The Beat Farmers Press Release
Viking Lullabys

The Beat Farmers are, without question, today's most durable legends of marginally popular music.

"Never heard of 'em!", Ya' say? Well, that ain't the Beat Farmers fault, for in the course of their eleven year existence they have:

• Released 6 gem packed albums on Rhino and Curb labels, powered by the world renowned spottiness of MCA distribution.
• Toured Europe 5 times
• Seen every square inch of the USA and Canada fifteen hundred thousand times.
• Appeared on "Entertainment Tonight" and made David Letterman an honorary rodie
• Fathered at least 3 children
• Had tens of dozens of rave reviews heaped upon them, like these:
  • Billboard: "The Beat Farmers may be the best rock-country-blues band to come down the pike since Credence Clearwater Revival" Houston Chronicle: "A great show, possibly the hottest flat-out rock 'n roll I've ever been privileged to witness"
  • Village Voice: "What elevates the Beat Farmers above the competition is not only their masterly mix of influences, but the way in which these sources serve as launching pads for their rocket-blast excursion, that make you want to dance, cry, and laugh."
  • Cashbox: "The Beat Farmers are first rate, pure entertainment."
  • Vancouver Sun: "Amazing, magical, unbelievable- no superlative is too great for the wild, wild show the Beat Farmers put on last night. They twanged, they rocked, they soared, and in the end, they had a jam packed house screaming for 'more, more, more!"
  • BAM Magazine: "The Beat Farmers are bizarre, crude, and defy any rational description, yet above all, they're one hell of a band."
  • Melody Maker: "The Beat Farmers present a great, sweeping panorama of styles and accents, riffs and rifts, all welded together with a unique and considerable force. They can sound like every great band you've ever loved, but no one has ever sounded like the Beat Farmers. They are a legend in the making and the making of a legend"

• The Farmers have led their zealous "secret society" legions in setting more house bar records than any act in history (most likely- hard to document this stuff!)
• They've been arrested, burglarized, stiffed, beat-up, shot at, carved-up, censored, married, divorced, and forced to share dressing rooms with "The Village People", "Chippendales", "Larry 'Bud' Melman" and that idiot lead singer for Duran Duran.
• They've sur-thrived four years with no new "product"
• Recorded their long-awaited latest, Viking Lullabys, in Vancouver, unmolested and free from any industry input what-so-ever.

All hail the King of loser-friendly flop-house rock! The popes of stool pigeon bop! Hail those gorgeous tits for tots-

THE BEAT FARMERS!! available August 9, 1994 at fine record stores. Viking Lullabys is on Sector 2 Records, Austin, Texas

Southern Cross- "This was my first show tune written for the musical stage adaptation of the film On The beach (starring Gregory Peck, Fred Astaire, and Ava Gardner). The film has become a classic about the end of mankind through nuclear was and was not warmly received as a musical (duh!)"-Joey Harris

Complicated Life- "A song about appreciating what you have, what you are, the people and things around you, and just giving up"- Jerry Raney

Baby's Liquor'd Up-"This and 'Gettin' Drunk' were products of a bizarre round-table song writing session between Joey Harris, Paul Kamanski, Mojo Nixon, and myself (the tardy Mr. Nixon missed out on 'Drunk'). Though lyrically documenting the social skills of my genuine ex-fiance, it seems to hit home with anybody that's ever been drunk or around me"- Country Dick

Garden- "I was glad to come up with this one a week or two before we were set to record after a long period of nothin' much. Alternative titles were 'I've Been Sleeping With Soundgarden' or 'Let Me Sleep Out In Your Garage'"- Joey Harris

The Woo Woo Song- "I got all puffed up and wrote a song about myself"-Jerry Raney

Atomic Age Mutants- "About people who were born in places like El Centro, California and served in places like Vietnam. I was in a pretty bitchy mood when this one fell out"- Jerry Raney

Gettin' Drunk- "This was actually sparked by over-exposure to a U2 video during my 'pre-remote' period"- Country Dick

Are You Drinking With Me Jesus?- "A friend in Kansas City handed me some lyrics she had somehow punched on her computer. The author and melody were unknown, but after trimming off 3 or 4 verses, I finally had half of something usable to show the weathering millions of pitches served by the desperate and dammed. The gorgeous symphonic arrangement and wilting malady were delicately applied by Mojo and myself after an all-nite poker game and followed by our reaming out by a stunned original author"- Country Dick

Midnight World- "...try to remember when you were a kid...." "She's been a bum all her life"; "No," said Francis. "Nobody's a bum all her life. She hadda' been somethin' once."; "She was a whore before she was a bum."; "And what about before she was a whore?"; "I don't know," Rudy said. "She just talks about whorin' in Alaska. Before that I guess she was just a little kid."; "Then that's somethin' A little kid's somethin' that ain't a bum or a whore"- from Ironweed by William Kennedy as narrated by Joel Seymour Harris

Why Should I Cry- "I came home from Vegas with no money or woman again-wrote a song"- Jerry Raney

You're A Pretty Woman- "I wrote this one when I first met my wife 20 years ago. She was a really great catch and I was a conceited, bad lay"- Jerry Raney
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