Alise Marie
Mercury Rev will continue their Deserter’s Songs anniversary tour in December.
The band have been touring their fondly remembered 1998 album since mid-April, and they’ll now head back to the UK in December for more shows in Cardiff, Portsmouth, Birmingham, Leeds, Newcastle, Manchester and London.
“We had no management, no label, no money and to be completely honest, no one clamoring for a new Rev album anywhere in the world,” Jonathan Donahue has remembered. “In fact, on the 2″ tapes during the late recordings Dave Fridmann didn’t write Mercury Rev and instead he used the name Harmony Rockets, a recent experimental side project of ours.”
“The way we saw it, Deserter’s wasn’t going to be our next album…it was going to be our last. And likely only released on cassette to our friends…In fact, the only copy I’ve kept of Deserter’s Songs from that time is on cassette.”
“If anything, these upcoming live shows are by far the closest in spirit and nature to the original writing of that time. Near silent, apprehensive, fragile to the point of ‘touch it and it turns to dust’. So full of self-doubt.”
“The melancholy many hear on the album went in to album from the start, maybe long before it. Like from a mother to her unborn child, sadness and bewilderment just poured out us and into the album like an open cup.”
Tour dates:
October
12-14 – Desert Daze Festival
16 – The Chapelm San Francisco, CA
18 – Mississippi Studiosm Portland, OR
19 – Tractor Tavern, Seattle, WA
26 – Music Hall of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY
December
8 – Cardiff, Gate
9 – Portsmouth, Wedgewood Rooms
10 – Birmingham, Glee Club
13 – Leeds, Brudenell Social Club
15 – Newcastle, St Nicholas Cathedral
16 – Manchester, Royal Exchange Theatre
18 – London, Oslo