The Broken West (f/k/a The Brokedown) news.

Since I already revisited Joe Kennedy earlier today, why not check in another band I featured earlier in the year? So here's some news about a band many of you may know as The Brokedown, who were forced to change their name to The Broken West. In case you were wondering why, here's what the band had to say:

Perhaps you have noticed something a little bit different about our profile. We are no longer called the Brokedown. We are now The Broken West. This will take some getting used to. Here's the story, in an attempt to head off future explanations: The Brokedowns threatened to sue us if we didn't change our name. We're a real band, with a real record coming out, so we don't have a lot of time for frivolous lawsuits with wayward Nazi-youth punk bands. So we changed it. We hope you all can adjust, as we have (kind of).

Anyway, the big news with The Broken West is that they're about to put out a full-length disc through Merge Records, titled I Can't Go On, I'll Go On, which is due out January 23.

They have three tracks from the album on their myspace page, although one of them ("Down In The Valley") was on their great 2005 EP, The Dutchman's Gold. For more on that EP, and a couple of still-working mp3 links, head to my original post from March right here. In case you don't want to click through, here's what I had to say about them back then: "Although a lot of bands have both power pop and alt-country influences, they managed to create a fairly unique sound of their own that draws from the best of both. They cite Big Star, ELO, The Byrds, Rolling Stones, Wilco, Flying Burrito Bros. as influences, with good reason."