Just in case you’d forgotten the second leg of the Melvins US tour kicks off soon, with dates in Canada and the West Coast of the US.  Much West Coast love recently.

Here are the dates:

August 28, 2010 – Minneapolis, MN – Grumpy’s ‘Amrep 25th Anniversary Bash’
September 1, 2010 – Toronto, ON, Canada – Opera House
September 3, 2010 – Montreal, QC, Canada – Club Soda
September 4, 2010 – Rouyn-Noranda, QC, Canada – FME – Le Petit Theâtre
September 15, 2010 – West Hollywood, CA – Troubadour
September 16, 2010 – Santa Barbara, CA – Velvet Jones
September 17, 2010 – San Luis Obispo, CA – Downtown Brew
September 18, 2010 – San Jose, CA – Blank Club
September 19, 2010 – San Francisco, CA – Slims
September 21, 2010 – Reno, NV – The Underground
September 22, 2010 – Orangevale, CA – The Boardwalk
September 24, 2010 – Portland, OR – Roseland Theater
September 25, 2010 – Seattle, WA – Crocodile Cafe
September 27, 2010 – Tacoma, WA – Hell’s Kitchen
September 28, 2010 – Bellingham, WA – Wild Buffalo House of Music
September 29, 2010 – Olympia, WA – Capitol Theater
September 30, 2010 – Spokane, WA – Knitting Factory
October 2, 2010 – Boise, ID – Neurolux
October 4, 2010 – Salt Lake City – The Complex
October 6, 2010 – Fort Collins, CO – Aggie Theatre
October 7, 2010 – Aspen, CO – Belly Up Aspen
October 9, 2010 – Santa Fe, NM – Santa Fe Brewing Co.
October 11, 2010 – San Diego, CA – The Casbah
October 12, 2010 – Costa Mesa, CA – Detroit Bar

Tickets at the usual outlets I imagine!

Here’s a bunch of news updates and things I’ve picked up of the last month but haven’t quite been motivated enough to create a new post for.

In case you missed it, Justin Chancellor will be appearing on a couple of tracks on the new Intronaut album Valley of Smoke.  The album will be released on the 12th of October so Rodney tells me.  No word on what Justin plays on but on track can be streamed on their Myspace site.

The X-Files/30 Days of Night issue #2 should be, or is very close to released now, and a review if can be found here.

Aaron Harris from Isis got married last weekend.  Several Tool members were in attendance so I heard, and according to Blair one of the wedding presents was a Danny Carey Signature Drum!  Congratulations to Aaron and Alexandra!

Maynard has a short interview in the latest issue of Relix Magazine, where he is featured in the Parting Shots section.  I haven’t read it but apparently the interview is largely about wine and doesn’t feature any real music news.  Thanks to Rick for that.

According to a leaked list of acts for the 2011 Soundwave Festival here in Australia, The Melvins will be joining the lineup. Other highlights for me include Primus, Queens Of The Stone Age, Slayer and High On Fire. If this is true, I’ll definitely be there.

The official announcement is tonight, so keep your hats on!

Update: Great news everybody: that leak has been confirmed as official!

A new interview with Adam popped up today where he speaks with Rick Florino from Artist Direct.  He talks about his art, his involvement in the recent X-Files comic and the idea of there being a Tool movie:

If the Tool story were to be made into a movie, who would be the perfect director for it, other than yourself of course?
(Adam) Wow, if it was made for TV, it would probably be Roger Corman. If it was a feature movie, it would probably have to be that German director Rainer Werner Maria Fassbinder, and it’d have to be in German with subtitles [Laughs]. I’m being positive but my life in Tool is exactly like Spinal Tap meets a Shakespearian play.

So Spinal Tap meets Hamlet?
Exactly, but in a good way [Laughs]. I really love being in Tool. I love what we do and the result of everything. There’s a lot of dysfunction but, at the end of the day, it’s amazing.

Worth mentioning is that some of his art will be showing at the Alternative Press exhibition at the Merry Karnowsky Gallery in L.A, which opens on the 9th of July.  According to the interview the piece on display will be the sculpture used for the Peach cover.

Thanks to Sampson for the tip!

According the Alternative Tentacles website Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine will be supporting Tool on their San Francisco and Sacramento dates later this month.   Check them out, they’re not bad, though personally I prefer Jello with the Melvins.  Perhaps we’ll see some more Dead Kennedy covers…

Thanks to Tooldude for the tip.

A couple of things came out from Maynard today, firstly he briefly discusses A Perfect Circle:

"I doubt if we’ll do any touring or, you know, do a full album," he said. "We might do some one-off shows here and there if the timing’s right and it seems like a good vibe and a smart thing to do. But most likely we’ll just kind of concentrate on, you know, one or two songs at a time, rather than investing all the time and money and effort into making those plastic discs that no one cares about anymore."

Apparently he appeared with Ashes Divide the other night, however from what I read nothing too exciting happened.

It was also confirmed that the Blood Into Wine DVD will feature:

• Interviews with Maynard and Eric Glomski
• Puscifer Live Footage
• Deleted scenes from the Tim and Eric Show

Should be out on September 7.

Bonnaroo took place over the weekend, and favorites of Fourtheye The Mevlins and Isis both performed.  Luckily for those that couldn’t make it their sets are available for streaming!  Enjoy:

• The Melvins
• Isis

Note: This post contains no Tool content (aside from a few Tool shirts I saw at the gig).  For those that can’t handle that concept, please move on!

Last night I was lucky enough to head into town with a mate of mine and check out a band I’ve been meaning to see in a small setting for some time now.  The Dillinger Escape Plan are a band I’ve been a fan of for a while now, and it seemed that every time they did their own tour here I missed the gig for one reason or another.  I was the lucky enough to check them out at Soundwave in 2009, and they put on a great show there, so I expected big things here.

This year, they toured playing a local small venue here called Fowlers Live, and I made sure I didn’t miss it this time around!  Also on the bill were American metallers Maylene And The Sons Of Disaster and Periphery.

The gig was all ages, and the last one I went to at Fowlers started really early, so this time I made sure I was there not long after the doors opened so I could catch Periphery.  They jumped on stage at about 7:30pm, which personally I think is far too early, and played to a crowd of maybe 100 people.  They put on a good show though, and seemed quite into it despite the lack of crowd response (there were a few die-hards jumping about). 

They played about 5 songs I think, all of which I think I recognised form their debut album.  Having 3 guitarists on stage was a little different – looked like there wasn’t much empty space on the already small stage!  I had a quick chat with the guys after the show as well, the seemed like really cool guys, and were genuinely happy to be give the chance to play Down Under.  I’m sure we’ll see them again soon.  I’m not sure these guys are really at their best yet, but I feel there’s potential for these guys to be a pretty good band.

Maylene And The Sons Of Disaster were up next, and I’m not really a fan of theirs.  Unfortunately for them their set didn’t change my opinion of them, so we hit the bar for a few Pale Ales.

Thankfully by the time Dillinger came on, the crowd size had increased somewhat, and it actually felt like their was an audience in front of the stage for once.  DEP seemed to have made an effort to bring their lighting rig with them, as the stage was filled with many more lights than are usually present at a Fowlers gig.  No fancy ones swinging from the roof though.

Dillinger Escape Plan hit the stage at about 9:30, and played for just shy of an hour.  Basically, they kicked ass.  The set list was more or less as you’d expect – a range of classics from all of their albums, with the highlight for me being the final song Farewell Mona Lisa.  As is expected at a DEP gig, they well full of energy, leaping all over the place, slinging guitars around and jumping into the crowd – all while a seizure inducing lightshow was on display.

Dillinger I felt where at their best when they played songs which varied the tempo from blisteringly fast, to more mellow and slowed down sections.  Mouth of Ghosts was a great example of this, and while I love the full on aspect of DEP live, my favourite parts of the set where the more mellow sections such as this.

The only criticisms I would have is that the sound was cranked partway through the set, and what started sounding pretty good, became a bit of a distorted mess in the end.  Could be just my old ears though…

Overall it was a great night, Fowlers is a cool little venue, and I always enjoy seeing bands there.  I thought the ticket prices were perhaps a little too expensive (after booking fees it was just under $70), though if I were a Maylene fan I probably would have thought otherwise.  The crowd size was disappointing.  I thought DEP would be more popular than this, but I guess Tuesday nights aren’t really conducive to big shows in Adelaide (or any other night I suspect…).  Shows starting this early suck as well, but being as they’re all ages on a Tuesday night, I guess that’s understandable.  Though I was happy with the lineup for the night, I wished there was a local support act – local music needs all the support and exposure it can get.

Didn’t have a great night with the camera tonight, Dillinger’s light show was a little tricky for my Nexus One, but here’s a snap of Periphery:

Here’s a bunch more Melvins dates that I may or may not have posted about in the past:

Jun 1     San Diego    Casbah   
Jun 2        Phoenix    The Clubhouse   
Jun 3     Albuquerque, NM    Launchpad Nightclub and Restaurant   
Jun 5        Austin         Emo’s   
Jun 6        San Antonio, TX    White Rabbit   
Jun 7        Houston    Warehouse Live   
Jun 8        Baton Rouge, LA       Spanish Moon Cafe   
Jun 9        New Orleans       One Eyed Jacks   
Jun 14        Athens, GA    40 Watt Club   
Jun 17        Philadelphia        Theater of the Living Arts   
Jun 18        New York City         Webster Hall   
Jun 23        Cleveland         The Grog Shop   
Jun 25        Chicago    Double Door   
Jun 26        Madison, WI    High Noon Saloon   
Jun 29        Denver        Ogden Theatre   
Jul 2     Calgary, Canada    Sled Island Festival   
Jul 3        Calgary, Canada    Sled Island Festival   
Jul 5        Vancouver, Canada        The Rickshaw Theatre   
Jul 6     Seattle        Showbox at the Market   
Jul 9        San Jose       The Blank Club

Safe to say that based on these dates The Melvins won’t be supporting Tool this time around.  Well at least not for all of the gigs anyway.

Anaphoria tweeted me that at the Volto! show over the weekend, John Z mentioned that there will be a Tool show in Los Angeles on the 20th of July.

In other news I found an interview with King Buzzo from the Melvins on Metalsucks.