Pitchfork

Photo by Chrissy Piper

John Darnielle and the Mountain Goats are being a little coy with this "Last Happy Night of Your Life" tour of theirs. By adding two dates in San Francisco, they've made it that much harder to tell just when the titular night will occur. And if we're going to run out of happy nights soon, we'd like to know exactly when, thank you very much.

The silver lining here is that the Goats have said nothing about the relative happiness of our days. In fact, they look to brighten a few days with the release of a new EP.

The four-song EP will come as a double-7" limited to an edition of 666. Horse and Buggy Press is designing the covers, and Aeron Alfrey is doing the artwork. The four songs on the EP are all new and were recorded with the band's recent go-to producer, Scott Solter. Darnielle isn't parting with the tracklist just yet.

While physical copies of the EP will be available only at Mountain Goats tour dates, the band is setting up a website from which folks can download the EP in a variety of formats and pay what they see fit. "Part of the point of the exercise is to see whether that's a viable route for smaller-potatoes-than-Radiohead dudes like me," writes Darnielle.

As for when the digital version of this EP will materialize, Darnielle says, "I hope/expect/pray that the site will be ready within a month or so."

The Mountain Goats:

09-14 Dorset, England - End of the Road Festival
09-15 London, England - ULU
10-13 Chicago, IL - Park West *
10-14 Milwaukee, WI - Pabst Theatre *
10-15 Omaha, NE - Slowdown *
10-17 Denver, CO - Bluebird Theater *
10-18 Salt Lake City, UT - In the Venue *
10-20 Seattle, WA - Showbox *
10-21 Portland, OR - Wonder Ballroom *
10-23 San Francisco, CA - The Independent
10-24 San Francisco, CA - The Fillmore
10-25 Los Angeles CA - Troubadour *
10-26 Los Angeles CA - Troubadour *
10-28 San Diego, CA - Belly Up Tavern *
10-29 Tucson, AZ - Club Congress *
10-31 Lubbock, TX - Tequila Jungle *
11-01 Austin, TX - Antone's *
11-02 Dallas, TX - Granada Theatre *
11-03 New Orleans, LA - Republic *
11-05 Chapel Hill, NC - Cat's Cradle *
11-06 Washington, DC - 9:30 Club *
11-07 Philadelphia, PA - Theatre of the Living Arts *
11-08 Brooklyn, NY - Music Hall of Williamsburg *
11-09 New York, NY - Webster Hall *

* with Kaki King