Midnight Masses to tour with And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead

Midnight Masses Announce Winter 2009 Tour With ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead
“Heaven” Tour 7” Single Out March 10th (Digital) Via 1776
Available On Tour Starting February 19th

Autry Rene Fulbright grew up the son of a minister in the silver buckle of the Bible Belt. So it's little wonder his revolving-door collective of kindred spirits bears a religious name: Midnight Masses. Still, for all the theology and metaphysics of his youth – this is a guy who took a pious vow of poverty and moved to a farm in upstate New York – it’s in music where Fulbright truly found salvation and transcendence.

A rabid show-goer, Fulbright made fast friends out of touring bands in his home city of Atlanta. As they hustled through town, Autry would form bonds with artists like And You Will Knows Us By The Trail of Dead and TV on the Radio and eventually heed their advice and move to Brooklyn in 2007 to make a record.

Emboldened by their encouragement, he began working on music with recent NYC-transplant Conrad Keely of Trail of Dead, and playing in noisy TVOTR cohort Dragons of Zynth, quickly cementing himself as a fixture of the Brooklyn music scene. As 2007 came to a close, Fulbright would take a break from Dragons. Midnight Masses was borne shortly thereafter out of a profound tragedy.

Early in 2008, Autry's father fell gravely ill. Back to Atlanta, Fulbright sat at his bedside until he passed, reluctantly drawing from the experience in his songwriting. Devastated by the loss, months crawled by before Fulbright could pick himself up and take advantage of an opportunity from old friends. But that he did, when Trail of Dead invited him to travel down to Austin where they were recording their new record. It was there that the core and current incarnation of Midnight Masses would take hold, as TOD's Jason Reece wrote feverishly with Fulbright, coming up with witchy anti-folk anthems like "Deserter's Song" in marathon sessions.

Spirits lifted, Fulbright returned to Brooklyn and played the tracks for his neighbors, Tunde Adibimpe and Gerard Smith of TVOTR. Smith was so impressed he offered to record them, and is currently hard at work recording the band’s debut LP. Traveling up to New York in between Trail of Dead sessions, Reece would lay his parts down and Fulbright would take care of the rest, calling on like-minded musicians to contribute to the project.

Undeniably informed by Fulbright's complex spirituality and his father's untimely death, the band’s songs emerge unrepentantly melancholic, but mesmerizing in their ability to uplift. Midnight Masses’ first official release – a self-produced 7” including two songs and a digital bonus track – will be available for the band’s forthcoming tour with …Trail of Dead, with the official digital release following on March 10th.

PRINCIPAL MEMBERS:
Autry Fulbright
Destiny Montague
Giselle Reiber
Jason Reece
Eric Rodgers
Miyuki Furtado

Members of Midnight Masses have played or currently play in …And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead, Shock Cinema, Rogers Sisters, Dragons of Zynth and Santogold

US TOUR:
All dates with Trail of Dead

02-19 Dallas, TX - Granada Theater
02-20 Houston, TX - Walter’s on Washington
02-21 New Orleans, LA - One Eyed Jack’s
02-23 Orlando, FL - The Social
02-24 Atlanta, GA - The EARL
02-25 Carrboro, NC - Cat’s Cradle
02-26 Washington, DC - Rock and Roll Hotel
02-27 Brooklyn, NY - Music Hall of Williamsburg
02-28 New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom
03-01 Cambridge, MA - Middle East Downstairs
03-03 Montreal, Quebec – La Sala
03-04 Toronto, Ontario – Lee’s Palace
03-05 Detroit, MI - Pike’s Room at the Crofoot
03-06 Chicago, IL - Logan Square Auditorium
03-09 Denver, CO - Bluebird Theater
03-10 Salt Lake City, UT - Urban Lounge
03-12 Seattle, WA - Neumo’s
03-13 Vancouver, British Columbia – Richard’s on Richards
03-14 Portland, OR - Berbati’s Pan
03-16 San Francisco, CA - Slim’s
03-17 Los Angeles, CA – Echoplex
03-19-03-21 Austin, TX – SXSW

www.myspace.com/midnightmassesandtheendofdays