• News

• All

Mar 21, 2023 By Mark Redfern Photography by Amanda Jasnowski Pascual

Mega Bog (aka Erin Birgy) is releasing a new album, End of Everything, on May 19 via Mexican Summer, her first for the label. Now she has shared its second single, “Love Is,” via a music video. The song features backing vocals from Westerman. Allison Goldfarb directed the video. Watch it below, followed by Mega Bog’s upcoming tour dates.

Birgy’s close friend Austin Jackson, of jazz-punk band Dragons, originally wrote “Love Is.” Birgy and Jackson met in Flagstaff, AZ over a decade ago while on tour. “Austin wrote some of the most shameless and relatable love ballads of all my friends, but presented them through punk bands filled with musical witches practicing sex magic publicly in the smallest, wettest, and most haunted basements,” Birgy explains in a press release. “Another close friend, Tristan Jemsek of Dogbreth, also covered ‘Love Is,’ and has been an anthem in a specific circle of friends for over a decade. I’ve played a dance version for myself and at small, secret shows for years, and finally felt like it was time to share my version with the world.”

Of working with Westerman, Birgy adds: “The magic of ‘Love Is’ 100 percent needed a counterpart to plead through the reckoning of love imagined, love’s reality, and Westerman was a noble companion through this musical voyage.”

Previously Mega Bog shared the album’s first single, “The Clown,” via a self-directed music video. “The Clown” was one of our Songs of the Week.

End of Everything is the follow-up to 2021’s Life, and Another, released via Paradise of Bachelors.

Birgy co-produced the album with James Krivchenia of Big Thief, who also mixed the record and co-engineered it with Phil Hartunian. Krivchenia also plays drums on the album, which also features regular Mega Bog bassist Zach Burba, alongside Will Segerstrom, Meg Duffy (Hand Habits), Jackson Macintosh (Drugdealer, TOPS), and Westerman.

As Birgy got sober and started to work through her personal traumas, she decided to make a more direct record, writing on piano and synthesizer instead of guitar.

In a previous press release Birgy said she had the need “to feel… instantly. I didn’t want to dig into secret codes. I no longer wanted to hide behind difficult music. I was curious to give others the same with the music I create; to make music someone could use to explore drama, playfulness, and dancing, to shake the trauma loose.”

Mega Bog Tour Dates:

Wed. May 31 - Brooklyn, NY @ Baby’s All Right ^
Fri. June 2 - Los Angeles, CA @ Lodge Room *
Sun. Aug. 13 - Glasgow, UK @ The Hug & Pint
Mon. Aug. 14 - Manchester, UK @ YES (Basement)
Tue. Aug. 15 - Brighton, UK @ The Prince Albert
Wed. Aug. 16 - London, UK @ The Lexington
Thu. Aug. 17 - Sun. Aug. 20 - Brecon Beacons, UK @ Green Man Festival

^ = w/ Mary Jane Dunphe
*= w/ Julius Smack

Support Under the Radar on Patreon.