Pitchfork: The Minders on Tour This Summer

The Minders on Tour This Summer
Elephant 6 spinoffs still rating above "Joey"

I've heard rumors that Portland-based pop band The Minders' leader, Martyn Leaper, used to be a photographer for Thrasher, which is odd when you consider that his songs pay unabashed homage to Brian Wilson, The Beatles and The Kinks, rather than to more traditional skatepunk acts like Suicidal Tendencies and Sepultura. Does this strike anyone else as strange? Imagine the inverse: Say, a copyeditor for Smithsonian who also fronted an electroclash group. Two nights at North Six, Hiram P. Wigglesbottom and A.R.E. Weapons-- oh shit, my brain just fell out!

The Minders released their last record, The Future is Always Perfect, on Future Farmer Records, and it's this very platter of 60s pop recidivism they'll be showcasing on tour this summer. The Minders will also be playing material from their next album, due out on Future Farmer in January 2005. Bonusly (anything can be an adverb if you try), they'll be pimping an exclusive tour-only disc of unreleased B-sides. Surely, they'll also have some t-shirts with their name on them, stickers, buttons, maybe even... hoodies? Can we hope for hoodies? Cash in those war bonds and become a walking Minders window-display!

For this tour and new record, former Minders bassist Joanna Bolme will rejoin the fold, after having jumped ship for Jickdom with Steve "Crazy for Homonyms" Malkmus. No word on whether she'll be tetchy all night. Last time I saw the Jicks, Bolme stopped the set at least three times to complain that someone was "burning paper" and they needed to stop because it was "stinging [her] eyes." I figured it was just someone's shitty weed, until I stumbled across a brace of Bosnian refugees under the merch table, slow-roasting a spitted goat above crumpled up newsprint wads of the local progressive weekly. I know, crazy, right? Dates:

07-28 Denver, CO - Latimer Lounge
07-29 Omaha, NE - Oleaver's
07-30 Minneapolis, MN - 7th Street Eatery
07-31 Chicago, IL - Schuba's
08-01 Cleveland, OH - Beachland (w/Ken Stringfellow)
08-02 Rochester, NY - Bug Jar
08-03 Cambridge, MA - TBA
08-04 Portland, ME - Space Gallery
08-05 New York, NY - North Six
08-06 Carrboro, NC - TBA
08-07 Athens, GA - 40 Watt Club
08-08 Lexington, KY - Mecca
08-10 Fort Collins, CO - TBA
08-11 Salt Lake City, UT - Kilby Court