On January 12, a devastating earthquake struck the Port au Prince area of Haiti, causing devastation and loss of life that is still untold.

As things would have it, a very close friend of the Dromedary family was just outside Port au Prince, delivering supplies to several Haiti’s many orphanages when the quake struck. While waiting for news of her safety and whereabouts, we began learning of the degree to which that country – already the most impoverished in the Western Hemisphere – was suffering.

While our friend is, thankfully, home safe, the same can not be said for hundreds of thousands of Port au Prince residents. With many still trapped in the rubble, the death toll cannot be reported even two weeks later. And the number left homeless, orphaned, or injured is massive – a humanitarian crisis like we’ve never seen in our part of the world.

During the week of January 18, we began to hatch a plan to release a benefit compilation, and make it available digitally on the internet. We began reaching out to some of our favorite bands – inside and outside the Dromedary family – and were genuinely moved by the generosity with which everyone responded.

The result will be _Make The Load Lighter: Indie Rock for Haiti_. Inspired by the Haitian proverb “Many hands make the load lighter,” the compilation will be available direct from the Dromedary website, as well as from traditional online retailers like iTunes and eMusic, with *all* proceeds to benefit “Voice Of Haiti”:http://www.vwaayiti.org/ – a volunteer organization headed by filmmaker/activist James M. Felter and Haitian-American businessman/educator Eddy Remy. While Voice Of Haiti has been funding and promoting environmentally friendly, self-sustaining community development projects in Haiti since 2005, all donations are currently going directly to providing medical care to earthquake survivors.

Featuring tracks from indie rock visionaries like The Mommyheads, Moviola, There Will Be Fireworks, Stuyvesant, the Gena Rowlands Band and more, _Make The Load Lighter_ should be available for purchase on the Dromedary website by early February – stay tuned for more information.

(photo credit to Suzanne Buchanan; we love you and we’re glad you’re safe)

Cuppa Joe (or at least two-thirds of Cuppa Joe), this past Thanksgiving of 2009, playing their classic “French Toast.” This is one of the only recordings of Doug and Steve performing Cuppa Joe songs in nearly a decade.

“French Toast” was one of the songs on Cuppa Joe’s 1993 _busy work e.p._ initially released by Dromedary on vinyl, with charming, hand-colored covers.

Stay tuned, because Dromedary will be giving away a fresh, digital copy of _busy work_ right here on the Dromedary website.

And for those of you who still want the actual artifact, we have a few of the *original* seven-inch vinyl records, complete with those unique covers, hand-colored in a pizza-fueled frenzy by the band in Dromedary’s living room way back in the spring of 1993. We’ll make those available for sale as well.

And don’t forget – _Nurture_ is coming soon, and there will be some pretty special surprises – if you already have a copy, you’re going to want this one, too!

In late 1992, we received a demo tape that contained eight clever, well-written indie pop songs that showed more promise than any band we’d ever heard. Filled with pop sensibility, intelligent lyrics and the occasional crunchy guitar passage, *cuppa joe* enriched our lives with some of the most lovable indie pop we’ve ever heard, producing dozens of wonderful songs before breaking up in 1999.

Our first cuppa joe release, “meanings,” came from that demo tape and was featured on our (awful) 1993 debut compilation, _Nothing Smells Quite Like Elizabeth_.

Later that year, we released our first-ever seven-inch vinyl record, a three-song EP from cuppa joe called _busy work_ that helped put both Dromedary and cuppa joe on the map as a growing source for high-quality indie rock songwriting. _busy work_ also featured “bottlerocket,” probably the most popular individual song to ever be released on Dromedary (which, at the time, we billed as “the best song ever written” – which might actually be true). _busy work_ sold out of two pressings.

In 1994 we released a full-length debut CD from the band called _nurture_. The _nurture_ CD became our best-selling release up until that point, its 13 songs a shining example of the writing prowess of singer/guitarist doug larkin, coupled with the band’s exceptional ability to augment those songs to the point where they created a micro-indie masterpiece. The album was years ahead of its time, foretelling of a day when bands like Neutral Milk Hotel would rule the indie rock landscape.

After the release of _nurture_ the band produced a number of self-released recordings, and put out another 7″ on a small, Midwestern indie. Singer doug larkin and drummer/illustrator steve spatucci collaborated on the outstanding late 90s zine _Science Geek_, and eventually, the band and zine faded away as priorities changed.

Now, we’re proud to announce that we’ve teamed up with the guys from cuppa joe to make their music available to you once again.

Keep on the lookout for the _busy work_ ep, which we will release digitally on the Dromedary website for FREE DOWNLOAD in the near future. And then, we’ll be releasing a brand-new version of _nurture_, complete with previously unreleased tracks and an updated, remastered version of “sitting limit.”

Stay tuned!

The re-launch of Dromedary Records has been covered in a few cool online music sites over the past week. We’re posting them here, so you can read them all!

The day after our launch, we were the lead story on the “Sonic Scoop”:http://www.sonicscoop.com/?p=2749 website. What a great way to kick off the label.

Just a few days ago, our good friend Jim Testa of the legendary _Jersey Beat_ zine and website wrote a “feature story on Dromedary”:http://www.jerseybeat.com/ to coincide with our launch and with Footstone’s February 6 show at Maxwell’s.

Way back in 1992 when we first started, Jim was the first music journalist to do an interview with us, so it’s only fitting that he be the first music journalist to do an interview for Dromedary rev2.0.

And yesterday, the fine folks at _Blurt Online_ wrote what’s probably the best feature on Dromedary that there’s ever been. “Check out this story”:http://www.blurt-online.com/news/view/3224/ which as of this writing is still on the Blurt home page.

Thanks to these great sites for helping us spread the word!

Don’t forget – Footstone will be reuniting for their first show in ten years on Saturday, February 6 at “Maxwell’s”:www.maxwellsnj.com in Hoboken.

If you were part of the New York/New Jersey indie scene in the late 90s, this is big news. If you weren’t, come see what made the band so special.

They’ll be joined on the 6th by a reunited Friends, Romans, Countrymen as well as the Dark Brothers. FRC was another great NY/NJ indie band, two members of which have gone on to form the great band Stuyvesant with Ralph Malanga from Footstone. The Dark Brothers feature Josh Silverman, formerly of Bar/None recording artists Shirk Circus.

Should be a fantastic evening – hope to see you all there.

Here’s a clip of Footstone performing live at a private party this past September, the night that started this whole ball rolling.

Friend of Dromedary and cocktail genius Tom of “Tom’s Cocktail Journey”:http://cocktailjourney.wordpress.com/ was cool enough to write about us on his blog this week. Better yet, he invented a cocktail for us!

Tom’s new cocktail is called The Dromedary, the recipe for which he’s posted on his blog. For the benefit of our own readers, I’ll post it here as well – it’s a tequila drink, which makes it fun.

# 2 oz Gran Centanario Tequila anejo
# 0.5 oz Demarera simple syrup
# 0.75 oz lemon juice
# 2 dashes Fee’s whiskey barrel aged bitters

shake and strain into a martini glass
garnish with a lemon twist

I realize we all like the boh here (“boh” is Footstone’s word for “beer,” and if you’re going to come back here often, you’ve got to learn that word), but for those days when you’re required to drink a grown-up drink, now you have one.

And don’t forget to visit “Tom’s Cocktail Journey”:http://cocktailjourney.wordpress.com/. It’s another one of those personal blogs that’s absolutely worth reading, as Tom takes us through his life, cocktail by cocktail.

Prost!