The Troubles & Travails of a Travelling Musician. Set-pieces & Scene Reports.
6/3/13 Holy crap! My split 7″ with Mischief Brew, recorded all the way back in 2010, is actually here, rescued and executed by our friends at Silver Sprocket Bicycle Club. It’s got that good Mitch Clem art and the first 220 are on blue vinyl, the rest on gold vinyl. You can listen to a stream of it at New Noise Magazine.
Erik does “The Mary Ellen Carter” by Canadian folksinger Stan Rogers (with a little help from yours truly); and for those who liked Guignol & Mischief Brew Fight Dirty, yes, that’s Guignol backing me on “I Drink,” a deep cut from the great French-Armenian crooner Charles Aznavour. You can order copies (with digital download) from Silver Sprocket and Interpunk. 3/21/13 I’ve uploaded a digital EP of outtakes from “Do The Struggle.” It’s called “Bad Advice” and it’ll be pay-what-you-want through the end of the month. Enjoy!
3/17/13 Please enjoy the first part of my Euro tour diaries, “Week 1: Poland.”…And part 2, “Aye, ‘Tis The Hour Of Abandoned Hope.” 2/21/13 I’m coming to Europe in March and April. Not the UK for now, but Poland, Germany, Austria, Belgium, France, Italy, Croatia, Switzerland, Slovenia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary. Check out the show dates here. 12/31/12 Every year I make an end-of-year mixtape, an audio yearbook of the soundtrack to my year. This one maybe casts not quite as wide a net as usual because of all the travelling, but still some good stuff. Enjoy! 12/20/12 It’s a Christmas miracle! Dying Scene named me #1 of “Punk’s 10 Best Accordion Players.” Promise I won’t let it go to my head. 12/19/12 Here’s another book in which I have an essay. It’s a collection in which musicians recommend other musicians. Not surprisingly, I recommend American Music Club. Alina Simone, Sharon Van Etten, Eef Barzelay, Sean Lennon, Ben Nichols, & many more are also included. (All proceeds go to the musicians’ charity Sweet Relief and Hurricane Sandy relief.) You can watch my episode of The Chris Gethard Show here. 11/27/12 I wrote a “recording journal” (after the fact, obviously) for InDigest magazine, about the making of “Do The Struggle.” 11/6/12 Happy election day. The Ruckus has published another selection from my tour diaries, this one covering Ukraine to the Russian border crossing. And Punknews is running my US tour diaries from the current tour, here’s the first edition, the second, and the third. Also, I ran some numbers, for those interested in the ongoing “musicians & money” debate, as Heraclitus says, “without obscurity or needless explanation.” 10/19/12 I have another “Do The Struggle” B-side, the uxurious “I Had A Good Time Tonight,” on this limited-edition vinyl comp from Underground Communique Records. You can get them at the webstore or from me on tour. 10/8/12 I have some new writing out there. VICE magazine has published a selection from my Russia & Mongolia tour diaries, in which we learn how some concepts can get lost in translation. Also, I have an essay in “The Road Most Traveled,” a book about the touring life curated by Chuck Ragan; also featuring contributions from Brian Fallon, Frank Turner, Ben Nichols, and more super people. Spin magazine is debuting one of the Do The Struggle b-sides, a number called “Bad Advice” in which I do my best David Byrne and yell about platitudes. 9/30/12 I covered the Muppets’ “Rainbow Connection” for this ongoing comp from my friends at Wrong Way Round and Cats Aye Records. See if you can tell when some dudes came in with their guitar cases. It’s a free download with some other great acts. 9/11/12 Asbestos Records will be releasing a limited-edition 7″ split between myself and Frank Turner entitled “Franz & Frank Sing Noel Coward.” I’m singing “Sail Away,” because I can’t get enough of songs that claim that all your troubles will fade if you could just get far enough away; and Frank is doing “There Are Bad Times Just Around The Corner.” Get your pre-orders here.
8/13/12 Ahoy! Rocksound just debuted the video for “Did Your Broken Heart Make You Who You Are?” by Brad Kemp and Puppet Kitchen. It stars your friend and mine Emily Hope Price, the good people at B-side, and a melancholy robot. As always, you can buy “Do The Struggle” from me, from Xtra Mile, or from all the usual outlets.
8/6/12 “Do The Struggle” is OUT NOW! You can buy it from me directly, which I of course recommend, at http://franznicolay.bandcamp. If you need convincing, check out this 5-star review from The Arts Desk: “challenging, clever and more than a little unsettling… this is an album that cannot come recommended highly enough.” 6/19/12 I’m thrilled to announce (and this may not come as a surprise) that my new album, “Do The Struggle,” will be released August 6 on the currently world-beating Xtra Mile Recordings, with vinyl on old friends Sabot Productions. The first single, “Did Your Broken Heart Make You Who You Are?” will be released July 30. The record was made with producer oktopus, of the innovative New Jersey industrial/hip-hop group dälek, with the help of Guignol rhythm section John Bollinger (drums) and George Rush (bass, tuba) and guests including Ezra Kire (Leftover Crack, Morning Glory) and Emilyn Brodsky. Read more about it here…
Photo by Catherine Chalmers, design by Sophia and Ariana Nicolay Tracklisting: The Hearts Of Boston 5/17/12 So Anti-Social Music, the collective I’ve been with for over a decade, has a new vinyl release that’s been literally years in the making. It’s two orchestral collaborations, with NJ hip-hop crew dalek and Detroit experimental group His Name Is Alive, and comes in a fold-out 3D sculptural package by the artist Scrapworm. Limited edition of 400, on 180-gram… You can listen and pre-order here.
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