Austin has a song on a free compilation called Baltimore Does Baltimore, released today at local site SpliceToday.com: http://splicetoday.com/mixtape/a-splice-original-compilation-baltimore-does-baltimore

As the name suggests, the album is all Baltimore bands covering other Baltimore bands' songs. Austin covers a Lawrence Lanahan song called "One Lovely Daughter". Go download it! The whole album is excellent front-to-back. Lots of good friends and great artists involved. (Thanks to Zach and Splice for putting it together!)

I made a solo record called The Things You Carry, and it's available now as a free download at austinstahl.net. I recorded it by myself at home (just like the earliest Private Eleanor albums) but I decided to release this one under my own name.

Why give this away for free? I made it just for fun (for little more than the cost of cassette tapes!) and wasn't intending on releasing it, but I liked how it turned out, so I thought I'd share it with you. I'd love to hear what you think.

(Also at austinstahl.net: a bonus mini-album of covers, called 1982, made up of my versions of songs released in the year of my birth! These were all recorded during the sessions for The Things You Carry.)

If you like Private Eleanor music at all, I think you'll like these records too.

Download them now!

Thanks for listening--

--Austin.

Yeah, I know: What took us so long?

All four official Private Eleanor full-length albums are now available digitally at our new digital store: http://privateeleanor.bandcamp.com.

You can download these albums for free as 128k mp3s, or name your price for higher-quality files (high-bitrate mp3s, AACs, or various lossless formats, if you're into that kinda thing). Anything you choose to pay for the high-quality downloads goes directly to the band. [UPDATE 9/1/09: the free lower-quality mp3s are going away. Sorry if you were too late to get in on that, but pay-what-you-want for better-sounding files is still a pretty good deal, if you ask us!]

This is the first time that our first three records (Deciduous, My Pious Friends and Drunken Companions, and No Straight Lines) have been available in digital form -- and it's the first time in over 5 years that the out-of-print Deciduous has been available in ANY form!

Check 'em all out: http://privateeleanor.bandcamp.com

--Austin + PE.

PS: I made a solo record that I'll be giving away at my new site in a couple weeks. If you'd like more info about that record or upcoming solo performances, please go to austinstahl.net. Thanks!

It's been a while... The news here is that we're on a new compilation CD from The Beechfields Record Label, which features two previously-unreleased Private Eleanor recordings. (One is a new song we recorded at home late last year, and the other is a Pupa's Window cover recorded during the Sweethearting sessions.)

The compilation is called This City of Neighborhoods, and it's FREE! Find out more and get your copy at http://www.thebeechfields.com/thiscity.html. (You can stream the whole thing there too.)

I've been helping to put this thing together (and promising it to you all) for nearly a year now, and I couldn't be happier that it's finally done and ready for you to hear. Most of the songs on it, including our two tracks, are unavailable anywhere else. All of them are good. Go get one!


In other news, I just finished co-producing and playing drums on a full-length record for Small Sur. We're really proud of it. It'll be released at the end of the summer via a cool little Portland label called Tender Loving Empire. It's been fun working on "someone else's" music for a change, and being able to influence the result in a different way... There will be some more of that this summer, on a couple other friends' projects, if all goes according to plan.

There might be a low-key live appearance or two of our own music too. Stay tuned.

--Austin.

There's a long interview with me on BrightestYoungThings.com this morning -- go check it out!

It is here.

Thanks to John for the thoughtful questions.

If you're in the DC area tonight, come to Galaxy Hut to see Marian and I play few songs that we never played much with the band. There will also be beer and sandwiches, which is why we're going.

--Austin.

Year-end list season is definitely over, but I don't care. Here are my favorite records of 2007. No commentary this year, because I am lazy. Note locals at numbers 5 and 11!

1 Spoon, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (Merge)
2 Iron and Wine, The Shepherd's Dog (Sub Pop)
3 Radiohead, In Rainbows (self-released)
4 The Clientele, God Save the Clientele (Merge)
5 Monarch, If Children (self-released)
6 St Vincent, Marry Me (Beggars Banquet)
7 John Vanderslice, Emerald City (Barsuk)
8 Nina Nastasia & Jim White, You Follow Me (Fatcat)
9 Blonde Redhead, 23 (4AD)
10 Menomena, Friend and Foe (Barsuk)
11 Neil Cotterill, Moonshot (The Beechfields)
12 Dr Dog, We All Belong (Park the Van)
13 PJ Harvey, White Chalk (Island)
14 Sloan, Never Hear the End of It (Yep Roc)
15 Wilco, Sky Blue Sky (Nonesuch)

I will also take this opportunity to note that Marian and I will be playing a duo set, consisting mainly of songs we never played with the band, at Arlington VA's fabulous Galaxy Hut on Feb 25. As you may have gathered, we're not playing a lot in public these days, so if you're able to make it out to that, you should.

Other than that -- we're doing well, relaxing, working mostly on things non-musical (jobs, art, grad school) and a bit on things musical (writing songs in our living room that will probably stay in our living room for a while, getting that long-rumored Beechfields compilation finally finished). Hibernating is pretty nice in the winter.

--Austin.

PS: CDs still five bucks at privateeleanor.com! C'mon people, get these last few out of here.

We've been popping up on some best-of-2007 lists!

Al at City Paper's 'Noise' blog puts Sweethearting at number 15 on his top local albums list, and our April Walters Art Museum show at number 9 on his best live shows of the year list.

And local blog Feed My Face calls Sweethearting the number 8 local record of the year.

If you've seen others, please let us know.

And if you'd like to check out the record, we'll remind you that it's still available for the special price of only $5, at our special CD sale page.

The big news: We've already discussed this in person with a number of you who know us, but for everyone else, it's time to make the announcement: We'll soon be going on an indefinite hiatus. We all still like each other, and we're not thinking of this with the finality of a "breakup"... but after early 2008, there will be no more Private Eleanor shows planned for the forseeable future.

There are a lot of reasons for this decision, but the short answer is that we feel we need a break from being in a band, and some time to try other things. I won't speak for my bandmates, but I personally am quite excited about hibernating for a while, writing and recording at home, and focusing on just making music for myself again. In the meantime, though, there are a couple of final shows in the works, and two compilation album appearances: Love Goes On, the tribute album to Grant McLennan, on which we cover a Go-Betweens song, is out now on Rare Victory Records; and two new PE recordings will appear on the Beechfields Record Label compilation this winter.

CD clearance sale! Here's the biggest thing for now: We're also trying to make sure all the remaining copies of our CDs make it to good homes... So we're having a big clearance sale on all three of our remaining titles: Only $5 per CD when you buy them directly from us (at http://www.privateeleanor.com/cdsale.html), and we'll even ship them to you for free! We have a limited number left of Sweethearting, No Straight Lines, and My Pious Friends, and we won't be getting any more pressed when they're gone, so go snap them up now! If you have friends who might enjoy our music, please forward them the link -- or just buy them a copy!

(Note that Sweethearting will remain available digitally through iTunes, but we have no control over what they charge, which means it will remain $9.99. I'd say it's better to pay us half that and get a CD with uncompressed sound quality and a cool foldout poster... but the choice is yours.)

We are incredibly grateful to every one of you who has come to a show, bought a CD, or offered words of encouragement (or a floor to sleep on) over the past few years. Having the opportunity to meet so many great people has been one of the best things about being in this band. Thank you.

Going out of print!

The three Private Eleanor albums that are currently available as of this writing (Sweethearting, No Straight Lines, and My Pious Friends and Drunken Companions) will likely be going out of print soon! When the current pressings of these records are gone, we do not plan on repressing them -- probably ever. Once they're gone, they're really GONE.

So if you have ever thought about picking up one of our records... or you've been meaning to check out one you don't yet own... or you've always enjoyed the songs here on this page but never got around to buying a disc -- Now would be a REALLY good time!

All three CDs are available directly from the band on our website.


Oh, but there's new music coming!

That's right, as the Private Eleanor catalog passes into out-of-print-ness, new PE music is on its way, in the form of two compilations.

First, Love Goes On (a tribute to Grant McLennan of the Go-Betweens) is released in October, featuring our cover of the title song -- alongside tracks from the Clientele, the Bats, Portastatic, Ivy, Stars, and a bunch of other great bands. Rare Victory Records is taking preorders for the album now!

Then, this winter, The Beechfields will release its first compilation album. Private Eleanor is contributing two never-before-heard recordings: Our cover of an unreleased pupa's window song called "Capitan" (recorded during the Sweethearting sessions at Silver Sonya last fall) and a new song called "Scare Yourself to Death". We're excited to have both of these out for everyone to hear. More info about this release coming soon...

Still don't have a copy of Sweethearting? (It's OK, you're not alone.) Let's remedy that. It's so easy:

Places to order real CDs (for ten bucks or less!)
The Beechfields (our label. good people. cheapest here, probably.)
Amazon (you know it. free shipping if you buy a couple other things, I think.)
CD Baby (by popular demand. stream the record before you buy.)
Atomic Books (baltimore institution, and proud PE supporters. support them!)
straight from us (we will love you.)

Digital stores for instant gratification
iTunes
Emusic

So many options! So few dollars required! Do it!