In February of 2001, I drove to Detroit to see Low perform for the first time. At that point, they were probably my favorite band, so I got to the show super early to get close to the stage. I’d never listened to Pedro the Lion before that night, but I was absolutely blown away by their set.
After the show, I dug into their discography and related projects and discovered Blue Laws by TW Walsh. For me, it was even better than Pedro the Lion. It felt so honest and desperate at times, something that deeply resonated with my 20-year-old self, who was depressed and completely lost in life.
By that point, on Graveface, I had only released Dreamend albums (my mopey personal project), but I found TW's email address and wrote to him out of the blue. I asked if he would consider allowing me to release Blue Laws on vinyl, as it only had a CD release. He was incredibly kind and very appreciative of my interest, but said he wanted to move on musically to other projects. Every so often over the years, I would gently poke him about releasing this album, but eventually we agreed to work together and Graveface released the album "Songs of Pain and Leisure" (2001) and "Fruitless Research" (2016).
Fun fact that's rarely promoted: TW also contributed drums to most Casket Girls albums, a few Dreamend records, and even some for The Marshmallow Ghosts releases.
I'm honored to call TW a friend after all these years and very excited he finally agreed to allow me to press Blue Laws...after 25 years of bugging him to do so. He was even kind enough to open his vault of bonus materials for this release, so disc 2 is entirely that - previously unheard and unreleased bonus material.
Thanks for listening!
