Current News:

News 26 January, 2009

Hello all! Happy post-inauguration week. The big news today at ruffian is that the Hume LP "Hume Presents the Phat Daughter String Quartet" is out. You can order it here or through Dischord or ask your local record store to get it for you. The LP comes with a coupon good for a free digital download of the entire album, cover art, and liner notes. 

In Hume-related news, we'll be stocking the Barkitecture LP in our distro here. For those who don't know, Barkitecture is a trio of musicians including Britton Powell of Hume. Should be available sooner rather than later. 

Hume's on the road right now (see tour dates below). Go check them out.

News 1 January, 2009

Happy New Year! I hope you're all well. We have some news to kick off the year. First, the Hume Presents the Phat Daughter String Quartet LP will be out January 26th. It's a side of beautiful and challenging string quartet pieces backed with a side of dub reggae with elements of the string quartet pieces in it. Co-released with Sockets.  Hume is hitting the road in a week or so and have been at Swim-Two-Birds with Hugh recording new material. http://www.myspace.com/humesongs  

News 19  September, 2008

Heads up! The ruffian catalogue is now available digially through iTunes (worldwide), eMusic, Amazon.com, and Rhapsody. All out of print and unavailable releases are available through those stores. We'll be working on setting up a ruffian digital store as well. 

News Early August, 2008

Hello all, apologies for the typically long delay in news. We have quite a bit of it though.  

First of all, Equinox has been playing shows in and around DC this spring and summer returning to live performance after over two years of writing and recording. Early live configurations featured Justin and Collin of Sentai and Jess from Gestures alongside Saran and Hugh. The current configuration features Sean from Hand Fed Babies and Sam from piano/drum avant-punk rockers Baby Killer Estelle joined them on percussion at a show with DC's Turboslut and Portland's The Nw Bloods. John of The Cornel West Theory will be joining the line-up as well. The live shows have taken the place of recording activities but expect some kind of preview of the new recordings this fall.  

Hand Fed Babies is reconfiguring as well, with the addition of Justin from Sentai on drums, a transition for Hugh from synths and vocals to upright bass, and Sean picking up guitar and continuing towork the electronics. They are still working on getting songs together with this new line-up but are hoping to have something concrete soon. The HFB album "Line of Control" will be released as a joint venture between Ruffian and Sean's Sockets label. The label will most likely be released online before a CD release (more on this below).

Justin and Collin from Sentai have been playing in Gestures alongside Caution Curves' Rebecca Mills and a hell of a horn section. Collin has been playing in Buildings and Justin has been playing in Hypnoleopard. There are also rumors of a Harpoon Vs. Sixgun recording coming soon.

Aerialist has been playing shows again with an expanded line-up. Check it out. 

News 4 December 2007:
Sentai: Full Representation is out now! available over there via paypal----->
sorry for the delay on this website, broken computers....
thanks
Ruffians

News 18 September 2007:
Sentai is back from a short northeastern tour and is planning on releasing their album "Full Representation" this fall. The record was recorded by Don Zientara at Inner Ear and by Sentai at Swim-Two-Birds in the spring of 2007. Hand Fed Babies is taking a break from playing shows to write new songs and release their album "Line of Control" as well as coordinate the vinyl release of their self-titled EP (with bonus tracks) on Snakefork. Equinox is working away at their album. There are plans to finish mixing the Bird Noises/Polynation tracks recorded at Inner Ear as part of the DC Free Recording Project. Some kind of release is intended though we don't have the details yet. Creeping Nobodies, Mika Miko, Love of Diagrams, Japanther, and other friends of ruffian will be on tour in the coming days, go check them out.
Invisible stars, sing me to sleep,
hugh/sean/collin/ruffian

News 22 June 2007:
On May 31st we lost our dear friend Joe Amoury, who played in Bird Noises. While his loss is terribly painful, the joy he brought into the world with his music and friendship will be with us always. Our love and condolences to all his friends and family, those we know and those we haven't yet met. ostendent terris hunc tantum fata nec ultra esse sinent.
Peace, mountains of peace,
Ruffian

News 1 February, 2007
Hello everyone, sorry for the long silence. There have been a few changes around here lately. The first is that Collin from Sentai has taken over maintenance of the website. Sean has been working on his label Sockets CDR (see link above) and has tunred over his web duties to Collin. We already have band pages now on the site (up, but under construction) and we're getting more direct Paypal support on the site so you can buy records more easily on the site itself.

Since we last posted news, I, Hugh, have become a full time member of Sentai (after some months of being a temprorary replacement. This weirdly makes me a member of half the active ruffian bands. That's probably gonna change this year as we've been thinking about putting out some new records. Indeed we have our first CDR EP coming out in March. It's an EP by the band Bird Noises. They are a young, local punk band who have been tearing it up at shows in the area. It'll be available here before it's official release and they've been flogging them at shows so no need to wait.
Still no online download sales. We're working on it.
Also we are now a Dischord Partner label. The good folks over at Dischord have just put up their new website and you can find most available ruffian releases over there under "Partner Labels". Check it out!

Turn Pale have a new album coming out on Plan-it X and on vinyl on another label. It's fucking amazing. You should track it down.

Sentai had an incredible tour in Japan in November where we played with some incredible plans, saw some amazing places, ate really amazing food (though veganism is a bit tricky to negotiate over there), and felt healthy the whole time due to the vast quantities of unsweetened iced green tea that we drank. Big love to Shino for bringing us over.
We also played with Shift from Yamagata in DC in December and they blew the spot up. Don Zientara opened the show with some beautiful acoustic songs. To make the whole thing more of a family affair, Don was in the middle of recording an album for Shift when we all played together. Sentai will be going into Inner Ear with Don in March to track an album.

Hand Fed Babies are finishing tracking and starting to mix a new album at Swim-Two-Birds. We're also working on a vinyl release of our 2005 EP on Snakefork with some bonus tracks on it. The new record will feature a number of guest vocalists and drums on one song from Justin Moyer of Antelope.

Equinox is working hard on a new album also at Swim-Two-Birds. Rough mixes will probably start popping up at myspace.com/equinoxdc soon. Aerialist has returned to life as an active group. Check them out at myspace.com/theaerialist, The DC Free Recording Project has been going along at a fine clip. We've done five sessions and are booking the next five. DCFRP.com.

That's it for now. More news as we get it.
Hugh/Sean/Collin/Ruffian

This is the first Ruffian T-shirt. After cost almost all money from sales of this shirt will be donated to an organization or organizations working for marriage equality in DC. Organization to be determined so send us recommendations. The Human Rights Campaign is ineligible. Shirts are currently only red ink on grey shirt and sizes S, M, L, and XL but we'll expand the selection and sizes if there's any interest. Shirts are sweatshop-free and union-made. Shirts with slightly irregular print are also available for $15.

Sizes

L $20.00 XL $20.00 Irreg. S $15.00 Irreg. M $15.00 Irreg. L $15.00 Irreg. XL $15.00