Just think: they could’ve been called The Poppy Seeds. Or even worse (much worse): Death of Joey. You could be on the phone right now, in a Parallel Shitty Universe, telling your best friend, “Guess what, dude???? I just got tickets to the Death of Joey reunion!!!!” And then your friend would be like, “Oh, the little known movie The Accidental Death of Joey by Sue? Yeah, that didn’t get very good reviews and I had no idea what it was till I Googled it. Also it has a stupid name, although the concept sounds kind of cool.” Or more likely, “What the hell is that? Are you hanging out at suburban sports bars, dude? WTF.” But fortunately, at some magical point in the early 1980s, the band decided to go with The Jesus and Mary Chain. So now, if you’re one of the lucky few in Denton, New Orleans, Houston, or the greatest town ever SXSW, er… I mean… Austin, you can say “I am going to see The Jesus and Mary Chain reunion tour, good friend! Judge not!” And you can say it with pride. Because The Jesus and Mary Chain have just announced their first US dates since a faraway time known as 2008.
This 2012 incarnation of the brothers Reid includes guitarist and old school JAMC member John Moore, bassist Phil King and an as-yet-unnamed drummer. Who could it be???? So much mystery. What’s not a mystery is how bitchin’ the addition of Moore and King to this lineup is. After all, Moore is a noted saw player (seriously, he played the saw on an Art Brut track or two), a founding member of Black Box Recorder, and a dude “at the forefront of the revival of interest in Absinthe,” according to the wormwood heads over at Wikipedia.* King has also put in his time with JAMC, back in the 90s. He’s best known for playing with Lush and currently works as a picture researcher for Uncut Magazine. King is known to be at the forefront of a revival of interest in awesomeness.
* I someday hope to have a Wikipedia page where someone describes me as being “at the forefront of the revival of interest in Quaaludes.”
Dates:
03.11.11 - Denton, TX - 35 Denton Festival
03.12.11 - New Orleans, LA - House of Blues
03.13.11 - Houston, TX - House of Blues
03.14-18.11 - Austin, TX - SXSW
• The Jesus and Mary Chain: http://thejesusandmarychain.co.uk