Pitchfork: The Advantage Gear Up for U.S. Tour

After you've obtained five hearts, the first thing you should do is head up to the north end of Hyrule and pick up the white sword. It really will make things much easier. And, of course, getting five hearts is pretty simple: Since you start with three, you can grab one by heading two screens to the left and bombing the wall, and beating dungeon numero uno. Getting the heart container there, of course, is pretty damn easy as long as you're packing bombs. After that, it wouldn't hurt to pick up a few heart containers before heading down to dungeon two, but I'll be damned if I'm going to spend all day telling you where they are. As much as I'd love to draw out the moon-shaped map on the back of this Taco Bell wrapper, I've got more important information to impart. Namely, that The Advantage are headed out on tour.

Featuring members of Hella and Generic, The Advantage's self-titled debut, out now on 5RC, features all of your favorites from the 8-bit Nintendo era, including the Fortress theme from the greatest video game ever created, The Legend of Zelda. But the fun doesn't stop with Link fighting his short elf-like ass through all those creepy-crawlies. They run through all the hits: Super Mario 2, Ghosts and Goblins, Castlevania and, of course, Contra. We hear that if you whisper "up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, start" to the bouncer, you can get 29 of your friends in for free:

10-22 Davis, CA - ASUCD Coffee House
10-25 Salt Lake City, UT - Kilby Court
10-26 Denver, CO - Climax Lounge
10-27 Omaha, NE - O'Leavers Pub
10-28 Ames, IA - Maintenance Shop
10-30 Milwaukee, WI - Onopa Brewing Company
10-31 Chicago, IL - Logan Square
11-01 Grand Rapids, MI - The DAAC
11-03 Cleveland, OH - The Spot
11-04 Pittsburgh, PA - The Mr. Roboto Project
11-05 Philadelphia, PA - First Unitarian
11-06 New York, NY - Knitting Factory
11-07 Brooklyn, NY - Northsix
11-08 Cambridge, MA - Middle East Upstairs
11-12 Houston, TX - Mary Jane's Fat Cat