This Spring, Greek desert rocking instrumentalists Tuber will hit the road in Europe for the first time. The run of shows is presented by Total Volume Agency and will find the band two and a half years removed from the release of their debut full-length, 2013’s Desert Overcrowded, but having built a steady following all the while. Not all the bills have completely come together yet, but the dates are set and there’s enough to keep up with here as it is. Tuber signed with Total Volume in Sept. 2015 after traveling this past summer to play Freak Valley in Germany, and they also shared the stage with Rotor and others at that festival’s holiday-themed incarnation in December; clearly they made an impression.

As they have on multiple listeners, myself included the first time I heard them. Dates and info follow — Les Lekin will support on several of the shows — courtesy of the booking agency:

Tuber European Tour // May 2016

Back in September 2015, Tuber was the first band to join our roster, and we were more than proud about it. This is their first European tour, so if they stop by your place, make sure you get to know them! We will continuously update this even with all sorts of information regarding this tour, so stay tuned!

Tuber is an instrumental rock band from Greece, consisting of brothers Yannis Gerosthathos and Nikos Gerostathos, Paris Fragkos and Yannis Artzoglou. The first three of them came together in 2010 and a few months later they started recording their first -self titled- EP, at Parallel Universe Studio in Serres. In July of the same year Tuber released their independent debut album on digital form, through their web page in Bandcamp. The EP received stunning reviews from various webpages and blogs worldwide and at June 2012 was re-released on a limited vinyl edition by Krautedmind Records. December 9 2013.

Tuber released their album, Desert Overcrowded, at their bandcamp official site: http://tuber.bandcamp.com/ Tuber’s sound has been described by critics and reviewers thoroughly as a blend of post, stoner, desert and space rock with a sublime psych edge.

Catch them live in concert:

3/5 – Maribor (SLO) @ TBA
4/5 – Vienna (AT) @ Viper Room Vienna with Les Lekin and Lambda
https://www.facebook.com/events/1238939622789800/
5/5 – Prague (CZ) @ Panoptikon Barikáda with Les Lekin and Lambda
https://www.facebook.com/events/919802461407175/
6/5 – Garmisch (DE) @ Hannibal Après with TBA
7/5 – Jena (DE) @ Kulturbahnhof Jena with Les Lekin
https://www.facebook.com/events/155162504849083/
8/5 – Dresden (DE) @ Chemiefabrik with Les Lekin
https://www.facebook.com/events/1657591637824311/
10/5 – Berlin (DE) @ TIEFGRUND with TBA
11/5 – Kiel (DE) @ Die Pumpe with TBA
12/5 – Oldenburg (DE) @ Cadillac Zentrum Für Jugendkultur with TBA
13/5 – Munster (DE) @ Rare guitar with Ravermen and YSMA
https://www.facebook.com/events/723993817707128/
14/5 – Stuttgart (DE) @ JHKloster with TBA
17/5 – Salzburg (AT) @ Shakespeare Salzburg with Les Lekin and Lava
https://www.facebook.com/events/1507531899541643/
18/5 – Graz (AT) @ Les Lekin
19/5 – Timisoara (RO) @ DAOS club with TBA
20/5 – Cluj (RO) @ TBA
21/5 – Sofia (BG) @ “Mixtape 5” with TBA
https://www.facebook.com/events/1698013737112258/

We know that we couldn’t make it happen, for Tuber, in many cities arround Europe this time, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t coming over in the near future. We will try to make it sooner or later. Let your local promoters know that they can always send over a message for any of our roster’s bands.

https://www.facebook.com/events/1747264322173656/
http://tuber.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/tuberband/
https://leslekin.bandcamp.com/

Tuber, Desert Overcrowded (2013)

Tuber, “Smoked up Notes”

I was clicking through various stuff on ye olde Tubes of You, looking for something to close out the week, and just kind of stumbled on Greek instrumentalists Tuber. I’d never heard the band before and I dug the name and the title “Smoked Up Notes,” which is oddly evocative for being so blatantly stoner rock — think burnt papers in tandem with burnt brain cells — or maybe it’s just late and I’m reading more into it because that’s fun sometimes.

Either way, we end the week with the four-piece Tuber, who hail from Serres in Greece and put out a self-titled EP — or what they call an EP; it’s 38 minutes long when you include the bonus track — last year on transparent orange vinyl that’s apparently sold out of physical copies but still available for free download from their Bandcamp, if you’re so inclined. Hell, here’s the whole thing, just for fun:

Quite an age we live in. Got its ups and downs, like anything, but the rock is good — and nearly ubiquitous — so that’s alright.

This week ends pretty much the same as last week. Nearly exactly the same, actually, except for the fact that I’m one floor down in the same hotel in Providence, not writing about Jeff Hanneman‘s passing, and instead of a window outside, there’s a mirror in front of the desk so I get to see the bags under my eyes as I type and the grey slowly but surely making its way into my beard. One here, two there, The Patient Mrs. playing with the little dog Dio in the background. Things have been far worse.

There are a bunch of shows in Boston this weekend, as seems to be the case every weekend I’m here — that bodes well for the eventual move — but like last Saturday, tomorrow we’ll pretty much be looking at a couple houses about an hour outside of the city, being sad that they’re sinking into the earth, and then heading back south to Jersey. This week was relatively quiet, but next Wednesday, I’m going to see The Book of Knots in Brooklyn, and that’s going to be amazing. They’ve only done one or two shows — they did one in Manhattan when they put out their second, and I think, best album, Traineater — so it’s a rare thing and not something I was willing to miss. There’s so much talent in that band they’re terrifying, and that only covers Carla Kihlstedt, let alone Josh Hamilton, Tony Maimone, Mattias Bossi or any of what I’m sure will be a slew of guests joining in on the fun. Got my fingers crossed former Giraffes singer Aaron Lazar shows up for “Third Generation Pink Slip,” which, to be sure, is where it’s at.

Also next week, I’ll see if I can bang out reviews for Kylesa and Cathedral, though they might be like 50 words apiece if my current disdain for Haulix holds sway. Digital promos. Way to take the thing I love most in the universe and turn it into a fucking hassle. Music: It used to be what I relished spending every day thinking about, now it takes up the real estate on my desktop. The music industry is a continuous, never-ending spiral of terrible. I mean it.

I’m sure people said the same shit when they stopped sending LPs, or when press releases started coming over via email. They weren’t any more wrong then than I am now, it just means I’m old. There are probably other writers out there who like the convenience. Bah.

But those are “big” records and they probably deserve a few words, so even though I’ve got people sending me discs from France, Finland and Australia — literally the other side of the planet — I should be expected to push that aside to cover whatever it is that I’m not cool enough to get a track premiere of this week.

These are first world problems and I’ve bummed myself out thinking about them. More than 1,000 people died in that Bangladeshi building collapse, some probably sewing my fat-guy-sized t-shirts together, and here I am bitching because I don’t get free CDs anymore. I’ve always been a selfish bastard.

I hope you have an awesome, safe weekend, and I hope you stopped reading back when I was talking about how great it’ll be to see The Book of Knots on Wednesday. Hope to catch you on the forum and back here Monday for more gleeful jubilation.