Memphis, TN: At at unannounced press conference this morning, The Blaggards announced the release of a career retrospective box set entitled "First Pull Up, Then Pull Down." The eight box set (six audio CDs and two DVDs) will contain highlights from the band's four-year history including "some surprises" but no actual music or videos of the band. "We really wanted to have some music on the box set," said guitarist Steve Prisco, "but we haven't really recorded anything. We've been busy doing other stuff." The band has tentative plans to record so the CDs in the box set will be blank recordable discs. "This way when we do get around to recording, our fans can just make their own discs," explained drummer Tom Ryan, "or they can use them to make copies of the new Coldplay record, which is what I'm going to do." The two DVDs include "some cool YouTube videos of kids doing some crazy shit" according to bassist Mick Hargreaves, who added "I can watch this stuff for hours." Also on the DVD is a copy of the classic sci-fi comedy "Buckaroo Bonzai" just because "it rocks."The box set has a cutting edge packaging design as well. "With Green being the big buzzword these days, we decided to do the right thing," said guitarist Rich Umbach, "We asked our selves what would Bono do?" The band actually asked Bono but he did not return their call. "We were sitting around one day and it just hit us" continued Umbach, "what is the most environmentally friendly packaging? NO packaging!" The band decided that their box set would be the first box set to have no box. "No box, no jewel cases, no book - nothing!" exclaimed Prisco, "just the discs themselves and we considered not even including them." When asked if this would make purchasing and shipping the "non" box set difficult, Ryan replied, "well I guess ... if we thought we were actually going to sell any."
With hopes of having the collection ready for the holiday season the band is heading into the studio. "We are going to record a bunch of out takes, b-sides and alternate versions" said Hargreaves, "because this is the kind of stuff people buy box sets for" adding that the band would record actual songs "if they have the time."
