Pitchfork

Photos by Pierre-Yves Arnoux

Menomena are serious about their art. Their Friend and Foe LP from this year had interactive artwork that allowed for a variety of different permutations. The sweet posters for their first-ever European tour featured drummer Danny Seim's pug/Menomena's manager, Ms. Geddy Lee, in a pair of movie roles. And now, on five dates of their already scheduled second tour of Europe, the band is collaborating onstage with Friend and Foe visual artist Craig Thompson (also known as the guy behind the sweet graphic novel Blankets.)

Seim explains the collaboration like so: "[Thompson]'s stretching a giant (approx. 3'x9') piece of butcher paper horizontally across the back of the stages and visually interpreting our set behind us with a brush & ink as we play. Pretentious? Maybe. But super fun all the same."

The first of these five, non-consecutive collaborations took place September 29 at the Nouveau Casino club in Paris. After the encore, Thompson tore his creation from the wall and, with the help of the band, tore it into pieces and passed the pieces out to the crowd. "He's ten times the rock star that we are over here," says Seim. For proof, there is YouTube documentation here. For more photos of the show itself, see the post-jump.

The next Menomena show is a collaboration with Thompson, and it takes place tonight, October 3, in Amsterdam. The next two collaborations are in Milan and Barcelona over the next week and a half.

Menomena:

10-03 Amsterdam, Netherlands - Paradiso (onstage collaboration with Craig Thompson)
10-04 Cologne, Germany - Stadtgarten
10-05 Nuremberg, Germany - Muz
10-06 Munich, Germany - Orangehouse
10-07 Vienna, Austria - Chelsea
10-08 St. Gallen, Switzerland - Palace
10-09 Milan, Italy - Casa 139 (onstage collaboration with Craig Thompson)
10-11 Barcelona, Spain - Apollo (onstage collaboration with Craig Thompson)
10-26 Boise, ID - Neurolux
10-27 Salt Lake City, UT - Kilby Court
10-28 Boulder, CO - Fox Theater
10-30 St. Louis, MO - Billiken Club
10-31 Nashville, TN - Exit/In *
11-01 Asheville, NC - The Orange Peel *
11-02 Tallahassee, FL - Club Downunder *
11-03 Orlando, FL - Social *
11-04 Jacksonville, FL - Jack Rabbit's *
11-06 Washington, DC - Black Cat *
11-07 Philadelphia, PA - First Unitarian Church *
11-08 Hanover, NH - Fuel Rocket Club (Dartmouth College) *
11-09 Boston, MA - Paradise *
11-10 New York, NY - Webster Hall *
11-12 Montreal, Quebec - La Sala Rossa *
11-13 Toronto, Ontario - Mod Club *
11-14 Ann Arbor, MI - Blind Pig *
11-15 Chicago, IL - Metro *
11-16 Grinnell, IA - Harris Center (Grinnell College) *
11-17 Minneapolis, MN - Varsity Theater *
11-24 Portland, OR - Crystal Ballroom

* with Illinois