Pitchfork: Castanets Launch 12-Date West Coast Tour

Castanets Launch 12-Date West Coast Tour

Ryan Schreiber & Micah Harding report:
Isn't it weird when a band spends like all the time in the world touring 3 states? Like, we know the West Coast is pretty huge, but so is the East Coast, and that has 14 states! What we're saying is: Tacoma? Calimesa? Friends, we almost don't even give a shit this time, because, well, recent Asthmatic Kitty signees Castanets are still a pretty young band, and we're sure they're just being super thorough, and will maybe spend just as much time touring the upper Midwest, where we at Pitchfork can follow them around from Chicago to Milwaukee to Madison to Eau Claire to Minneapolis. Five nights of Castanets? Well, there would come a point, we suppose, where that would just be weird, but what's a little awkward interaction in exchange for the creepiest, creakiest music event since Lynyrd Skynyrd crashed their plane in a haunted swamp? (Well, it's haunted now anyway.)

As you guys probably know, Castanets' debut, Cathedral, was just distinguished as some of the Best New Music by those loveable hounds at Pitchfork, and indeed, they're not just popular critically. Aside from high praise from Sufjan Stevens, who was so moved by the band that he decided to release their album personally, the group has also had help in the studio from members from Tristeza, Pinback, Rocket from the Crypt, and Black Heart Procession, to name but a few. Plus, its backstory is awesome. Short version: Frontman Raymond Raposa tests out of high school at 15, then travels the country for four years via the plush luxury of the Greyhound bus system, then releases a handmade CDR titled What Kind of Cure (which, incidentally, will be released in the near future by Asthmatic Kitty), and then...

Well, and then he embarks on this tour we meant to tell you about, and then you happen upon this crazy little news article and becomes interested enough in seeing the band in a live setting that you decide to embark upon a quest that holds at its end one of the following places on one of the following dates:

09-16 San Diego, CA - Casbah (w/Liz Janes, Br. Danielson)
09-17 Los Angeles, CA - Spaceland (w/ Br. Danielson)
09-26 San Francisco, CA - Cafe du Nord (w/The Court & Spark)
10-08 San Diego, CA - Che Cafe (w/Mount Eerie, Julie Doiron)
10-15 New York City, NY - Mercury Lounge [CMJ] (w/Sufjan Stevens, Liz Janes, Br. Danielson)
10-23 Calimesa, CA - Lyre & Harp. *
11-01 San Diego, CA - TBA *
11-02 Long Beach, CA - Koo's (w/Timonium) *
11-03 San Francisco, CA - Hemlock Tavern *
11-05 Portland, OR - Dunes *
11-06 Tacoma, WA - Paradigm *
11-07 Seattle, WA - TBA *
11-13 Ocean Beach, CA - 4862 Voltaire St.

* with Xn