Pitchfork

Following their New York concert on August 5th, indie pop legends and Elephant 6 remnants Beulah will be closing the curtains on a decade-long career that's made them one of indie rock's best-loved bands. Wait. Does this sound familiar? If so, it's because they treated your pals at Pitchfork to one of the most ambiguous break-up announcements ever in January of 2003.

Initially, guitarist Bill Swan had reported the following quote, regarding their then-forthcoming album Yoko, on their website: "This record (our fourth and final) should come out next fall barring something unforeseen. As usual, we will tour to support it (there will be more than one round of touring). Then, not as usual, we are going to call it a day, go home to our wives, girlfriends and kids, get real jobs and become adults."

But on the day following our report, their website retracted the statement in a cryptic and possibly ironic fashion: "We just read an online article that said we're gonna be breaking up after the release of our next record. This news made all of us so sad that we've decided to stay together until each of us dies." What?

I guess the bottom line is that no one was really sure what Beulah were going to do. But now, the breakup appears to be for real-- at least, judging from a statement released to Billboard. In many ways, this news seems a long time coming, particularly given vocalist Miles Kurosky's quotes to Rolling Stone last year regarding the status of the band: "What I write about is not so much mortality, but the mortality of being in a band: How long can this last? Here I am in an indie rock band that's done quite well and done a lot of things we never thought we would. We've played festivals, we've been on Conan O'Brien... but at the end of the day I wonder what I've done. All I got is some crow's feet. What's the fucking prize?"

The group has three more dates on their itinerary, with one happening tomorrow night at Denver's Bluebird Theater. On the 26th, they'll hit the Fillmore in San Francisco, before finally working their way around to the aforementioned final gig, to be held at the Castle Clinton National Monument in New York's Battery Park, with free admission.

As previously reported, the band has recorded a copious amount of material for an upcoming DVD documentary titled A Good Band Is Easy to Kill. The disc is expected to see release in the fall, though rumors that the film will expose their tawdry Fleetwood Mac-style inter-band relationships are as yet unconfirmed. In fact, the rumors themselves might be completely fictitious; it's just hard to say with these guys. Last leg:

06-15 Denver, CO - Bluebird Theater
06-26 San Francisco, CA - The Fillmore
08-05 New York, NY - Castle Clinton National Monument (final show)