The Poison Control Center’s never-before heard rock opera, A Nice Old-Fashioned Romance With Love Lyrics And Everything, will be out on 01/10/12 via Maximum Ames Records!

At the birth of the band in 1999 – before The Poison Control Center had ever performed live – they set out to make a sprawling 30-song debut opus rock opera, entitled A Nice Old-Fashioned Romance With Love Lyrics and Everything. Although the album was never released, it still beams with unfettered creativity, even 12 years later.

Like the legend of the Beach Boys’ Smile, A Nice Old-Fashioned Romance With Love Lyrics and Everything, was never finished. In fact, the original computer files were thrown away out of frustration with the project. Over the years as PCC gained notoriety from the likes of Pitchfork and AV Club, the unreleased record has become a much-discussed Iowa music myth – you could get a sense of what it might look or feel or sound like, but not see it, touch it or hear it for yourself.

The record, informally known as “The Bethany Album,” existed only as a few burned discs labeled with Fleming’s scribbled handwriting.

We at Maximum Ames Records are excited beyond belief that A Nice Old-Fashioned Romance With Love Lyrics And Everything is finally getting the proper release it deserves. We are only pressing 150 copies of this unheard, unfinished gem of an album and the historical blueprint to what would become one of our favorite bands. For the first time ever you can hear where it all began.

The story stars a college-aged rugby-playing girl named Bethany, her family, her boyfriend, and the songwriting boy who is obsessed with her and also can’t get over his high school rock band. The album incorporates a slew of influences that blossom on this home recording project that morphed into a piece of Iowa music history.

But wait, there’s more! As with any great historical release, A Nice Old-Fashioned Romance With Love Lyrics and Everything comes jam packed with replicas of PCC history – original handwritten lyric sheets, photos of the band from the era, correspondence between band members, photos of the real Bethany (the picture above is Bethany & her brother visiting their grandmother on Halloween; 1987) and detailed liner notes from Fleming and various other musicians who recorded on the album – all in a handmade package by Des Moines artist Avalan Wilson.

You’ll be able to pre-order your own copy of this first release in the MA Limited Series starting this upcoming Sunday, December 18th at noon! Every pre-order comes with a very special present: A digital download of the home demos of every song from The Poison Control Center’s epic 2010 album Sad Sour Future! After A Nice Old-Fashioned Romance With Love Lyrics And Everything, the band never stopped making home recordings. For Sad Sour Future, each band member made their own recordings of the songs they had written. This set of demos is what came out of that and represents what eventually turned into the mind-blowingly great album that Pitchfork.com says has “an agile sound, neither overeager or overblown.”