Touch and Go RIP

hopefully the label Touch and Go will survive this current situation, but the distribution arm of Touch and Go Records, which we've worked with at Merge for almost 17 years, is shutting down this spring, which is incredibly sad for all of us at Merge and for all of independent music really.

Touch and Go Records as a label released some records that were (and are) incredibly important to me before Merge even existed -- Die Kreuzen, Big Black, Butthole Surfers, Scratch Acid, and then later on Slint, Jesus Lizard and more -- and hopefully they will be able to continue that, but the distro closing up is not a good sign for the rest of us in this world.