Dave Davies News

The first release in eight years from Golden Smog, the alternative supergroup featuring Wilco's Jeff Tweedy, Soul Asylum's Dan Murphy, Big Star's Jody Stephens and the Jayhawks' Gary Louris, will arrive in stores this summer.

Lost Highway has set July 18 as the release date for "Another Fine Day." Marc Perlman and Kraig Johnson round out the band's lineup.

Again sporting separate songwriting contributions from Tweedy, Louris, Perlman, Murphy and Johnson, the band's fourth album is composed of 14 originals and a cover of "Strangers" by the Kinks' Dave Davies, sung by Louris and Tweedy.

The first Golden Smog album to follow Wilco's ascension to "it"-band status and reports of a Jayhawks breakup, "Another Fine Day" was recorded last year in two sessions, the first sans Tweedy and Stephens in the south of Spain, the second with the full band in Minneapolis.

"Another Fine Day" began to take shape when bassist Perlman was asked to write a song for a Guy Ritchie-directed Corvette commercial. While the song was never used in the ad, the core band of Perlman, Louris, Murphy and Johnson got together and began writing the first half of the record. "It was four guys mumbling into a microphone for a few sessions and going, 'Oh, this could be a song,"' says Louris.

Debuting with a covers EP in 1992, the occasional band has at different points also featured Soul Asylum frontman Dave Pirner, ex-Replacements drummer Chris Mars, Noah Levy of the Honeydogs and violinist Jessy Greene of the Geraldine Fibbers. Although Golden Smog had been virtually dormant since wrapping a tour behind 1998's "Weird Tales," last year Louris, Perlman, Murphy and Johnson played a handful of Golden Smog dates sans Tweedy.

Reuters/Billboard