Chris Walla's solo LP master drive has been seized by the United States government. Why? Well, turns out it's politically charged and we live in a fascist state.
Walla told MTV, "It's a true story. Barsuk [Records, which is putting out the record] had hired a courier — who does international stuff all the time and who they had used before — to bring [the album] back from Canada, where I was working on it. And he got to the border and he had all his paperwork and it was all cool, only they turned him away, and they confiscated the drive and gave it to the computer-forensics division of our Homeland Security-type people."
Goddamn it USA. So where is it? "And now I couldn't even venture a guess as to
where it is, or what it's doing there. I mean, I can't just call their
customer-service center and ask about my drive. There's nothing I can
do. I don't know if we can hire an attorney ... is there a black-hole
attorney? You can't take a black hole to court."
Walla has the back-up tapes to the disc (which he's calling Field Manual) and expects that he can mix it for a January 29th release. And he's still got a positive attitude about it: "I still get to play music. I mean, I'm not at Guantánamo or anything like that. I mean, my drive might be. They could be water-boarding my drive for all I know."
Things look good for that release and Barsuk Records has just put out a press release confirming it. They also add: "Interestingly, a strong political thread runs through the record's lyrics; Walla takes more than a few shots at U.S. policy, both at home and abroad, and challenges at least one senator to find the exit door..."
It's official: I'm scared of my own country.
