Singer-songwriter Ted Leo announced on his website today that the has signed with bigtime indie label Matador Records. He expects to release follow-up to 2007's Living With The Living sometime next spring, assuming Leo doesn't go all black widow on Matador, too.
We kid, we kid, but Leo hasn't had the best luck with labels the past few years. His longtime home, Lookout! Records, went bust thanks to mismanagement and Green Day pulling its catalog. Then he moved to respected Chicago-based indie Touch & Go Records for Living With The Living. Surely the label that had just celebrated its big 25th anniversary in grand fashion was a safe bet, right? Nope. Touch & Go essentially shut down earlier this year.
Leo had this to say in his announcement:
It's a weird position to be in – being able to look back from my middle age on an adulthood that has largely been spent working with some of the great labels that I so admired since I was but a young pup, and who's output and associations shepherded me along and helped me develop into the person and –ulp– "artist," for lack of a better term, that I am. "In the midst of all of the action," we sometimes can't afford to take in the broader perspective on our life's trajectory but I'm pleased to be able to sit here this morning, look back proudly on all I and we have done with Gern Blandsten, Lookout!, Touch & Go, and others, and then look ahead with drive and excitement to "the Matador years."
Here's hoping Leo has better luck on Matador. To mark the occasion, here's one of Leo's all-time greats, "Timorous Me," from 2001's The Tyranny Of Distance: