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Tour Dates

04/08 – Chicago, IL – Subterranean

04/09 – Cleveland, OH – Happy Dog East

04/10 – Middletown, CT -Wesleyan College

04/11 – Brooklyn, NY – Baby’s All Right

04/12- Manhattan, NY – Cake Shop

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Happyness

The trio just recently played NINE shows at SXSW, which is possibly the most shows I’ve seen a band can squeeze in at SXSW.
Happyness will be joined by Danger Ron & The Spins
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Danger Ron & The Spins

Anyway, the Ripper EP release party is taking place this January 21st, with Danger Ron & The Spins (who was last seen in early Rocktober) and DONX.
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Nancy’s Raygun

Nashville’s Denney & The Jets canceled the show, leaving local Nancy’s Raygun as lone opener for the show (their first show at the Entry).
You can tell this guitar/drum band was young
….

London’s Happyness (not to be confused with Finland’s Happiness) is currently in the USA, touring in support of their album Weird Little Birthday and Anything I Do Is All Right EP, stopping in at the Turf Club in St Paul on “the Monday after Easter” on April 6th.

Opener Nancy’s Raygun, a guitar/drums duo who I previously described as very young band who had over 40 min of material to play… however for Monday’s night, they only played for about 25 minutes.

Danger Ron & The Spins

This was followed by another local band, Danger Ron & The Spins, who also played a 25-min set. Songs on their set were mostly taken from their album Carpet (which came out earlier this January 2015), including “Spectral Jesus” (set intro) and “Acidic” (set closer).

Happyness (singer/bassist Jonny Allan, singer/guitarist Benji Compston and drummer Ash Cooper) came on stage a little after 10pm to do soundcheck. After an ear-piercing noise, which woke up everyone at the bar, singer Jonny Allan apologized and said, “That’s why we do soundchecks.”

Much of Happyness’ set was taken from their debut album Weird Little Birthday, originally released on an indie label called Weird Smiling – however the trio recently signed to Moshi Moshi Records in the UK and Bar None Records in the USA and they’ve decided to re-release the album last month (March 2015) in time for their USA tour, starting with SXSW 2015 (which we covered), and a little later at Burgarama IV (which we also covered).

Benji probably thought the audience weren’t familiar with the band, so he introduced themselves as, “We’re from England, we’re English.” Then a little later introduced Jonny on guitars and “Ashley” on drums. Near the end of their set, as they were thanking us for coming out, the fans who remembered was shouting out Johnny and Ashley.

A few other things to note about the two guitarists, they would often switch position and traded off lead vocals. Sometime Jonny would also switch to keys, at least for their song “Pumpkin Noir”.

The band also confessed that, “We like doing quiet songs”, as an introduction to another ‘quiet’ song called “Baby, Jesus (Jelly Boy)”.

Hearing them talk about their few weeks in the USA, they clearly had too much fun in Texas (SXSW), telling us about how Benji talked to a Neo Nazi guy who made him hold his pistol. They called him “Big Tex” and dedicated their set finale song “Montreal Rock Band Somewhere” to him.

Stepping off the stage for less than a minute, the band came back on stage for the inevitable encore. Since they only originally played a 30-min set, they promised us that they were going to “draw it out as long as we can” for their encore song “Weird Little Birthday Girl”.

Look for Happyness’ Weird Little Birthday reissue now on Moshi Moshi Records and Bar None Records. The trio is wrapping up their USA tour, ending in New York’s Cake Shop.