Don Dixon is en route!

The CD, that is (unless you live in North Carolina—Dixon himself will be playing a show at The Pour House in Raleigh tomorrow evening, April 28). Numerous boxes of The Entire Combustible World in One Small Room are currently on their way to the Bay Area and I expect to have them in hand sometime in the middle of next week. To celebrate, I've posted a track from the CD, "Roommate," on the Sounds page of the web site, so check it out!

As I've mentioned, the official "street date" for the Dixon CD is in mid-June but I will have them for sale on the web site soon. I'm considering doing some kind of a package deal with the Loud Family CD, which, believe it or not, is totally finished and at the manufacturer's. I sometimes never thought I'd see this day. Barring any unforeseen delays (and considering how things have gone so far, I'm not ruling that out), I should have them in hand by the end of May.

I'm also uploading a new Loud Family tune to our Myspace page. I thought I'd choose one of the Anton-penned songs, "Flow Thee Water." If it's not up yet when you view the page, try checking back in a few hours.

One thing I need to do in my copious spare time (cough) is revamp the Loud Family web site, which is so out of date it isn't funny. Sometime between now and when the CD is released, it shall be done. Luckily, a nice person offered to put together a web site for Dixon, so I don't need to add that to my to-do list.

What if this cover design works?

The graphic designer, Rachel Gutek, came up with a wonderfully cohesive design for the entire six panel Digipak. You'll have to wait 'til you receive your copy to see the whole thing, but here's the cover:


All we need to do now is get a couple more pieces of paperwork in order and we can finally send it off to the manufacturer.

The Don Dixon CD should be ready any day now. I'm hoping it'll be ready to ship at the beginning of May. Stay tuned...

We get letters

A correspondent inquired why the new album is being released under the name the Loud Family with Anton Barbeau. Well, the name is something of a compromise. The Loud Family, of course, had an ever-shifting lineup over the 10 years of its existence, but I think most fans kind of came to accept the Scott-Kenny-Alison-Gil configuration as the Loud Family. While Kenny, Alison and Gil all appear on What If It Works?, it's really more of a duo album. It took a long time to decide on the billing. If it hadn't been for the pesky fact that there's already a guy out there performing under the name Scott Miller (and cheekily using the web address thescottmiller.com), WIIW? would probably have been by Scott Miller and Anton Barbeau. However, I vetoed that to avoid confusion in the marketplace.

In the end, though, I think it's clear that Scott and Anton brought out the best in each other. (Anton certainly deserves a ton of credit for helping put Scott back in the saddle again, so to speak.) The Loud Family name does bring with it certain expectations, and the important thing is that WIIW? manages to live up to that high standard.