DARK STAR

LATEST NEWS

12 NOV — The Rotterdam coordinates check out. Four separate people wrote in with the same intersection and none of them know each other. I have added it to the map in red. If you were at that show and you have a ticket stub, please scan it and send it to me, I will host it here.

28 OCT — The Dark Star Map has been out for six weeks now and I have listened to it maybe two hundred times. The run-out groove on side B is etched with a string of numbers. They are not catalogue numbers. I checked. See below.

03 OCT — Added the complete 1989 European setlists, transcribed off tape by Marek in Kraków. Thank you Marek. You are a hero and the tape hiss nearly killed me.

THE BAND

DARK STAR formed in the winter of 1984 in a rehearsal room under a carpet warehouse. Five albums, fourteen years, no line-up changes, and a reputation for turning up in towns that were not on the tour poster. If you have only heard Cathedral of Rust, start at the beginning and work forward. It makes more sense that way. Not much, but more.

DISCOGRAPHY

Also: Lantern / Low Country 7" (1988, 500 copies, white sleeve), Live at the Astoria (1993, official bootleg), and the Finnish radio session that officially does not exist but which roughly 40 of us have on a ninth-generation cassette.

★ THE MAP ★

This is why the site exists.

Every DARK STAR album since 1987 has had a string of numbers hidden somewhere on it — the fadeout of "Iron Lantern," the inner sleeve of Nightfall Engine, the spine of Cathedral of Rust, and now the run-out groove of the new one. For nine years we all assumed they were pressing-plant junk. In 1996 Anneke in Utrecht read them as latitude and longitude and everything changed.

Every single one lands on a real place. Most of them are venues. Some of them are crossroads with nothing there at all. Below is the current plot. Send me yours.

       -20      -10       0       10       20       30       40
        |        |        |        |        |        |        |
  65 -  . . . . . . . . . . . . . ~ ~ ~ . . . . . 3 . . . . . . . . .
        . . . . . . . . . . . . ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ . . . . . . . . . . . . .
  60 -  . . . . . . . . . . . ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ . . . . . . . . . . . .
        . . . . . . . . . _ _ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ . . . . . . . . . . . . .
  55 -  . . . . . . . _ / 1 _ _ _ 2 _ _ _ _ _ . . . . . . . . . . .
        . . . . . . / _ _ _ _ _ 4 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . . . . . . . . . .
  50 -  . . . . . . \ _ _ 5 _ 6 _ _ _ 7 _ _ _ _ _ . . . . . . . . .
        . . . . . . . \ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . . . . . . . . .
  45 -  . . . . . . . . \ _ _ _ 8 _ _ _ _ _ _ 9 _ . . . . . . . . .
        . . . . . . . . . \ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . . . . . . . . . .
  40 -  . . . . . . . . 10 \ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . . . 11 . . . . . . .
        . . . . . . . . . . \ _ _ _ _ _ _ . . . . . . . . . . . . .
  35 -  . . . . . . . . . . . ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ . . . . . . . . . . .

The new coordinates. The run-out groove on side B of The Dark Star Map reads 41 01 N / 28 58 E. That is point 11. There has never been a DARK STAR show there. There is no venue at that address. Four of us have written to the label and received nothing back.

If you live near there, please go and look, and please write to me either way. Even "there is nothing here" is data and it goes on the map.

TOUR DATES — WINTER '98

Going to any of these? Take notes on the setlist and mail them in. I am building a complete performance database and I am currently missing all of 1991.

GUESTBOOK

★ SIGN THE GUESTBOOK ★  |  read all 1,204 entries

LINKS

• The Nightfall Engine Tape Tree — trading list, updated monthly
• Marek's Setlist Archive — 1984–1993, very thorough
• alt.music.dark-star — the newsgroup, read before posting
• Sepulchre Radio Recordings — the label, rarely updated
• Coordinates FAQ v3.2 — read this before you mail me