Pitchfork

Shudder to Think have been teasing us with the idea of a reunion ever since their show at NYC's Mercury Lounge last fall. Since then, they've played an Obama-dedicated event and announced a set at the Virgin Mobile Festival in Baltimore this summer, but they've given no word of a full-blown tour...until now.

The tour will take place this summer and fall, with vocalist/guitarist Craig Wedren, guitarist Nathan Larson, and late-era drummer Kevin March recruiting Time of Orchids' Jesse Krakow to play bass and Gosling's Mark Watrous to play guitar, as they did at the Mercury Lounge gig. Unfortunately, original bassist Stuart Hill will not join the proceedings. On the bright side, Adam Wade, Shudder to Think's drummer on their classic Pony Express Record, will join the band on its West Coast dates.

This is Shudder to Think's first official reunion since 1998, and, as anyone who's noticed our plethora of exclamatory punctuation in stories about the band could have guessed, we're pretty psyched.

Not that they needed to justify it, but both Wedren and Larson had funny things to say about their reason for scheduling this reunion tour. "No, we did not get fat," said Larson in a press release, adding, "If anybody can send me guitar tabs for the Pony Express material, I'd greatly appreciate it."

Wedren was a little more straightforward, saying, "Our music is continuing to seep out, like syrup from a tree or the remains of a sweet, sticky picnic. Every day, new people-- many too young to have caught us during the first go-round-- are contacting us after 'discovering' our music. I'm constantly meeting people who feel the same way about our music that we do, and it makes me feel indescribably good. This tour is our way of saying 'thank you.'"

The tour is confined to North America at the moment, but more dates are in the works, so who knows what's in store?

Shudder to Think:
 
08-10 Baltimore, MD - Virgin Mobile Festival
09-05 Chicago, IL - Park West
09-06 Toronto, Ontario - Virgin Festival
10-03 Philadelphia, PA - Theater of the Living Arts
10-04 New York, NY - Webster Hall
10-11 Boston, MA - Paradise
10-25 New Orleans, LA - Voodoo Music Festival
11-01 Los Angeles, CA - El Rey
11-02 San Francisco, CA - The Fillmore