October 18th -- Highline Ballroom -- New York, NY
October 21st -- Black Cat -- Washington D.C.
October 23rd -- Cannery -- Nashville, TN
October 24th -- Spanish Moon -- Baton Rouge, LA
October 27th -- Emo's -- Austin, TX
October 29th -- University of New Mexico -- Albuquerque, NM *
October 30th -- Club Congress -- Tucson, AZ
October 31st -- UNLV -- Las Vegas, NV *
November 1st -- UCLA -- Los Angeles, CA *
November 2nd -- UC-Berkeley -- Berkeley, CA *
November 5th -- Colorado State -- Fort Collins, CO *
November 7th -- University of Minnesota -- Minneapolis, MN *
November 9th -- Canopy Club -- Urbana, IL
November 10th -- Waiting Room -- Omaha, NE
November 11th -- CU-Boulder -- Boulder, CO *
November 13th -- Southern Illinois Carbondale -- Carbondale, IL *
November 14th -- University of Wisconsin -- Madison, WI *
November 16th -- Hi-Tone -- Memphis, TN
November 17th -- University of Kansas -- Lawrence, KS *
November 18th -- Northwestern -- Chicago, IL *
November 19th -- Crofoot Ballroom -- Pontiac, MI
November 20th -- Lee's Palace -- Toronto, ON
November 21st -- Grog Shop -- Cleveland, OH
November 23rd -- Bowery Ballroom -- New York, NY

* - Adult Swim date with Dethklok taking place on campus. Get in free with your student ID. More info available here.

All other dates are regular club shows with tickets. Buy links coming soon.

See you there,
merlin

We've entered this each of the last three years and improved steadily every time, topping out last year in 13th place. Not sure if we can go any higher than that to be honest, but we'll give it a go.

Spread the link around. Tell your friends. Vote as many times as you like. If we do well I'll give you all something nice.

Cheers,
merlin

When I wrote that last piece of news, my mention of our replacing Doni with a human seemed to have either gone unnoticed, or else everyone already knew, which is probably the case. When we posted up on Pitchfork for two days we were flooded with about two-hundred responses before I asked them to take it down. I would like to thanks all of those people brave enough to have volunteered for such a dangerous mission.

We were fortunate, however, that our scientist friend Max Brenner happened to have had another prototype lying around in his studio, the Aaron 3.0. Aaron was developed alongside the Doni and performs with equally superb skill and efficiency, albeit slightly faster and even a bit harder at times than the Doni. Although not yet tested under extreme environments such as spilt beer and shards of glass, Brenner has convinced us that the Aaron's newly-updated circuits are robust and capable of withstanding the extreme pressures of a live TOD show.

So for those of you in the Brooklyn and general New York area who would like to attend the show, I believe pre-sales are almost sold out, but we have reserved about seventy tickets for walk-up, priced at $5.

I'm excited to be doing a show in the neighborhood, walking distance from my laboratory. Our last show in this area at North Six was an absolute disaster. I inadvertently hospitalized one spectator that evening, and nearly severed our already tenuous relationship with our publicity department. I hope that for those people who witnessed that show, we can somehow make it up to them with a less inebriated and physically hazardous performance on the 2nd of August. I'm hoping we'll be rehearsed enough to perform Naked Sun for the first time live.

Plans are currently underway for us to begin work on our next record upon returning from tour. We were throwing around various names for the record, but were reminded by the label that our contract states that the label has the option to choose the title of our next record, and Interscope informs me they have decided to call it "Trail of Dead VI". I for one am thankful, because I hate choosing titles for records. By the way, that's a joke, don't use it as fodder for any more criticism of Interscope.

As you may or may not be aware, Trail of Dead will be embarking on a European tour throughout August and the beginning of September, playing festivals (and a few club shows) large, medium, and small. Voilà:

August 2nd -- Luna Lounge -- Brooklyn, New York
August 5th -- Sudoeste Festival -- Odemira, Portugal
August 7th -- La[2] -- Barcelona, Spain *
August 9th -- TBA -- Gothenburg, Sweden *
August 10th -- Oya Festival -- Oslo, Norway
August 11th -- Jurassic Rock Festival -- Mikkeli, Finland
August 13th -- Hard Rock Cafe -- Warsaw, Poland *
August 14th -- Roxy -- Prague, Czech Republic *
August 15th -- Frequency Festival -- Salzburg, Austria
August 16th -- K4 -- Nuremberg, Germany *
August 17th -- Highland Festival -- Erfurt, Germany
August 18th -- Pukkelpop Festival -- Hasselt, Belgium
August 20th -- Leadmill -- Sheffield, England *
August 21st -- Islington Academy -- London, England *
August 22nd -- Concorde 2 -- Brighton, England *
August 24th -- Rocco del Schlacko -- Puttingen, Germany
August 25th -- Minirock Festival -- Horb, Germany
August 26th -- Area 4 Festival -- Ludingshausen, Germany
August 28th -- Alte Feuerwache -- Mannheim, Germany *
August 29th -- Doornroosje -- Nijmegen, Netherlands *
August 30th -- Patronaat -- Haarlem, Netherlands *
September 1st -- JKF Festival -- Basel, Switzerland
September 2nd -- Independent Days Festival -- Bologna, Italy
September 3rd -- Konzerthaus Schuur -- Lucerne, Switzerland *

* = Club show.

If this Lilliputian update isn't fulfilling, feel free to visit trailofdead.org, a site which I still update periodically with breaking news and media goodies.

Bien à vous,
merlin