We are looking for volunteers who live in cities where the Posies will be playing this fall in the US to put up posters etc for the upcoming tour. (Check their schedule here and see if they’re coming near you!)
At the moment, we do not need people for Seattle, Los Angeles & San Francisco.
If you are interested, send your name & location to streetteam@theposies.net.
Thanks!
We are waiting on word as to whether or not the 9/18 New Orleans show will be possible (due to hurricane damage).
The venue for Montreal has changed; the band will be playing at La Sala Rossa on 10/2.
Also, they will be playing Loppen in Copenhagen, Denmark on 11/14.
LeftLion caught up with the band in the courtyard of Rescue Rooms on a sunny late afternoon just before the bands gig later in the evening and learnt that you really should check if the batteries are working in your dictaphone before you interview someone. Here, rescued from a fuzzy recording, are The Posies…
So how’s the tour going for you so far?
Matt Harris: It seems to be pretty much on fire these days.
Ken Stringfellow: It seems to be going excellent.
Jon Auer: We spent four days in Ireland previously.
KS: and didn’t have a snip of a drink!
JA: A lot of water tea
Read the full interview here
Jon and Ken appeared on Studio Brussels and played two songs acoustically (‘I Guess You’re Right’ and ‘Solar Sister’) and did a short interview before their set at the Pukkelpop Festival last week in Belgium. Click here to listen to it (mp3 format).
Also, some Finnish press from the magazine Super Sounds, by Maako Haronen. Interivew & a review (both in PDF format).
The Posies will now be playing the main stage instead of the Marquee stage this friday at the Pukkelpop Festival, and running order will now be:
Main Stage – 35.000 cap – Friday August 19.
8 The Coral 11:50 12:25
7 Baby Shambles 13:05 13:45
6 Good Charlotte 14:30 15:10
5 THE POSIES 15:55 16:40
4 Zornik 17:30 18:20
3 Nightwish 19:20 20:10
2 Marilyn Manson 21:10 22:20
1 Pixies 23:20 00:50
Jonathan Krop (atomicpopmonkey.com) is creating a site for Big Star and while it is still in progress, there are 30 second clips of all the songs on the new record In Space, as well as the album cover.
Check it out at bigstartheband.com.
Jon Auer has had a busy year. He’s currently touring Europe as co-frontman of the Posies, whose first album in seven years was released in June. And as previously reported, he played a major role with “In Space,” the upcoming Rykodisc album by the reunited Big Star.
But don’t blame him if he’s looking ahead a bit, because the veteran artist is also planning to drop his first bona fide solo album, “Songs From the Year of Our Demise,” early in 2006 on Pattern25 Records. The 15-track set represents the past half-decade in Auer’s life.
Read full article on Billboard.com
Love Yoda The Posies Do
August 03, 2005
Not every band has a Jedi Master to hold their guitar picks. But bassist Matt Harris of alternative pop band The Posies has a way with guitar techs picked up from the Dagobah system.
“My bandmates nicknamed me Yoda,” Harris explains. “Probably because I carry a Yoda coin purse on my bass case filled with guitar picks… a Yoda pick caddy!”
Read the entire interview here.
From last week’s Irish Independent.
THE POSIES
(Whelans, Dublin)
****
In A World more perfect than this one, The Posies would be superstars. Their music – lush, hook-laden indie-pop – screams out for daytime radio play. They write anthemic choruses and, when the need arises, can rock like lunatics.
As it is, the Seattle quartet must settle for fame by association. Ken Stringfellow, their lead songwriter, keeps as day job as REM’s touring guitarist. Recently, the band hooked up with Alex Chilton to revive his legendary power-pop group Big Star. In interview, journalists took to asking the reformed Big Star if they’d heard of this fantastic tribute act out of Washington State called The Posies.
They’ve been quietly influential too: you’ll detect traces of The Posies’ melody-driven rock in artists as diverse as Brendan Benson, Weezer and Hal. Twenty years hence, hip new bands will probably be name-dropping Stringfellow and his writing partner Jon Auer, and finally they’ll be cropping up on magazine covers and – God forbid – the radio. Right now, only indie-pop boffins and record-store owners have really taken The Posies to heart. Both tribes seem out in force tonight as the band kicks off their debut Irish tour.
Sweet-stained and dishevelled, the band shambles on stage, swigging beers and wearing lazy grins. For a cult band, The Posies are remarkably easy-going. They look as though they’ve already played a show and are staggering back for an encore. This, mostly, is an act of course; The Posies resemble slobs but play like virtuosos. From a bedrock of shimmering feedback, Auer and Stringfellow squeeze gorgeously complex melodies. For the first time in your life, you feel as though you are listening to a guitar being played properly.
Passionate and euphoric, The Posies throw out the loveliest greatest-hits set that never was. Many of tonight’s tracks have the air of generational torch-songs. Not recognising them makes you feel almost guilty. Between numbers, Stringfellow drinks from a whiskey bottle and Auer joshes with hecklers. The air of quiet awe in the room nonplusses him. The Posies are here to rock – why won’t the crowd get in the mood too?
To shake the audience out of it’s torpor, they deliver a searing slab of head-banger pop. It sounds like a soft-metal anthem written by Lennon and McCarthy and, for three-and-a-half minutes, is the best song you have ever heard.
Do you feel that the time away, and the work you and Jon have done with REM, Big Star and your solo stuff has actually grown the reputation of The Posies?
KS: The time off didn’t really harm anything, if anything it made us appreciate what we have, it seems to have made some people appreciate what we do and because we’ve not been that available it gives the air of being something pretty special this time around. We feel quite appreciated now! And I think those old records have a sort of persistance – they’re records that people recommend to each other on a frequent basis. They’re ‘best kept secret’ records. And I was surprised when I saw a recent sales report of ‘Frosting On The Beater’ (the band’s 1993 classic) – it sold quite a lot in those intervening years.
Click here for full interview.