RIP Darius Minwalla

Statement from Ken Stringfellow.

We cannot put off this announcement, as much as we wish to: our dear friend and drummer for the last 14 years, Darius Minwalla, died yesterday. Causes yet unknown. He was at home. He was loved very much by many people; we’re still struggling to cope with the loss. I was dealing with it yesterday, hoping the news was some kind of cruel prank, but alas, no. We love you, buddy.

Sean Nelson wrote a touching article for The Stranger: Seattle Music Community Stunned By Untimely Death Of Darius Minwalla

Update: 20th Anniversary Shows, Disciplines Album and Posies Tribute Album

The Posies will be touring Europe acoustically for their 20th anniversary – dates are below:

April 8 John Dee, Oslo NORWAY
April 9 Blaest, Trondheim NORWAY
April 10 UKA Festival @ Driv, Trømsø NORWAY
April 11 Garage, Bergen NORWAY
April 12 Grottene, Stavanger NORWAY
April 13 Caféteatern, Stockholm SWEDEN
April 14 Pusterviksbaren, Gothenburg SWEDEN
April 15 KB, Malmö, SWEDEN
April 17 Route 66, Novi Sad SERBIA
April 18 tba, Zagreb CROATIA
April 19 Flex, Vienna AUSTRIA
April 20 Ekko, Utrecht NETHERLANDS
April 22 Bellevue Club, Brussels BELGIUM
April 23 Manuscript, Ostend BELGIUM
April 24 Trix, Antwerp BELGIUM
April 25 Bibelot, Dordrecht NETHERLANDS
April 26 Milkweg, Amsterdam NETHERLANDS
April 27 Effenaar, Endhoven NETHERLANDS
April 28 D:qliq, Luxembourg LUXEMBOURG

They will also be doing four shows in the Northwestern U.S. for their 20th anniversary; these will be full-band shows.

May 14 The Posies 20th Anniversary Shows @ Hell’s Kitchen, Tacoma WA
May 15 The Posies 20th Anniversary Shows @ Winterland, Bremerton WA
May 16 The Posies 20th Anniversary Shows @ Dante’s, Portland OR
May 17 The Posies 20th Anniversary Shows @ Neumo’s, Seattle WA

There are also two new Disciplines shows in Norway that will take place before the full-band Posies shows in May, and a Big Star show in London in August.

The Disciplines’ first full-length album, ‘SMOKiNG KiLLS’, will be released May 5th in Norway & Denmark on Voices Music and Entertainment. One of the songs from the album, “Yours for the Taking,” appears on a bonus CD that comes with the April issue of Q magazine (with all tracks selected by R.E.M.).

Lastly, the Posies tribute EP ‘Beautiful Escape: The Songs Of The Posies Revisited’ is out now on Burning Sky Records and can be ordered on the Myspace page. The EP features 7 songs (including one EP-only song) from the 3-CD release that will be out in May.

Forum Back Up, New Tour Dates Added

The forum is back in action, so go check it out and sign up if you haven’t already.

Also, these tour dates have been added:

KS:
04.25 – La Fleche D’or, Paris France
04.26 – Chariot @ the Jailbreak Club, Road to Ruins Festival, Roma Italy
05.20 – The Disciplines @ Cafe Mono, Oslo Norway

Big Star:
09.02 – Inveraray Castle, Connect Festival, Inveraray UK

And Jon’s Scandinavian tour kicks off on Wednesday in Oslo; dates can be found here.

New Shows Up

There are new shows for this fall added to the tour page, including a free KS show in Tulsa, OK at the end of this month, a small tour with shows in Austria, Germany and Hungary, as well as some dates in France for December and February of next year.

New Site In Progress

As you can see, some changes are being made to the site and many of the pages are not working. There is new content being added, though, and the entire site should be functioning soon.

For now, there are a couple new shows on the tour page, and you can listen to Jon’s appearance on KEXP last month here (thanks to the A Good Day For Airplay blog!).

Press This Week; Q&A with Darius

NOW magazine, Toronto
Metro Times, Detroit
– Sailor Jerry, review & photos from a show last week
MusicOMH, Philadelphia show review
Worcester Telegram interview

Also, theposies.net will be doing a Q&A with drummer Darius Minwalla about a week from now – you can post your questions for him in this thread in the forum, or if you don’t want to register, e-mail taylord@theposies.net or post as a reply to this update.

Archies Shirts Are Back

From Andrew:

At the shows this weekend you will have the ability to purchase the newly designed Posies/Archies shirts. Darius and Matt are now featured along with Jon and Ken. They are VERY limited and once gone, I don’t know when they will return.

If any of the shirts get past AZ they will be available at future dates until gone.

I will be working with Taylor to get a mail order thing going if there is a demand. We have to work on the logistics with paying the band and all of the details….

Here is the updated design:

(The original design was done by Chris Mowrer – you can see his portfolio here and check out some of the other things he’s done.)