First single: “Trouble.” Download: https://thedarkcitykings.bandcamp.com/track/trouble. Video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QaIiuKPc-Ag. Website: https://www.darkcitykings.com. It will be available on streaming platforms in a couple of weeks. This is our first single from recording with @kevin.moloney.music (producer of Sinead O’Connor’s first two albums) at @citizenvinyl studios. We’re super excited and grateful.

I just wanted to see - we just wanted to see - what would happen if we just went for it. One good thing about writing this story for a year is that gives a good excuse to try things, to keep going, to be curious, to see what happens.

So you can hear the first song from our recording “Love Is Punk,” produced by @kevin.moloney.music (Sinead O’Connor), on Never Mind The Broadcast Here’s Izzy Smut. It’s not on streaming platforms or Bandcamp or our website yet - just at https://rss.com/podcasts/nevermindthebroadcastheresizzysmut/1465001/. Here’s Trouble!

I write stories because I know I will be in a better place by the end of them. I knew the band would be in a better place, would have so many adventures, if I’d just write the story of this year. Challenges, bad weather, storms? We’d get through them all if we stayed together and wrote this story together.

Back on stage again. The next version of Dark City Kings is louder and sweatier and will make you move and will break your heart into a million pieces.

I wanted to tell the band that it doesn’t work without this mix of individuals. I’ll try to explain it. The songs are simple. The melodies are simple - even naive. We talk about and think about songs that can be enjoyed the first time you hear them, that you can sing in the shower. But the band has a real singer and some incredible musicians - so we’re able to have this mix of naive and simple along with this mix of smart and talented. We chose simplicity backed by talent.

We’ve got shows every weekend in May and June, so we’re just gonna start highlighting some of these. I do love the classic three band set-up, get up on stage, hit the set hard, grab our gear off stage, and the next band plays. This will be super fun - at The Outpost, May 24, with 40-20-10s and Fashion Bath.

It’s not a Dark City Kings song until Merlin has figured out the riff or the pick-up or the guitar tone.

The Seventh King. There’s a title for you. Irishman. Wizard. I keep waiting for a reality tv crew to jump our from behind a curtain - it’s all been an elaborate show/game to have Kevin Moloney @kevin.moloney.music work with us. A certain magic happens when the kindness is shared, and it becomes amplified, and everything seems to glow and levitate. When I talk about the new music I use word like “fat” “wide” “deep” “true.” It feels old without being old. It’s fun and light and you hear the laughter in these songs. There’s a magic in these common stories. Some of that magic was there, certainly in my bandmates, but it has been taken and amplified and made to shine by Kevin Moloney.

https://www.instagram.com/kevin.moloney.music/

We have the masters. Working with David Saich at Fiasco Pictures (one of my energetic artistic spiritual punk rock brothers) for a video from the recording session. It sounds so much better than I could have ever imagined. A true collaboration with this gang. Sweet little songs made massive by Kevin Moloney (another one of my energetic artistic spiritual punk rock brothers).

We wake up and think - how do we keep this going? We don’t know what the next show will be like - but we keep going. We don’t know where the next song will come from - but we keep going. We walk this road with faith that the unwritten song and the next show will be good, will be great. In this time of pessimism - optimism is a rebellion.