LC!

It is our great pleasure to announce that this coming October we will be returning to the United States for a run of shows along the East Coast and down a bit. They are as follows…

10/08/10 – Toronto, ON @ Wrongbar (19+)
10/09/10 – Laval, PQ @ Maison des Arts de Laval (All Ages)
10/10/10 – South Burlington, VT @ Higher Ground (All Ages)
10/12/10 – Philadelphia, PA @ Johnny Brenda’s (21+)
10/13/10 – New Haven, CT @ Toad’s Place (All Ages)
10/15/10 – Brooklyn, NY @ Music Hall of Williamsburg (16+)
10/16/10 – Brooklyn, NY @ Music Hall of Williamsburg (16+)
10/17/10 – Baltimore, MD @ Ram’s Head Live (21+)
10/18/10 – Carrboro, NC @ Cat’s Cradle (All Ages)
10/20/10 – Atlanta, GA @ Variety Playhouse (All Ages)
10/22/10 – Dallas, TX @ Granada Theatre (14+)
10/23/10 – Austin, TX @ La Zona Rosa (All Ages)
10/24/10 – Houston, TX @ Warehouse Live
10/26/10 – St. Louis, MO @ Firebird (All Ages)

I will update with news of age restrictions as soon as I am made aware of them all. As ever, we will endeavour to make as many shows All Ages as possible.

Apologies if we’re not playing somewhere that you want us to be playing.

Support to be announced soon.

PLUS as an initial offer, if you buy a ticket for any of the tour dates from GalleryAC.com you will receive a digital copy of our recent ‘All’s Well That Ends’ EP, FREE.

Here’s a video Ellen made of our last US tour. MAGIC:

April
25 Boston, MA Paradise Rock Club (18+)
26 New York, NY Irving Plaza
27 Washington, DC 9:30 Club
28 Covington KY Mad Hatter Club
29 Madison, WI Majestic Theatre
30 Chicago, IL Cabaret Metro
May
01 Minneapolis MN First Avenue
04 Seattle, WA Showbox Theatre
05 Portland OR Hawthorne Theatre
07 San Francisco, CA The Regency Ballroom
08 Los Angeles, CA El Rey Theatre
10 Pomona CA The Glass House
11 San Diego CA San Diego Women’s Club

If you look to the listings above, you will see how we hope this tour to pan out.

Incase you’ve not become aware previously, due to the erupting of a volcano in Iceland, all flights in and out of the united Kingdom have been stopped dead for the past 5 days. An upshot of this has meant that we have been unable to travel to the States.

More recently, flights have begun to be allowed, however as we were due to fly on the 15 April, we are no longer a priority to the airlines. Sadly it’s not a case of us being able to jump on the first flight over, we have to wait our turn.

I’m very sorry that we have disappointed some with the necessary cancellations, though obviously you appreciate that everything has been totally out of our hands. Please, if it offers any comfort, consider how sad you might be to miss us and multiply it by several million to get somewhere near how gutted we are to be on the other side of the world, missing these shows, missing you guys and hemorrhaging money.

But, all is not lost, and hopefully we will be with you on the weekend.

The gist is this.

Tonight’s Toronto show, and tomorrow’s show at Maxwell’s, New Jersey are CANCELLED

Thursday’s New York show rescheduled for Monday 26 April.

Saturday’s Boston show will happen one day later than orginally planned on Sunday 25 April.

It just remains to say thank you very much to Alun and Ffion at Ankst for working so tirelessly to get us on flights and keep us in the loop, and Matt Hickey and his guys in the States for helping re route this tour.

One thing I am certain of, when we make it to you, these are going to be the most violently euphoric shows we have ever played.

So, as I’m sure most the world is aware by now, currently all flights in and out of the UK are cancelled due to the eruption of an Icelandic volcano creating unsafe flying conditions. This leaves us with a US tour unravelling without us there to take up the twine. As it stands, the first four shows of the tour have had to be cancelled, as we are stranded in the UK:

16 April Purchase, NY Culture Shock Festival
17 April Hoboken, NJ Maxwell’s
18 April Laval, Quebec Maison des Arts De Lava
19 Burlington VT Higher Ground Showcase Lounge

We are obviously very disappointed not to be able to make these shows.

One good piece of news is that we have been able to reschedule the Maxwell’s show for next week, so, that Hoboken show will now take place

RESCHEDULED SHOW: 21 April Hoboken, NJ Maxwell’s

Of course, all tickets dated 17 April will be honoured, but also a few extra tickets have been made available, anticipating that not everyone who bought a ticket will be able to attend this ‘Sold Out’ show.

I hope that all makes sense. If not, read it again, a bit slower.

It’s a really odd feeling being stuck here, missing shows we’re desperate to be playing and having no control and absolutely nobody to blame. Everybody we work with has gone above and beyond to keep us informed and make sure we have places to stay in the meantime and that we get on The First Plane Possible, and we thank the promoters of the shows we have to miss for being understanding, and any of you guys missing out on shows, also. And Cymbals Eat Guitars for waiting for us!

At the moment, we hope to be able to fly tomorrow (Sunday), but obviously this could change. We will keep you updated. When we do finally make it out you can guarantee we will be full of vigour and ready to play the shows of our lives.

Thanks guys,

G

I thought perhaps it was a good idea to publicise our UK shows coming up in May. After our next jaunt to North America we’ll return to play our biggest UK shows yet, including huge headline performances in London and Cardiff.

May 20 Shepherds Bush Empire, London BUY TICKETS
May 21 Solus, Cardiff BUY TICKETS
May 22 Sound City, Liverpool (w/The Maccabees)
May 29 Dot To Dot Festival, Bristol BUY TICKETS
May 30 Dot To Dot Festival, Nottingham BUY TICKETS
May 31 Dot To Dot Festival, Manchester BUY TICKETS

Support for Cardiff and London shows to be announced soon.

Also, we have started to confirm some festival appearances for this Summer. So far we can tell you we’re playing Wakestock and Underage Festival, but there are plllllllenty more to come. Keep a look out on our myspace page for all upcoming gigs.

A little lacking in spin right now, as we just played the show of our lives last night and my whole body, inside and out, ACHES. But we, the full eight piece LC! (let’s just call it “LC!”) will be playing in these places, on these dates.

(All details to be posted shortly. To confirm, the Toronto show is DEFINITELY all ages. Most of these shows will be)

April
17 Hoboken, NJ Maxwell’s
18 Laval, Quebec Maison des Arts De Lava
19 Burlington VT Higher Ground Showcase Lounge
20 Toronto, ONT Phoenix Theatre
22 New York, NY Irving Plaza
23 Princeton, NJ Terrace Club at Princeton University
24 Boston, MA Paradise Rock Club (18+)
27 Washington, DC 9:30 Club
28 Covington KY Mad Hatter Club
29 Madison, WI Majestic Theatre
30 Chicago, IL Cabaret Metro
May
01 Minneapolis MN First Avenue
04 Seattle, WA Showbox Theatre
05 Portland OR Hawthorne Theatre
07 San Francisco, CA The Regency Ballroom
08 Los Angeles, CA El Rey Theatre
10 Pomona CA The Glass House
11 San Diego CA San Diego Women’s Club

Above, please view our new Merchandise, which you can obtain from the “Buy Merch” link to the left of this blog post.

Black “We’ve Got Your Back” tee designed by Mr C M Ruiz (he who did all the WAB,WAD art)

White “Heart Swells” tee by Sparky Deathcap and myself.

‘Romance Is Boring’ Mugs, my crappy handwriting.

All will be available at our coming shows.

LC! GLOCK AUCTION

In the past three years of doing interviews I’ve constantly been amazed at how much interviewers seem to care about the fact some of our songs include a glockenspiel. Not just casual mentions but whole interviews centering around the thing, as if there’s actually anything interesting to be said about it.

The glockenspiel was an accident. I borrowed it from school one time to use in mine and Kim’s old band, and kind of forgot to ever return it. It wasn’t a deliberate steal, but I don’t feel too guilty about it as glockenspiels were ten a penny at my school. Thrust into the hand of any poor, uninterested child in compulsory music lessons, after they’d mastered Merrily We Roll Along on the recorder, and driven the teachers nuts by exhausting every preset rhythm track on the keyboards.

In the band’s formative stages our songs were either the ‘pop hits’ of yore (Death To Los Campesinos! (then catchily known as Track 1), Y! M! D!, Broken Heartbeats…) or these by numbers post-rock efforts we knocked up (I actually thought they were alright). Having no musical ability and enough common sense not to insist upon doing some spoken word whine about girls on top of these songs, I turned to the glock for something to do with my hands. And it stuck. I wish I just opted to use the opportunity to go to the bar.

It’s served us well. For better, for worse I think we’d be near the top of any list of “bands what use a glock”, and I’m sure it’s a buzz word that piqued a few peoples’ interest in us, but it’s become the bane of my existence. I look around onstage and see my friends thrashing at guitars, or hitting the shit out of drums, or even masterfully taming a violin, and then I look to the end of my arm and see myself clutching at this dainty beater, and as I do so I physically feel my testosterone levels decline.

Y’see, I KNOW that nobody looks at somebody playing a glockenspiel and thinks “He’s cool, I want to be like him”. They more likely think “he wets the bed”. Nobody’s ever got laid off the back of playing the glockenspiel, and let’s face it, that’s the whole reason people start bands in the first place. It would almost be worth it if I could play it well, but I play glock in the same way Richie Edwards played the guitar. I’m mostly just coasting along thanks to my good looks.

People have come up to me after gigs (some of them GROWN ADULTS) and said that they’ve bought a glockenspiel (actually, they usually say “xylophone”, but I know what they mean) off the back of liking our band. I feel awful. It’s like how Davina McCall would feel if someone came up to her and said “I loved you in Streetmate so I started taking smack”.

And so, it’s with a heart full of helium that I’m auctioning off Los Campesinos!’ first ever glockenspiel. This piece of crap was used on our initial demos, the Sticking Fingers Into Sockets EP, and on Hold On Now, Youngster… . It’s travelled all over the world, had numerous pints of beer spilt over it and always been treated with a firm but sensual hand, emasculating me time after time. All money made from the sale of the thing will be donated to the relief effort in Haiti, so if you’d like to own it (and I know that YOU obviously don’t), please bid far more than it’s actually worth.