Pitchfork: Serena Maneesh Kick Off U.S. Trek

The Serena Maneesh backstory keeps getting crazier and crazier. At first, we thought they were just some random Norwegian shoegazer band that came out of nowhere. Then we figure out that both Sufjan Stevens and Daniel "Danielson" Smith played on their record.

Well, it also turns out that Serena main man Emil Nikolaisen used to be in Royal, a dreampop band on Tooth & Nail Records, and Silver, a trashy, mascara'd glam-metal group that toured with Turbonegro. Whoa, shock to the cred!

Hopefully, the teeming hipster hordes won't make it to Google before Serena Maneesh's first American tour kicks off tonight in New York City. The month-long journey will take them to New York and Chicago twice, with four SXSW gigs in the middle. Something fishy seems to have happened between the band and Canada, though, as their Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver dates were all cancelled. (Maybe the government up there has something against men in headbands?)

Shout out for "Condemn Nation" and see what happens:

03-06 New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom *#
03-07 Northampton, MA - Pearl Street
03-08 Boston, MA - TT the Bear's
03-09 Philadelphia, PA - First Unitarian Church ^&
03-10 Columbus, OH - Little Brothers &
03-11 Chicago, IL - Empty Bottle &%
03-12 St. Louis, MO - Creepy Crawl
03-12 St. Louis, MO - Vintage Vinyl (in-store)
03-13 Lawrence, KS - Bottleneck $
03-14 Denton, TX - Hailey's @#
03-15 Austin, TX - Emo's (Kork/Polyvinyl SXSW showcase) +#$
03-16 Austin, TX - Emo's (Under the Radar SXSW day party)
03-16 Austin, TX - Vice outdoor stage (Vice SXSW day party)
03-17 Austin, TX - Club De Ville (Insound SXSW day party)
03-19 Los Angeles, CA - Spaceland ~
03-20 Los Angeles, CA - Echo
03-21 San Francisco, CA - Bottom of the Hill =
03-23 Portland, OR - Holocene
03-25 Seattle, WA - Neumos !
03-28 Chicago, IL - Empty Bottle
03-29 Detroit, MI - Magic Stick
04-01 Brooklyn, NY - Northsix
05-18 Brighton, England - The Great Escape
06-02 Copenhagen, Denmark - Stengade 30
06-03 �rhus, Denmark - Spot Festival
07-04 Kristiansand, Norway - Quart Festival
07-21 T�nsberg, Norway - Slottfjell Festival
07-22 Flekkefjord, Norway - Fjellparkfestivalen
08-04 �ndalsnes, Norway - Raumarock

* with Asobi Seksu
# with Field Music
^ with Relay, Mahogany
& with Psychic Ills
% with Dirty on Purpose
$ with Of Montreal
@ with Thunderbirds Are Now!, Rahim
+ with And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead, Voxtrot, Kiss Me Deadly
~ with Say Hi To Your Mom
= with Odd Nosdam
! with Art Brut, Gil Montera's Party Dream