Chicago rock group Shellac will embark on a short European tour in late May and early June. The trio, which consists of iconoclastic vocalist-guitarist Steve Albini, bassist Bob Weston and drummer Todd Trainer, has had an unusually busy year already with tours in South America and Eastern Europe. Although they’ve played sporadic shows throughout their career, they’ve toured more frequently in the past year since releasing their fourth album, Excellent Italian Greyhound (Touch and Go). The trek finds them starting out at Barcelona’s Primavera Sound Festival and ending at Paris’s Villette Sonique fest. At the dates in between these festivals, the band will perform with Boston post-punks Mission of Burma, a band which also features Weston.
In other Shellac news, the group donated a copy of their rare, for-friends-only The Futurist LP in January to an auction that benefited Callum Robbins–son of Jawbox frontman J. Robbins–who is suffering from spinal muscular atrophy. In April, it was announced Albini would be recording the new solo album from Stone Temple Pilot Scott Weiland. Shellac’s next announced North American date is their September appearance at ATP New York, a three-day festival to be held in Monticello, New York, which was cultivated by re-formed shoegazers My Bloody Valentine.
Shellac tour dates:
May 31, Primavera Sound Festival - Barcelona, Spain
June 8, Moby Dick - Madrid, Spain
June 3, Teatro Jovellanos - Gijon, Spain
June 4, Antzokia - Bilbao, Spain
June 5, BT 59 - Bordeaux, France
June 6, L’Olympic - Nantes, France
June 7, Villette Sonique - Paris, France
Shoegaze fans, rejoice: My Bloody Valentine are coming back to the U.S. for what may be the most proper concert fest: All Tomorrow’s Parties, September 19th-21st, in lovely Monticello, New York, on the grounds of Kutshers Country Club. Can you think of a better place to roll around freaking out listening to looped feedback than a golf course?
If My Bloody Valentine alone aren’t enough to lure you to a weekend in the country (imagine the foliage!), read the rest of lineup, designed to make any indie rock fan who cut their teeth in the ’90s cream their figurative jeans: Shellac (Steve Albini), Mogwai, Polvo, Fuck Buttons, Autolux, the Drones, Low, Wooden Shjips, Edan, and Thee Silver Mount Zion Orchestra are slated to perform sets.
And how many times have you wished you could hear your favorite band play your favorite album in sequence, live? There will be plenty of that, too. Built to Spill will perform Perfect From Now On; Tortoise will re-enact Millions Now Living Will Never Die; the Meat Puppets will thrash out Meat Puppets II; and Thurston Moore will break Psychic Hearts.
Tickets go sale today (April 25) at atpfestival.com.