April 2nd, 2003

"When I found out that them boys plane had crashed down in bunch of pine trees somewhere in Southern Mississippi I knew right then and there that our God is vengeful god."
--Lacey Van Zandt

from Matthew Johnson, Fat Possum:
It's Thursday March 27, 2003; and I don't know what is happening to us in Water Valley Mississippi. March used to be a good month for sales, but today we only received one order some guy in Minnesota that needs three $1.50 fat possum stickers. Jesus Christ, if March is this bad what will the bad months be like?

It's always the things you never see coming that do the most damage to a person in life, and for good reason. I thought, was convinced, that things were getting closer to way they're supposed to be around here.

--Matthew Johnson

Solomon Burke won a Grammy for his Fat Possum album, Don't Give Up On Me. Not one of those lifetimes achievement things they give to guys they should have given awards to 35 years earlier... No, this was one of the real ones, and he seemed pleased by it all. Solomon currently has more irons in the fire than he knows what to do with. There will be tourdates with Van Morrison in the UK and NYC, and a couple of festival dates on the West Coast as well. Do not miss the chance to see Solomon Burke play live. Solomon will also be featured on 60 Minutes in the next couple of weeks.

The Black Keys Fat Possum debut is called "thickfreakness." It rocks. Listen to it now - right about
here: http://media.epitaph.com/_tmp/streams/The_Black_Keys-Thickfreakness.ram
Listening is not enough though: Order it now from us. Or buy it in a real record store on April 8. (Our records are not found in Wal-Mart by the way.)

The boys are a headlining tour right now as well: current dates are as follows:
Sun 3/30 Denver, CO Lion's Lair
Tue 4/1 Salt Lake City, UT Zephyr Club
Thu 4/3 Boise, ID Neurolux
Fri 4/4 Seattle, WA Graceland
Sat 4/5 Portland, OR Blackbird
Mon 4/7 San Francisco, CA Bottom of the Hill
Tue 4/8 Los Angeles, CA Spaceland
Wed 4/9 San Diego, CA Casbah
Sat 4/26 & Sun 4/27: Akron, OH Lime Spider
More tour dates to come.

There is also a pretty remarkable items available for purchase through only a handful of places right now: a book called Darker Blues. Made up largely of photographs of musicians on Fat Possum by David Raccuglia, the book is 100+ pages, beautifully packaged, and sharp as hell. It contains an 8 page Fat Possum comic written and drawn by Joe Sacco, a new essay by Barry Hannah, and two CDs packaged with the book. One CD is an overview of Fat Possum highlights. The other is a seven track CD of exclusive R.L. Burnside tracks; both remixes and tracks from our upcoming R.L. Burnside / George Mitchell CD: First Recordings. For the next week, the book is $5 off its regular price.

Also out on April 8 with the Black Keys: Robert Belfour's follow-up to his debut record, "Pushin' My Luck." Acoutic guitar and voice, backed by a steady drummer and nothing else, this album is just as mesmerizing as Robert Belfour's first album, which made dozens of best of the year lists. Robert Belfour will be going out on tour with T-Model Ford in April and May, so watch the tourdates page for details:

http://www.fatpossum.com/tourdates.html

Buy up some stuff from us and we'll send you free posters / flats with purchase on these records:
-Black Keys
-Kenny Brown
-Jojo Hermann
-Bob Log III
Boob Scotch video



Thanks,
Mark Mauer
FAT POSSUM