ARTIST
LACH

ALBUM
THE CALM BEFORE

LABEL
FORTIFIED RECORDS

RELEASE DATE
MARCH 25

WEBSITE

MYSPACE

MP3
EGG

I WANT TO BE WITH YOU

COVER ART
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PHOTOS
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LACH



ALBUM
The Calm Before

LABEL
Fortified Records

RELEASE DATE
March 25

BIOGRAPHY

New York, NY – January 17, 2008 – Antifolk founder and New York mainstay Lach will release his fifth LP, The Calm Before, on March 25th, 2008 through Fortified Records.  His new LP is his finest release to date: it’s heartfelt, intelligent, good-humored, and expertly constructed folk played with the irreverent attitude that has become the hallmark of the Antifolk scene. 

In 1983, a club booker at Folk City, located in Greenwich Village, turned down Lach, a young singer songwriter. His reason? Lach’s style of folk was too punk.  Lach then opened up his own club on the Lower East Side called the Fort; which hosted its first event the same week as the New York Folk Festival.  His event was called the New York Antifolk Festival, which is still held annually, now at his new club, the Sidewalk Cafe. 

Lach is credited with coining the phrase ‘Antifolk’, which has served as a launching pad for musicians like Beck, Michelle Shocked, the Moldy Peaches, and Regina Spektor.  His music is influenced by his conflicting love of Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie, versus his love of The Jam, Sex Pistols, and the Clash.  He has released four albums in twenty years, each one receiving rave reviews from everywhere from Billboard to Mojo to the NY Times. 

This March, his latest LP, The Calm Before, will be released through Fortified Records and delivers classic Lach tunes influenced by his love of folk and punk.  As always, Billy Ficca from Television handles the drum duties on the album.  It’s another 

Interesting tidbits about Lach… 
• The first album Lach ever bought for himself was …Never Mind The Bollocks, Here Come The Sex Pistols.
• Daniel Johnston illustrates the lyric booklet from Lach’s third album Kids Fly Free.
• His stage name was adopted from a Danish porn magazine in the seventies. Seriously…Google him. You won’t find out his real name.
• Lach's first album Contender was released on Danny Goldberg's label Goldcastle. Danny was managing Nirvana at the time he signed Lach. Three months after the album was released the label went bankrupt.
• Lach waited seven years after Contender to re-enter the studio and make his second album Blang!
• The 12 Bar Club in London has a monthly Antifolk night entitled Blang! after Lach's album.
• Once, when Bob Dylan came by to see Lach, our hero was too hung-over to let him in.
• Lach was thrown out of The Lone Star in NYC for yelling, "You're in America now pal!" and hitting Billy Bragg with a pack of Marlboros during Bragg's pro-communist speech.
• Lach discovered the artist Nellie McKay, managed her, and in less than six months created a bidding war that resulted in her signing with Columbia Records.
• Lach has over 2000 comic books under his bed.
• Lach and Townes Van Zandt once plowed through a Gordon Lightfoot crowd in a golf cart they commandeered for the occasion.

Previous praise for Lach: 

4 Stars! Splendid! Best of it’s kind!

- Mojo 

Lach is a star! More Woody Allen than Woody Guthrie and a raised middle finger to the folk purists.

- NME 

Lach is the mastermind of Antifolk, like a Lower East Side rendezvous of Bob Dylan and Patti Smith. Like black snow, stalled subway cars and random violence, Lach is a Manhattan institution.

- NY Times 

A wholly enjoyable voyage into a strange and brilliant musical mind!

- Billboard