SUPREME DICKS (US, Jagjaguwar)

Event information

Utterly thrilled to bring you one of the most wonderful avant-psych bands of the past 30 years, rescued from obscurity in 2011 by Jagjaguwar, who re-issued their stunning back catalogue in its entirety, for their first European tour since 1996.

Supreme Dicks is an experimental rock group formed in 1984 in Amherst, Massachussetts by Steve Shavel, Danny Oxenberg and Jon Shere. Their glorious music combines dissonant lo-fi noise, avant-garde, and psychedelic sounds to warped song structures.

Rising out of the same scene that produced Dinosaur Jr, Supreme Dicks were vital contributors to the lo-fi and avant garde genres. The band's constantly revolving line-up (Lou Barlow was a Dick now and again) centered around Daniel Oxenberg, Jon Shere, Steve Shavel, Mark Hanson, and Jim Spring, whose psychedelic-yet-twangy brand of rock'n'roll came out of the band's roots at Hampshire College in the Reagan era.

The Dicks released a clutch of incredible records - three albums, a single, a split single and a 12" EP - over a four-year period before not-so-much disbanding as dispersing at the end of 1996. This slow, brooding, hugely affecting body of warped psychedelic work was released as a box set by Jagjaguwar in 2011 entitled Breathing And Not Breathing. In 2012, Supreme Dicks came back together to play a limited number of shows in the US, making this ever-so-rare European tour their first major jaunt in almost 17 years.

In the live setting, the band upholds a tradition of inviting others to play with them onstage -- musicians who have done so include Beck, Dab Kapelovitz and Ariel Pink. Their legendary Amherst jams were known to continue for anywhere up to 15 hours at a time (although, on this tour, we'll be looking at more traditional set lengths). Witnessing Supreme Dicks live is an experience that lingers in the memory and never quite leaves. A little like hearing one of their records.