pop’s very first podcast. And then, between April 1 and now, we put out an additional two, interstitial, summer episodes in an effort to sustain the arguably ravenous interest of our dozens upon dozens of regular listeners. We spoke with principal members of Band of Horses, Mass Gothic, Chastity Belt, Mudhoney, Shearwater, S, King Tuff, and a whole bunch more. And, we were recognized with an Honorable Mention in the Seattle Weekly’s 2016 Readers’ Poll for local, music-based podcasts which currently exist! This sort of intoxicating recognition has us gunning for at least second runner-up next year. The entirety of this first season, and our summer episodes remain available everywhere now.
In the upcoming second season, unrelated to any outstanding debts or lost bets, we managed to convince an impressive array of folks to talk with us. Here we are referring to such celebrated figures from the wide world of entertainment as: Alex and Victoria from Beach House, Sam Beam from Iron and Wine, Tad from TAD, Benjamin Gibbard from both Death Cab for Cutie and The Postal Service, Kathleen Hanna, Father John Misty, Jonah Ray, members of CSS and Clipping, our boss and benefactor Jonathan Poneman (More than once! He’s the boss!), plus, reliably, “more.” We also took the Sub Pop Podcast on the road, with trips to both Poland and Portland, and down to the Sub Pop store at Sea-Tac Airport.
In the spirit of tell and show, you can listen to a trailer for the Sub Pop Podcast, Season Two (and, again, every previous episode) at subpop.fm RIGHT NOW. If you like what you hear, you can subscribe (in iTunes or anything) right now, too. The first episode of the new season will be available Wednesday, October 12, and new episodes will be delivered weekly until December 14, 2016.
SO! Visit subpop.fm to listen to the new trailer for the second season, subscribe to the podcast, and sign up for the podcast mailing list. Send us your thoughts and feelings here: podcast@subpop.com.
The Sub Pop Podcast: Absolutely nothing sounds better.
