The MONITOUR Phase One: "On the Record"

Hello dear friends. It is our pleasure this day to announce phase one of THE MONITOUR, which, as you may have guessed, is the tour during which we shall promote our new record The Monitor. Get it? Moni-tour? Anyway. This first bundle of promotional exercises will occupy our time between our record release show at the Bowery Ballroom with Parts & Labor and the Babies (but you already knew about that, right?) on March 6th, and the annual South by Southwest music conference in Austin, TX, beginning March 17th.

During this time, we will forgo playing the typical "rock concert," as it were, and play primarily independently owned and operated record stores. These shows will be free, all ages, and typically take place in the afternoon or early evening. Why would we do a thing like this, you ask? Well, we would do it because it is important to us to stack our chips with the mom and pop businesses, stores that represent the best of our free market system, capitalism not going awry (for once!), and enrich the culture of their communities in a sound and decent fashion. With the demise of Tower Records, Sam Goody, et al, it is essential that we all show our support for these businesses, who are on the front lines of the war on cultural whitewashing. Besides, since these performances will be the first that we do with our record officially available, where better to celebrate its release? Yes, you surely agree by now, it is all too sensible.

All this will begin with a performance at Vintage Vinyl in Fords, NJ, a place near and dear to the hearts of New Jersey indie rockers everywhere. The full itinerary is below.

3/8 - Vintage Vinyl
51 Lafayette Road, Fords, NJ
8 PM

3/9 - My Mind's Eye
13723 Madison Avenue, Lakewood, OH
7 PM

3/10 - Used Kids
1980 N. High Street, Columbus, OH
7 PM

3/12 - Ear X-Tacy
1534 Bardstown Road, Louisville, KY
6 PM

3/13 - Reckless Records
1532 N. Milwaukee Ave, Chicago, IL
4 PM

3/14 - Vintage Vinyl
6610 Del Mar Avenue, St. Louis, MO
4 PM

3/16 - Good Records
1808 Greenville Avenue, Dallas, TX
6 PM

Well, I would guess that those shows are all going to be a lot of fun! I hope that we will see you there, yeah?

Speaking of that quaint, archaic process known as "buying records," let me give a big shout out to everybody that helped make The Monitor pre-order #4 on Insound this week! It was enough of a watershed moment that I just received a congratulatory phone call from my father, who also would probably love for me to point out that he is not the bad influence that he was made out to be in the recent Rolling Stone blog about our band. My old man is mad decent.

In other news, I just read on the internet today that we are going to be taking part in a very exciting event indeed once arriving in Austin for SXSW. Of course I refer to the "Fucked Up Saves Music" showcase that will be going down Saturday the 20th of March at Red 7 Patio. We played with Fucked Up a couple months ago at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple, and it is a great treat to share the stage with the first ever band to concurrently hold the titles of Greatest Punk Band and Greatest Shoegaze Band (okay, JAMC maybe? But that was a long time ago). Also appearing will be none other than Greatest Guitar Player Who Ever Lived, J Mascis! Katie Stelmanis and Rival Schools also - neat! Let's rock!

I feel like I had something else to say... didn't I see something cool on YouTube or something? Oh well.

Yr friend,
Patrick