Circle Of The Brotherhood Vol 1: The Short-Lived WEEN Newsletter [1996]
Read the first (and perhaps, only?) volume released by the New Hope band. The xeroxed wonder is a time capsule from the Country Greats & Mollusk era
Back in 1996, WEEN created a newsletter for fans. It was called ‘Circle Of The Brotherhood,’ and it was a physical thing xeroxed in black and white, tri-folded, and mailed through the US postal service, as was the style at the time. If anyone knows how long it existed, please leave a comment and let us know. I only have the first volume, and it’s all I’ve ever seen, but it’s glorious.
With all the hype around the 30th Anniversary deluxe reissue for 12 Golden Country Greats, I felt like now would be a good time to scan this thing and upload it. It’s 4 pages total and features a picture of Dean and Gene with The Jordainaires on the front. They offer some details about the album’s recording process and announce the tour backed by The Shit Creek Boys. They even mention the Garcia-tribute song, “So Long Jerry,” which was cut from the final album. In other words, VERY relevant stuff.
Further highlights include references to Z-Rock Hawaii and Yoko Ono, as well as a section announcing The Mollusk. Note that they refer to “The Mollusk” as the working title, only to state later that “it has no title yet.” Further note how they state that they’re “not quite certain about the name of the label that’s releasing” Z-Rock Hawaii, only to list it with the label (Nip Guitar) 2 pages later. OH! They also announced that they’d begun working with Glenn McClelland!
Anyway… you can read it for yourself. That’s the point. If you’ve never seen this, though, it’s gold for those of us who are into this sort of shit. If this is the only volume they ever made of ‘Circle Of The Brotherhood,’ it sure captures a vital era of WEEN history.
