***RESISSUED ON VINYL!!! SMOG’s second album, Forgotten Foundation, is available again for the first time in fifteen years. In a recent, rare, interview, the notoriously tight-lipped BILL CALLAHAN had quite a lot to say about the period during which Forgotten Foundation was recorded: “That was during the Teenage Smog period. Half of this was recorded in New York City and half in Hibbing, MN... In New York I somehow managed to get a job at Playboy Magazine. I was the Playboy Advisor, or one of them. I didn‘t realize this but there is actually a whole committee who work on that column under a joint pseudonym and everyone has their own specialty department. So if a letter comes in about stereo equipment, it goes to the electronics guy. I was the Health and Grooming Dept. So if some letter came in like, uh, ‘Dear Playboy Advisor, The other day I was washing my hair in the shower when I noticed that some shampoo had dripped down and clung to my hair, you know, down there, and so I began to massage it in. I didn‘t think much of it until my mate noticed during our love-making how soft and manageable my pubic hair was.’ And then it would end with some question like, ‘Can you tell me if regular shampoo is somehow damaging to my Mr. Peabody and if so, is there a pubic shampoo on the market?’ And I would have to come up with some sort of response to this clown. I eventually got fired at an office party for... well, let’s just say those Playboy people aren’t quite as liberal as you might think. Anyway, you can hear car horns and squeaking brakes on some of the New York tracks. I moved then to Hibbing, MN, Bob Dylan‘s hometown and I got a job as a tour-guide in Dylan‘s childhood home. I just had to make sure no one touched anything and answer any questions anyone had about Dylan. There was this one guy who would come in about twice a week and he always asked the same question, ‘Was Dylan shampooing his pubic hair during the 
Planet Waves period?’ The staff all had to dress up like Dylan everyday. The management was really into this Affirmative Action thing so we had a black Dylan, a Dylan in a wheelchair and a lady Dylan. Oh, and once a week a retarded Dylan would come in and sweep the porch for half an hour.” (STREET DATE - 4/24/2012)